There is a nefarious move afoot to (in effect) eliminate the Electoral College and replace it with a National Popular Vote (NPV). The Left has been agitating for this. But now, there is an organized & concerted effort to get this done.
Here is the formal paper which I have just posted. I hope it will make you weep when you see the gifts our Framers gave us and how they provided for the States to be able to CONTROL the national government.
I provide links to the NPV website. Look at all the State Legislatures who have signed this "Compact".
Please study my paper. If you have any questions at all, ask.
You must be on watch to what your State legislators are doing. If your State has passed this, then you must contact some reasonable politicians and get them to withdraw.
People - legislators - are so shallow.
You will come across people who don't know any better clamoring for this. So YOU must be part of the army to turn back the tide.
http://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/national-popular-vote...
Tags: 12th Amendment , 17th Amendment, National Popular Vote, electoral college
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on A gold Star to Richard Michael. Or better, three gold stars. Well done!
Jack Coleman: You break my heart. I see my work is cut out for me. Meanwhile: see if you can find out just what it is that the electoral college does. Why did our Framers set it up? What protection does it provide? See if you can find the answers. All of you.
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on Yes, I will. It will take me a few days as I am working on another paper on another topic. The constitutional issue of our time is this: Are we a Federation of Sovereign States united ONLY for the limited purposes enumerated in the Constitution?
Or, is the separate sovereignty of the States to be abolished and are we to be melded into one Nation with One all-powerful central government? [I do not say the Pledge of Alliegance b/c it speaks, wrongfully, of "one Nation". We were set up as a Federation of independent Sovereign States united ONLY for very limited purposes.]
The Electoral College plays a role here. There is much more involved than vote counting.
Permalink Reply by Van Harvey on Permalink Reply by Van Harvey on I was replying on a post on this topic by Jack Coleman that seems to have disappeared. His comment on this post seems to have the same gist, and hopefully I'm not stepping out of bounds by replying here, but as a newbie here, do entire posts disappear often? Anyway,
Jack had said,
"What I was attempting to point out was with our loss of electoral representation by district was changed to winner take all representation by state, we lost our constitutional representative republican form of government, and became a democracy. It is the unconstitutional departments, agencies, acts and social engineering programs, made possible by this form of government that has created the problems we have today."
I disagree. I think the state winner take all gives a far more republican (in the system sense, not party sense) result, and that the ability for states to cast votes for multiple candidates is a far more democratic (in the same sense again) cast, which I'm viscerally opposed to.
"I am not attempting to do anything other than suggest it is my personal opinion that the only way to restore the limited constitutional republic we were given, would be for all states to follow the constitutional example that Nebraska and Maine have set. "
I think both states are woefully misguided.
"In those states the winner of the state gets two votes, one representing each Senator. The other electoral votes are distributed according to the winner of each congressional district in the state. "
The winner gets those extra two votes based upon... what? Why? If the intent is to go for representational voting, on what basis does it then zig-zag out to a statewide 'sense bonus', and why are these two electors kept rootless and held out as prize money for winning more representation than any of the others? It seems to me to be a cutsie way of sneaking the popular vote in by the back door. I think it also encourages candidates to focus more upon key districts to an extent which they otherwise wouldn't, because those would have the potential of being more valuable (and non-representational) than they actually are, knowing that if they can swing them, they'll get not only those votes, but two additional electoral votes.
Again, IMO, it smacks of popular voting on the cheap, I just don't like it.
The knock against the winner take all is, as mentioned earlier, a handful of states can determine an election, but allowing proportional elections would mean that candidates could focus on particular cities only, negating states even further and disregarding most if not all rural areas - elections won in that way, I think would be a horrifying disenfranchisement of the majority of the nation - popular vote by voting blocks rather than by particular votes, but a popular vote none the less.
As I mentioned earlier, I think the party system is vastly preferable to a slew of minor parties and the parliamentary-like coalitions that would accompany them. Also, with the spectacle of Adams/Jefferson in mind, I've no problem with the party pairings of President & Vice-Presidential candidates.
Personally, I think that the voting districts of the state should select an elector, the totals should be tallied, and the greatest total votes, representing the fullest preference of the sense of the State as a whole, should receive all of the votes.
Hamilton put it in Federalist #68 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_1_2-3s3.html
"It was desireable, that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any pre-established body, but to men, chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analizing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favourable to deliberation and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements, which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to so complicated an investigation."
I would still prefer something closer to that, if anyone ever came to me and asked, I'd prefer that electors run in each district for the open, sole and clear purpose of casting that districts vote for President, and when all the state electors votes were tallied up, the majority winner, being an expression of the sense of the people of that state, all votes would go towards that candidate, from that state.
I think this would greatly reduce the obscene and vacuous political pandering that marks our modern elections - candidates would have a few, to a few hundred people they'd have to make their cases to and answer the questions of, and if they attempted to snow them, those few people could roundly and significantly expose and denounce them. If these electors were elected, prior to the full campaigns, put forth and elected on the basis of their ability to make good decisions, we'd be so far ahead of our current situation... I can't even come up with an outlandish example to express it.
