This week the Colorado Senate will debate the relevance of our state in the next presidential election and the legitimacy of our nation as it considers HB 1299.
If passed, our state will join a compact of other states. All nine electoral votes will go to the leader of the national popular vote, regardless of the will of Colorado voters.
National Popular Vote
This end run around the Constitution is known as National Popular Vote or Koza scheme, named after multi-millionaire John Koza, who concocted the plan to destroy the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote without a constitutional amendment.
Ever since the 2000 election when Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote to George W. Bush, some Democrats have been on a mission to destroy the Electoral College.
It’s important to remember that had Gore been able to win even a single southern or border state — such as his “home” state of Tennessee or Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas, he would have been president.
George W. Bush won the popular vote in 30 states, giving him the necessary number of electoral votes to win the presidency.
Middle America was able to avoid the tyranny of the east and west coasts.
Democracy vs. republic
Inherent in this movement to rid the country of the Electoral College is a misguided notion that the United States is a democracy rather than a republic. Our founding fathers recognized the danger of a democracy where 51 percent rules 49, and thus created a republic where the rights of individuals are protected from the whims of the majority.
The Electoral College is vital to maintaining our republic. It forces a presidential candidate to garner support that is both broad and deep, not concentrated on the coasts or urban areas.
Previous attempts to destroy the Electoral College in Colorado have been unsuccessful. In 2004, a handful of Democrats bankrolled by a Brazilian millionaire asked Coloradans to change how the state awards its nine electoral votes. In a vote that wasn’t even close, nearly 66 percent of voters said no and rejected the proposed Amendment 36.
Tried in Colorado before
In 2007, Sen. Ken Gordon introduced legislation that would force Colorado to be part of the Koza scheme.
It passed the Senate but died in the House.
This year, State Rep. Andy Kerr introduced the Koza scheme in the House where it passed on a 34-29 vote. It passed the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee along a party line vote and now awaits second reading in the full Senate.
Supporters of the Koza scheme are undeterred by arguments that the United States is a republic rather than a democracy and that Colorado will be little more than fly-over area during the next election.
Other arguments
Perhaps supporters should consider other arguments.
For instance, what about a regional presidential candidate? A candidate could enjoy overwhelming support along the eastern seaboard and the northeast and not even be on the ballot in Colorado. If he or she is the winner of the national popular vote, Colorado’s electoral votes would go to a candidate on whom Coloradans had no say.
Another problem is that no national standards exist about who can vote. In Vermont, a state considering the Koza scheme, a convicted felon serving time in prison can vote. In Colorado only those convicted felons who have completed their parole may vote. As a result, Colorado may have to award its electoral votes to the candidate that felons serving time in Vermont prisons support but that didn’t win the support of Colorado voters.
Political instability
Also, political instability would be the rule rather than the exception, especially in close elections as states demand recounts if their candidate of choice does not win the national popular vote. In senate committee testimony, university law professor Robert Hardaway concluded that had the Koza scheme been in place during the 1960 election between Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon, the country would have endured years of lawsuits with no declared presidential winner until the 1964 election. In this case, the Speaker of the House would serve as an interim president.
After the 1960 election, some Republicans called for the abolition of the Electoral College. It was the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., who warned in 1979 that without the Electoral College, “the drama, the dignity, and decisiveness and finality of the American political system is drained away in an endless sequence of contests, disputed outcomes, and more contests to resolve outcomes already disrupted … That is how legitimacy is lost.”
Bad for everyone
HB 1299 is not only bad for Colorado but also for our nation. Colorado lawmakers should ask themselves if it the Koza scheme is worth it. After all, power is cyclical.
Amy Oliver is the Director of Operations for the Independence Institute, a Golden based libertarian think tank.
| Comments: |
| mvymvy @ 2009-04-21 13:41:30 | The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided "battleground" states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in these 15 "battleground" states. Similarly, in 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
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| mvymvy @ 2009-04-21 13:45:02 | National Popular Vote has nothing to do with whether the country has a "republican" form of government or is a "democracy."
A "republican" form of government means that the voters do not make laws themselves but, instead, delegate the job to periodically elected officials (Congressmen, Senators, and the President). The United States has a "republican" form of government regardless of whether popular votes for presidential electors are tallied at the state-level (as is currently the case in 48 states) or at district-level (as is currently the case in Maine and Nebraska) or at 50-state-level (as under the National Popular Vote bill).
