(California) Governor signs bill for popular presidential vote

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(08-08) 15:49 PDT SACRAMENTO -- A national movement aimed at sidelining the Electoral College in presidential elections got a big boost today when Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation adding California to the list of states supporting the drive.

Brown's signature makes California the ninth state to sign onto the effort, which would hand the electoral votes of all participating states to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes nationwide. Currently, the California's 55 electoral votes go to the person who wins the most votes in the state.

That means most California voters could choose one candidate, but the state's electoral votes could ultimately go to the competitor; however, it also would make it impossible for a president to win an election without a majority of support nationally.

It's unlikely the change would take place in time for the 2012 election. Under federal law, states representing a majority of electoral votes - 270 out of 538- have to agree in order to shift the way votes are awarded in those states.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/08/BAM11KKSPC.DTL

[Newsjock]

1. Thank you, Gov. Brown

... for voluntarily giving up the 55 always-certain, safe Democratic votes (the nation's largest bloc) in the Electoral College, placing them at the whims of Teabag America. Even progressives in traditionally red states shouldn't be overjoyed by this movement.

[onehandle]

2. Yes. It will be a 'hoot' when CA's full support is given to President Track Palin. nt

[No Elephants]

19. And you base that likelihood on.......

Is she even a candidate, or are you assuming a huge write in vote across the nation?

Or so you simply oppose a President who is chosen by a vote of a majority of American Citizens?

Bottom line: Democrats will always lose some Presidential elections. I'd rather they lose becauuse a majority of real people voted for someone else than because of state borders. Also, since the solid South turned against Democrats, Democrats have a better chance with a popular vote system than they do with an electoral vote system.

If you see the red/blue maps of the 2000 Presidential election, you would assume Shrub had won by a landslide. However, I believe Gore won the popular vote.

[onehandle]

24. I said 'Track' Palin. Her latest offspring to fail birth control. nt

[No Elephants]

25. Question still stands, though. So does the rest of my post.

[defendandprotect]

30. Gore certainly did win the popular vote by more than 500,000 .. don't know what final numbers were .

[bemildred]

27. Indeed, or Barney the Purple Dinosaur, nobody could want that!

:sarcasm:

[blkmusclmachine]

3. Let me guess..only the reliably Blue States get screwed w/this $h!t:

HI, CA, WA, OR, NY, IL, ME, MA, CT, MD

[No Elephants]

20. Have you checked whether those states have already adopted this law?

And why would you assume that a popular vote system, as opposed to an electoral vote system, screws the Democrats?

[unblock]

4. "under federal law"??

i thought this was a condition in each of the states' version of the law.

in fact, i don't believe federal law applies to a state's right to choose its electors.

[JI7]

5. this would hep Democrats a lot, and people can work locally

and be more effective

[IScreamSundays]

7. ya sure it is gonna help the people

:rofl:

[slackmaster]

10. Yes, except when it hurts Democrats a lot

There have been Presidential elections for which California went D and the national popular vote went R. For example, 2000 which Al Gore by all rights should have won. The NPV would have assured that he didn't, other events and issues notwithstanding.

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?f=0&year=2000

[surrealAmerican]

11. Bad example.

Gore WON the popular vote nationally in 2000.

[slackmaster]

16. Correct, I was a dumbass

I think it's possible for things to go just as wrong under NPV as in the current system, ergo a change is not justified.

The only proper fix for th EC "problem" is an amendment to the Constitution.

[No Elephants]

21. Hard to believe that a DUer forgot the 2000 Presidential vote so quickly.

A map of the U.S. that was almost all red, yet Gore won the popular vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000


Guess that proves that anything is possible, even for political message board junkies?

But, I disagree with your substantive position.

When the electoral vote diverges from the popular vote, Democrats are likely to be favored. That's one thing.

Second, if a Democratic Presidential candidate loses because of a popular vote, I'd rather take that loss than have a loss due to state borders.

"I think it's possible for things to go just as wrong under NPV as in the current system, ergo a change is not justified.

The only proper fix for th EC "problem" is an amendment to the Constitution."

Make up your mind. If it shouldn't be changed, it shouldn't be changed, regardless of the method. If it should be changed, then it should be changed, regardless of the method.

Fact is, requiring a Constitutional amendment is simply another way of saying, saying "I don't want this to happen."

The amendment protecting Congressional compensation took over 200 years to ratify. No amendment to the constitution that is even a little bit controversial has not been adopted in over 50 years and the likelihood of any Constitutional amendment being adopted decreases as the Parties (both officials and rank and file) get more partisan.

The real problem is that red states are unlikely to adopt this bill. For that reason, and that one alone, we may end up with a worst case scenario.

[slackmaster]

26. I remember it in painful detail, just had a brain-fart and flip-flopped the result

I'M SO OLD I REMEMBER WHEN PRESIDENT KENNEDY WAS SHOT! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!