I think that sort of change to the system would give us, in some ways for the first time, real, substantive campaigns and elections, or as Hamilton went on to say,
"It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue."
But I'm not holding my breath.
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on I had no idea what Jack was talking about; so I deleted the discussion so as not to get people confused.
In This Group, we look at the original intent of the Constitution as explained (primarily) by The Federalist Papers. It is never about what people who post here think, or what their views, opinions, likes & dislikes are. Our personal views about the Constitution are simply irrelevant.
Original Intent is what we look to here. Facebook is where one can spout off about his views & opinions on matters of which he is completely ignorant.
Permalink Reply by Van Harvey on Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on You touch on THE issue of our Time:
The prevailing philosophy ("mindset", "belief system", "dogma") changes from time to time. The prevailing philosophy of our time is very different from that of the time of our Framers. They believed in an Objective Reality, that some things were True, other things were False, and in the existence of Fixed Enduring Truths & Principles. Ayn Rand is of this school.
But the prevailing mindset of our time is pragmatism & existentialism. We don't believe in fixed principles, external standards, or Truth and Falsity. We reject any standards outside of our own precious selves. We believe there is no higher standard than our own "feelings", "whims", "likes" and "dislikes". It does not occur to us to look to Standards & Principles outside of ourselves; and the idea that we should conform our Thoughts, Beliefs, and Behavior to external standards is preposterous to us of today.
So, these show the two schools of thought re The Constitution: The "originalists" say we must look to the original intent of the Constitution: What did our Framers mean by such & such Article, Section, and Clause? The best evidence of this is The Federalist Papers.
But today, people just want to spout off about what they themselves think. But that is the mindset which is destroying our Country. Our judges express their own personal views in their opinions - not the Constitution. They believe that what they think is somehow important.
I understand that it is hard for people who have been raised in this mindset [and we who are living now all were] to understand that their own views, likes, dislikes, etc. are simply irrelevant when it comes to learning matters of objective Fact. But a Fact is a Fact regardless of what anyone might think of it.
So when reading the Constitution, the proper standard is, "What did the Framers say?"
It is not, "Well, I think", "In my opinion".
So, one can ask questions w/o inserting his own opinions which are, when dealing with the Constitution, irrelevant.
There is a Discussion on this philosophical issue:
http://www.teapartynation.com/group/constitutionstudygroup/forum/to...
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on Permalink Reply by Frances Arthur on If we had a national popular vote, wouldn't every state have to adopt standardized voting requirements? This seems to remove the element of "states rights" per the 10th Amendment. If each state did not do this, it could give an unfair advantage to voters in some states. For example, some states might have a longer residency requirement before registration to vote is allowed. I don't know this, I'm certainly unfamiliar with the registration requirements of every state, but as it is, each state only has to abide by certain requirements as indicated in the Constitution (no poll tax, for example). We would need to adopt standardized registration procedures in every state to make sure that no one could register in one state in a manner that might be unfair to voters in another state. Doesn't this requirement eliminate the beauty of federalism?
Furthermore, when the electoral college was initially designed, one of the purposes may have been to maintain the sanctity of a republican form of government. A democracy can only work effectively in small groups, for example, a church body could each be given one vote on any given election. Within the confines of this smaller setting, this would be fair. But a representative government affords us the opportunity to vote for those with whose values we agree and then send them to the governing body to vote on our behalf, allowing me to go about my daily business without concerning myself over every issue that arises. I think our Founding Fathers were smart men who realized the effectiveness of the republican form of government (as exampled in Rome) and knew that it really is the most fair form of government so long as the voters continued to pay attention to what their elected officials were up to.
If this is true, then a national popular vote begins our demise. Under the electoral college system, we don't vote for the president. We vote for an elector who pinky swears that he/she is committed to voting for whom they say they will. So again, isn't this a form of representation? The elector is voting on behalf of the people who requested their vote for a given candidate.
And then...the current two-party system is easier to maintain than it would be under the NPV. Some might say this is bad, but if all a third or even fourth party candidate is going to do is take away votes from good candidates who don't meet all of a third parties requirements, then you end up electing a really bad candidate in the end. I point to the example of the 1990's when a good third party candidate took away enough votes from the good Republican candidate and we ended up electing Bill Clinton.....twice! Can you imagine the impact that all the other parties could have on an election? If a candidate is unable to win the votes of several state electors, then should they really get to a level in which they could sway a national election by winning "just enough" votes in several states?
Sorry for rambling,
Frances
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on Common Cause supports this National Popular vote Movement. Common Cause is a lefty group funded by George Soros' groups. Fred Thompson has sold us out to the hard core lefties. 30 pieces of silver? Or is it 20?
Here is the link to the American Spectator article on this: http://spectator.org/blog/2009/03/23/soros-funded-liberal-group-com#
OK, now to work on my paper on this.
Permalink Reply by Ripama on Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on © 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
