Commentary—Cabal Intent on Usurpation

Update: Virginia has now joined the National Popular Vote Compact.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill to join the National Popular Vote compact. This brings the total number of states adopting the initiative to eleven. The movement is an attempt by political power brokers to circumvent the Constitution by promising their state’s total presidential electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, instead of awarding the votes to the state winner.

Will your vote count?

As of now, New York, California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington have joined this insidious compact. In plain terms, this means that if Vermont citizens vote for candidate A, but candidate B wins the national popular vote, Vermont citizens are disenfranchised because Vermont’s electoral votes will all be awarded to candidate B.  

As the list of states indicates, this is a raw power grab by big city machine politicians. Under this compact, they will have the power to appoint the executive branch.

Is the compact constitutional? Probably. The Constitution gives the states the power to select electors and sets no restrictions on how they vote. Although the National Popular Vote compact may very well be found to be constitutional, this was certainly not what the Framers envisioned. When the Constitution was written and ratified, the intent was a federal system with shared power between the states and the national government. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention intended the states—both large and small—to be a potent check on the national government.  They included five provisions for this purpose:

1.       Enumerated powers, later reconfirmed by the 10th amendment

2.       Equal state representation in the Senate

3.       Senators elected by state legislatures

4.       Limited national taxing authority

5.       An Electoral College

Today, few in Washington consider the enumerated powers a constraint; Senators are popularly elected and have more allegiance to their party than their state; the 16th Amendment allows Congress to collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, and the Electoral College is under a determined attack.

The Electoral College is the last vestige of the Founders federal design. Eliminating the Electoral College would move the nation further from a system intended to preclude autocracy. The action would usher in an era of one-party rule.

Without the Electoral College, fly-over country would be irrelevant to presidential candidates. All campaigning and spoils would be directed to the east and west coasts and a few cities along the Great Lakes. The interior of the country would be completely ignored.

One of the great myths of our time is that there are red and blue states. There are not. When voting patterns are studied county by county, it is obvious that there are red and blue counties, not states. If a state is dominated by concentrated populations in one or more metropolitan areas, those living outside those counties are already disenfranchised for president and senate contests. City dwellers trounce their fellow citizens who live in the more rural portions of the state. As a former resident of Plymouth, Massachusetts, I’ve experienced this phenomenon and it was a disincentive to vote.

Without an Electoral College, the same would be true for the majority of states. The executive branch would be selected by the populous cities along our coastlines. Nebraska would never see a presidential candidate and Alaska would become a mere piggybank for the beltway.