;-)

Make up your mind. If it shouldn't be changed, it shouldn't be changed, regardless of the method. If it should be changed, then it should be changed, regardless of the method.

I would like it changed. But that's just the opinion of one voter who happens to live in the largest state.

I am not comfortable with circumventing the amendment process in the manner proposed. I'm not sure it's even Constitutional, as it would undermine the INTENT of the EC system without the consent of 3/4 of the states.

The EC system was crafted carefully, with the goal of protecting the interests of small states against being overwhelmed by large states. The people who figured that out, and decided to have proportional representation in the House but two Senators per state regardless of size, were at least as smart as I am.

Fact is, requiring a Constitutional amendment is simply another way of saying, saying "I don't want this to happen."

No, that is not correct. It's my way of saying that I don't want to FORCE my will on people who have their own interests and as much right as I do to have those interests protected. I believe in living by the established rules, and the established rules DO provide a way of eliminating the EC layer in the Presidential election process.

I think it's possible to convince 3/4 of the states to go along with that, but it may be necessary to give them something in return for giving up the marginal amount of additional leverage the EC gives them. In Mexico they call it "dando y dando", giving and giving, which means negotiating in good faith. The proposed NPV idea is seen by small-state people (rightly from their POV) as a brute-force power grab.

I don't want to be part of that.

ETA I don't give a rat's ass whether the current EC system favors one party vs. the other. The parties have changed in some big ways in the history of the country, and it's entirely possible that the party that sucks hind teat at the moment will be in a position to benefit from the EC in the future. I think the position of people who most fervently support the NPV is fundamentally partisan at its core, whether they admit it or not. I eschew partisanship, because the party you support today may not support your interests forever.

[IScreamSundays]

6. I think it is bs

The electors should go to the elected. But wtf we don't choose our rulers any more anyway so why get my panties in a wad.

[JI7]

8. the popular vote would give people more direct say

[No Elephants]

22. Either way, the electoral votes go to the elected. Question is, elected by what, or elected by whom

Elected by a majority within a state, or elected by a majority of the human beings in the United States.

BTW, as it now sits, I believe the electors can vote for anyone they wish, regardless of how the majority in their state voted. Whether they would remain alive long after they returned home may be another issue.

[slackmaster]

9. I am totally opposed to the NPV idea. It can just as easily hurt your chosen candidate as help.

I understand the idea very well. I have a fundamental opposition to having the allocation of MY state's electors determined by events outside of my state (and therefore outside of my control, however slight that may be.)

[cstanleytech]

12. I personally believe the Electoral College should be abolished

and it should be an election based purely on whoever gets the most votes period.

[customerserviceguy]

13. I disagree

It is one of the wise things that the Founding Fathers put in the Constitution for a reason. It balances power between populous states, and those with less people, which have still been admitted to the Union by the existing states.

It's only produced strange results a few times in our history, and only once in the last century.

[cstanleytech]

17. We already have such a thing for that balance, its called congressmen and senators

as the states with a larger population get more congressmen and every state gets an equal number of senators.

[customerserviceguy]

18. And that model

is taken from the way the legislative branch works, to the way the executive branch gets elected. The number of electors in the Electoral College is exactly equal to a state's Congressional representation.

It means that potential Presidents need to campaign in small states, and not just the biggest cities in the United States. In any case, doing away with the Electoral College would require supermajorities in Congress, and the ratification of three quarters of the states, including ones that would see that they had something to lose, so it's not going to happen.

[defendandprotect]

31. It was intended to protect the slave-owning slates ... slaves weren't counted in population!!

And, it's simply more of what can only be described as our schizophrenic

Constitution --- !!!

[tinrobot]

33. The problem is that the less populous states are mostly red

Because those small states are over-represented in both the Senate and electoral college, the system has a built-in bias.

A senator from Alaska represents fewer people than the mayor of Long Beach, yet has much more power.

[customerserviceguy]

35. This is true

And the existing states that admitted new ones to the Union all knew that these states were lightly populated, and might well remain that way for quite some time. Clearly, they had their reasons for doing so, and a fair amount of that westward expansion from the beginnings of the Constitution to 1860 was to be able to line up new states on either the North or the South, in the coming fight over slavery.

Like it or not today, we're stuck with it, if you prefer to think of it that way. Other than some blue states choosing to give away their Electoral College power the way that CA has done, there's not going to be any change in that system.

[JackRiddler]

34. The Electoral College has nothing to do with what the Federalists intended...

First of all, the "founding fathers" are not the same as the Federalists, who framed the Constitution of 1787 and forced it through against substantial opposition.

The Federalists of 1787 expected electors to be drawn from a better class of men than the hated mob, and to vote for whomever they found best, regardless of their declared candidate loyalty. The idea was to avoid popular tyrants.

