In April Maine passed the National Popular Vote Compact. In case you had this one slip by you, the NPV is an agreement that a state will award all its electoral votes to the candidate for president who wins the popular vote regardless of who won the state. This would effectively put an end to the Electoral College. In the Electoral College the winner needs 270 votes. To date, the NPV has garnered 209 votes and won’t go into effect until enough states join that total 270 votes. Maryland was the first state to pass the NPV and not surprisingly only those states with the democrat majorities in their legislatures and the governorship have passed the NPV.
It is not clear whether the NPV is constitutional. Certainly, there will be lawsuits and residents in a state carried by the losing candidate but whose electoral votes are awarded to the one with the most votes would have standing. Currently there are 27 republican governors and it is highly likely that all would veto any NPV bill that reached their desk – unless it is someone like Larry Hogan who did nothing about the NPV while he was Maryland governor. As to the government trifecta where one party has both the governorship and both legislatures, 23 are republican and 15 are democrat with 12 states with divided government.
Look at the map. The green states have enacted the NPV. It is pending in the yellow states and not being considered in the gray states. It is surprising that the NPV has not been passed in Michigan where the democrats control both legislatures and the governor’s office. North Carolina has a republican legislature and a democrat governor (which is unlikely to change). Virginia has a republican governor and a democrat legislature. Nevada has a republican governor and a democrat legislature. Michigan’s 15 electoral votes would bring the NPV total to 224. Although there is a mathematical chance that the NPV might reach 270, the odds are slim.
It is clear that the left hates the Electoral College. Not surprisingly Hillary Clinton has called for the elimination of the Electoral College. But although she got more votes than Trump, she only won 48% of the popular vote. To date I have heard no one on the left saying that to be elected president a candidate must have 50 plus 1 percent of the popular vote.
An MSNBC commentator said that it is “Just a wildly dangerous institution that undermines democracy but also creates all manner of rube-goldberg machinery to be attacked by bad actors.” Jaime Raskin, democrat from Maryland who was on the Jan 6 inquisition said that the Electoral College was an “obsolete system from the 18th century that is deadly for Americans”. He said that the Electoral College “can get you killed.” I presume he was referring to the death of Ashli Babbitt, shot by a Capitol policeman on January 6, 2021.
During my lifetime, five republicans (Eisenhower, both Bushes, Reagan and Nixon) have won the popular vote. Note that George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore but won it when he ran for re-election against John Kerry. Can you imagine Al Gore as president? Or Hillary Clinton for that matter. That alone makes some of us thankful for the existence of the Electoral College
haroldblackphd.com 