If a "republican" form of government means that the presidential electors exercise independent judgment (like the College of Cardinals that elects the Pope), we have had a "democratic" method of electing presidential electors since 1796 (the first contested presidential election). Ever since 1796, presidential candidates have been nominated by a central authority (originally congressional caucuses, and now party conventions) and electors are reliable rubberstamps for the voters of the district or state that elected them.
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| mvymvy @ 2009-04-21 13:46:42 | The people vote for President now in all 50 states and have done so in most states for 200 years.
So, the issue raised by the National Popular Vote legislation is not about whether there will be "mob rule" in presidential elections, but whether the "mob" in a handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Florida, get disproportionate attention from presidential candidates, while the "mobs" of the vast majority of states are ignored. In 2004, candidates spent over two thirds of their visits and two-thirds of their money in just 6 states and 99% of their money in just 16 states, while ignoring the rest of the country.
The current system does NOT provide some kind of check on the "mobs." There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
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| mvymvy @ 2009-04-21 13:47:47 | If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a "big city" approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn't be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio. |
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| mvymvy @ 2009-04-21 13:50:39 | The current winner-take-all system discriminates against third-party candidates with broad-based support, while rewarding regional third-party candidates. In 1948, Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace both got about 1.1 million popular votes, but Thurmond got 39 electoral votes (because his vote was concentrated in southern states), whereas Henry Wallace got none. Similarly, George Wallace got 46 electoral votes with 13% of the votes in 1968, while Ross Perot got 0 electoral votes with 19% of the national popular vote in 1992. The only thing the current system does is to punish candidates whose support is broadly based. |
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| mvymvy @ 2009-04-21 13:51:35 | The U.S. Constitution does not require that the election laws of all 50 states are identical in virtually every respect. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment only restricts a given state in the manner it treats persons "within its jurisdiction." The Equal Protection Clause imposes no obligation on a given state concerning a "person"in another state who is not "within its [the first state's] jurisdiction." State election laws are not identical now nor is there anything in the National Popular Vote compact that would force them to become identical. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution specifically permits diversity of election laws among the states because it explicitly gives the states control over the conduct of presidential elections (article II) as well as congressional elections (article I). The fact is that the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution permits states to conduct elections in varied ways. |
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| mvymvy @ 2009-04-21 13:52:21 | The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
Under the current system, there are 51 separate vote pools in every presidential election. Thus, our nation's 55 presidential elections have really been 2,084 separate elections. This is the reason why there have been five seriously disputed counts in the nation's 55 presidential elections. The 51 separate pools regularly create artificial crises in elections in which the vote is not at all close on a nationwide basis, but close in particular states.
A recount is not an unimaginable horror or logistical impossibility. A recount is a recognized contingency that is occasionally required (about once in 332 elections). All states routinely make arrangements for a recount in advance of every election. The personnel and resources necessary to conduct a recount are indigenous to each state. A state's ability to conduct a recount inside its own borders is unrelated to whether or not a recount may be occurring in another state.
If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility of recounts, then a single national pool of votes is the way to drastically reduce the likelihood of recounts and eliminate the artificial crises produced by the current system.
The U.S. Constitution, existing federal statutes, and independent state statutes guarantee "finality"in presidential elections long before the inauguration day in January. These constitutional provisions, statutes, and precedents apply equally to a presidential election conducted under the National Popular Vote legislation and an election conducted under the current system.
The U.S. Constitution (Article II, section 1, clause 4) provides:
"The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States."[Spelling as per original]
The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.
Under both the current system and the National Popular Vote approach, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination"prior to the common nationwide date for the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their "final determination"six days before the Electoral College meets (the so-called "safe harbor"date established by section 5 of title 3 of the United States Code).
In addition, in almost all states, state statutes already impose independent (typically earlier) deadlines for finalizing the count for the presidential election. The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that state election officials and the state judiciary must conduct counts and recounts in presidential elections within the confines of existing state election laws.
It may be argued that the schedule established by the U.S. Constitution may sometimes rush the count (and possibly even create injustice). However, there can be no argument that this schedule exists in the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and state statutes; that this schedule guarantees "finality" prior to the meeting of the Electoral College in mid-December. This existing constitutional schedule would govern the National Popular Vote compact in exactly the same way that it governs elections under the current system.
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