In practice, however, the Electoral College system has not empowered such agency on behalf of the superior class of person that the Federalists imagined themselves to be among. In more than a century's time, I believe only one elector has ever gone against their pledged candidate. Furthermore, the EC is not a deliberative body. They don't come to deals on the basis of national interest, they don't debate at all. They merely meet briefly to formalize a predetermined result. That's the reality.

Thus, in practice, the Electoral College system has merely allowed for the occasional, completely arbitrary reversal of the popular will by mathematical happenstance. If the EC results happen to add up differently than the popular vote, it is never because anyone made a conscious decision to have it be that way. It's entirely a question of luck.

If the EC system actually worked as intended, to avoid the rise of popular tyrants by vesting the ultimate decision with the electors, then by any reasonable measure we should have expected them to block Bush, not to make him president.

The EC system has also rendered worthless anyone's vote in "safe" states.

It has also reinforced the deadly grip of the two-party duopoly with its utterly false dichotomies and programmed corruption.

If you're interested in a system that actually places a control over the executive by regional representatives, then you should be for a parliamentary system, with proportional representation.

(I'd eliminate the presidency, which is an absurdity in the modern age, have the House form the government and the Senate exercise veto power by a 60% vote, and place governors' proxies in the Senate. Then you'd have a measure of state control over federal lawmaking that was effective. Anyway.)

[customerserviceguy]

36. OK, I used a term that doesn't exactly mean Federalists

And it would not surprise me that some of what happened got out of hand from what the framers of the Constitution intended, at least some of them. You can probably find writings from every notable political figure of that time opposed to the way some thing they didn't like turned out.

Good or bad, we're effectively stuck with it. I cannot see how we muster 2/3rds of both houses of Congress to pass an amendment abolishing the EC, and even if you did, thirteen states could block the effort.

[JackRiddler]

37. And now you're clinging to a triviality in order to avoid the point.

You needn't be so sensitive to the most minor thing I said, while avoiding the thesis altogether.

Furthermore, we are not effectively stuck with anything. That is defeatist thinking. It is also doomed to be surprised and rendered obsolete. A revolution happened then. Revolutions are certain to happen again in the future, and, given the momentum of the present global crises, sooner rather than later, historically speaking (history speaks in generations, not the ephemeral product cycles we associate with our present elections and economic system). The question is what radical changes will occur, not if they will.

[customerserviceguy]

39. Well, if the mechanism is a Constitutional Convention

then, yes, it's possible that the EC could change. I doubt that many of us would like what might come out of such a convention.

I simply cannot see any possible path to it any other way. Letting the citizens of another state cast your electoral votes for you is going to backfire, if it ever comes to pass that this legislation gets enough states behind it. I can envision a future election where the Dem and the GOP'er are split about 52/48 in the blue and purple states, then the red states go big time for the Repuke.

If I had the time, it would be interesting to see how such a law would have changed the final vote over the last 15-20 elections. It would make very little difference in many of them, but I'd bet there'd be one or two surprises.

[No Elephants]

23. That is what this bill seeks to do, in what may be the only practical way to do it.. Please see

Reply 21.

[bemildred]

28. Yes, it's anti-democratic and distorts the process, just look at the 2000 election. nt

[Vidar]

14. Thank you, Jerry!

[Throd]

15. Good.

[Le Taz Hot]

29. Sorry, but this is bullshit.

If California goes Dem. then the electoral college votes need to go the Dem. If this goes through, should the South and the Bible Belt decide to vote Republican (when DON'T THEY?) and manage to cheat their way to the White House again, then CALIFORNIA'S electoral college votes go to the Republican? Bullshit! Brown blew it on this one. He's doing that a lot lately. We need to abolish the electoral college altogether and yes, I understand the argument.

[defendandprotect]

32. IMO, there are only two ways to go... SPLIT the votes between the states winner/loser ....

and/or get rid of the Electoral College which is what I'd prefer --

We have a very flawed election system, at best -- and we need many changes

to it -- Love Jerry Brown -- but I don't see that this helps!

And certainly not clear it will help Dems ... ????

[slackmaster]

38. A few states already do split the EC vote proportionally between the winner and loser

The Constitution specifically gives the states the power to decide how their EC votes are allocated. It would be perfectly proper for a state to base its EC votes on astrological charts.

The problem with the NPV proposal is that it involves collusion between multiple states, specifically the larger ones, with the goal of taking a Constitutionally granted bit of power away from the smallest states, who don't even have a place at the negotiating table. Changes to the Constitution must be done on a level playing field. The amendment process is stringent and very clear - Once it passes in Congress every state legislature gets a vote, and a 3/4 super-majority is required to pass an amendment.

If NPV passes and is adopted by a sub-set of states, the moment its real effect on a Presidential election contravenes the result that the existing EC system would have produced, the smallest states would have clear cause and standing to sue the NPV states in the Supreme Court, and I believe they would win. (IANAL and don't pretend to be one on the Internet, but they might even have cause to sue pro-actively.)