Dems Continue Their Open Attack on Constitution, Look To Completely Dismantle Electoral College
We have the Electoral College for a reason. It’s meant to balance regional interests and to let smaller states have a say. Larger states — particularly liberal states, with large population centers — weren’t particularly happy with this arrangement after the 2016 election.
And, while there certainly wasn’t the appetite for a constitutional amendment to outlaw the Electoral College, they had another roundabout to subvert it.
It’s called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. What it does, once a state signs onto it, is obligates states to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, no matter who may have won the state.
The Compact doesn’t kick in until the electoral vote total of the states that have joined is enough to win the presidency: 270 electoral votes. You may not have heard of the effort as of yet, but it’s closer than you think to happening.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia have signed on. With the newest state, Colorado, the Compact has 181 electoral votes — less than a hundred shy of the goal of dismantling the Electoral College through subversion.
On Friday, Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law “quietly,” according to the Vail Daily. The bill attracted no Republican support in either chamber of Colorado’s bicameral legislature.
“It is important to understand that the National Popular Vote bill significantly amplifies Colorado’s voice in choosing the president of the United States,” a press release from John Koza, chairman of National Popular Vote, said, according to The Hill.
According to CNN, they’re likely not the last state where such a bill will be passed into law in the near future, either. New Mexico, which has five electoral votes, also has a similar bill on the governor’s desk.
They would join California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Typically, this wouldn’t be as much cause for concern as one might think. All of the states mentioned are reliably blue states. Just three of them — California, Illinois and New York — make up 104 of those electoral votes.
However, one should consider the reasoning behind the Electoral College — and the reason for the Democrats’ shift away from it.
“Our founding fathers created the Senate to make sure each state has equal representation in our national government. The Senate would act as a check on more populous states trying to impose their will on smaller, rural states. The fact that every state is equal is central to our Republic,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican, wrote in an Op-Ed piece for the Denver Post about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
“The idea of giving each state a voice was not lost on our founding fathers when they created the Electoral College, either. The Electoral College is another unique system the founders created to take into account a state’s population but maintain each state’s unique, independent voice when electing the president. Our founding fathers did not get everything right, but their system did create a union where every single state is appropriately represented in Congress and in the manner in which we elect the president.
“The bill to subvert the Electoral College that has passed the Colorado state House and state Senate with only votes from one party is an affront to the very institutions of our democratic republic. This bill guts Colorado’s independent voice and will have a profound negative impact on Colorado’s influence going forward. Every Colorado lawmaker should work to advance our state’s influence and clout, not diminish it.”
And there’s a reason why states — and smaller polities than states — ought to be concerned about losing their influence and clout. Yes, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. In case you haven’t seen before or have forgotten about it, here’s the map of how the vote went at the county level back in 2016:
Massachusetts and Hawaii were the *only* two states to have every single county vote for Clinton 8n 2016. Even Vermont had a Trump county. Would love to see a map of current approval rating polling by county for today. pic.twitter.com/obko2Lwn8j
— J. P. Gownder (@jgownder) May 20, 2018
People talk about the electoral vote being decided by a handful of swing states. Imagine it being decided by a handful of population areas — mostly on the coasts and often far removed geographically from most of the country.
That’s why we have an Electoral College. And now that Donald Trump won the electoral vote, the Democrats are furiously trying to dismantle it. It’s an open attack on the values laid out in the Constitution — and one Americans shouldn’t countenance.
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