Twice recently, The Heritage Foundation hosted events to discuss the National Popular Vote proposal–a plan that would eliminate the effects of the Electoral College while side-stepping the difficult process of constitutional amendment.

I was honored to participate in the first panel, and even more honored that it was hosted by Edwin Meese III, the former Attorney General and Heritage’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow. Also on the panel was Heritage Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky and Dr. Michael Uhlmann of the Claremont Graduate University. Each of these men has written eloquently on this topic. Von Spakovsky, a national expert on election law and policy, recently authored a Heritage Legal Memo explaining why “NPV would be a disaster.” Uhlmann has written in defense of the Electoral College since the 1970s, including this Claremont Review of Books essay and a contribution to this important book.

While that event is not currently available online, video from the most recent one, featuring Sen. Mitch McConnell, is below and provides several important perspectives of what is at stake in the contention over the process for electing the President of the United States.

Warning: satire ahead! (For the basics on what the National Popular Vote anti-Electoral College scheme is all about, check out this post.)  -TE

A new poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly prefer to scrap the World Series. A shocking 68% of Americans instead believe that Major League Baseball should rely upon “total runs scored” during the regular baseball season when deciding who should be crowned the MLB champion. This number is a sharp rise from polls taken a decade ago, but still falls slightly behind the 72% majority that preferred change in 1960. In that year, the Yankees scored a record 55 runs against the Pittsburgh Pirates, but still lost the Series.

Joe Ball, President of FairBaseball, explained the sentiment driving the call for change: “The World Series is fundamentally unfair! One team can score a majority of runs during the course of seven games, yet still lose the championship. Every run should be equal, whether it was obtained in Game 3 or Game 6 of the series. A team should not be able to win the championship simply because it won 4 out of 7 games.”

Ball concluded, “One time in American history the team scoring the most runs failed to win the championship. Outrageously, the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series despite scoring only 27 runs to the Yankees’ 55. Moreover, crisis has been narrowly avoided on several other occasions. We must act now before another baseball team is stripped of victory, despite its demonstrated ability to score more runs than its opponent.”

Supporters of the World Series note that the 7-game series was created decades ago because the founders of MLB knew that important principles would be served by such a structure. They wanted to identify the most well-rounded team: Champions should be able to do well in a variety of circumstances; they should not do well only when a particular hitter is matched against a particular pitcher or only when the team is playing in a certain type of stadium. Sam Homer, president of Save Baseball, explained: “MLB should not crown a team as champion simply because it was able to win a few lopsided victories. If we eliminate the World Series, championships could be won by a team that lost the vast majority of its games but racked up dozens of runs when its best player was able to hit home runs on his own home turf.”

Homer concluded that baseball fans should keep the World Series for the same reason that Americans rely upon the Electoral College during presidential elections. Both were created with the same goal in mind: Just as MLB seeks the most well-rounded team for its champion, so the Electoral College awards the presidency to the most well-rounded candidate. The nation’s Founders wanted to ensure that the President would not simply represent big states and urban areas. Instead, a winning candidate should appeal to a variety of states, cities and regions. Our uniquely big and diverse country deserves its unique presidential election system. After all, this system must identify the candidate best suited to represent a cross-section of Americans.

Original post appears on Tara Ross’s Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/rVfxst

PoliticsPA.com reports that National Popular Vote has launched a new advertising campaign in Pennsylvania. NPV hopes to dampen enthusiasm for a proposal to award Pennsylvania’s electors by congressional district. Simultaneously, it hopes to draw attention to its own plan to award states’ electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

A voice in the ad pretends to be an announcer at a baseball game:

“It’s all tied up folks, bottom of the 9th, the bases loaded, here comes the pitch – Golly did he get a hold of that one! It’s going, it’s going, it’s gone! A home run! But stand by folks, the baseball Electoral College is chewing this one over. Philly loses; they lose!  Sorry folks, under electoral college rules, the team with the most runs doesn’t always win.”

At first glance, NPV’s argument sounds irrefutable. None of us have ever been to a baseball game in which a team scores the most runs, but still loses. NPV hopes to stoke our sense of unfairness. That Electoral College!  It is just wrong that the team scoring the most runs loses!

But NPV relied on the wrong analogy. The Electoral College is not like a single baseball game, but like the World Series.  In the World Series, the team winning the most games wins.  This may or may not be the same as the team that scored the most runs throughout the course of those seven games.  We don’t find this unfair.  Instead, we understand that the rules of baseball rely upon “number of games won” instead of “number of runs scored” for a reason.  The champion of baseball should be the most well-rounded team, as demonstrated by an ability to win games in a variety of circumstances.  The champion of baseball should not be a team that wins lopsided victories, perhaps when a particular hitter is matched against a particular pitcher.

NPV is correct that baseball will show us how the presidential election game should work. But the correct analogy is the World Series, not a single baseball game. America’s presidential election system seeks a well-rounded candidate who can win electoral victories in many circumstances. It is not looking for a candidate who can rack up a lot votes in one region, state or with the voters of one special interest group.

This post originally appeared on Tara’s Facebook page, here: http://on.fb.me/ruhQpy

In the last two days, I’ve debated four National Popular Vote advocates in two cities and spoken about the issue as part of a panel presentation on federalism. Here are a few things I noted from the debates.

• NPV advocates–in this case, Tom Golisano–continue to make the claim that the election outcomes in 1876 and 1888 were “debacles” because the popular vote winner lost the Electoral College and thus the presidency. This claim falls flat and worse. In 1876, the Electoral College system allowed Congress to sort out several serious election disputes–isolated within individual states by the Electoral College system–and to resolve the election in a way that prevented racist voter suppression from effecting the outcome. On the 1888 election, read “What Grover learned at (the) Electoral College.”

• Saul Anuzis, a lobbyist for NPV, stated that two donors–John Koza and Tom Golisano–have committed over $40 million to lobby for the NPV interstate compact. I guess that’s money that won’t be going to the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund.

• Golisano and Anuzis both insist that NPV is not anti-Electoral College, even though John Koza originally admitted that the plan was an “end run” way to eliminate the effects of the Electoral College system. This is an interesting claim, at least a challenging one in a debate, where the last thing worth talking about is someone’s subjective intent. Frankly, this is why I prefer to debate this topic with academics or anyone who’s not on NPV’s payroll or otherwise a part of their lobbying effort–my experience is that most of these ‘outsiders’ readily acknowledge that NPV is just a tactic to work toward eliminating the Electoral College in full. Regardless of what Koza believes, his plan is inherently opposed to the original design and the established function of the Electoral College system.

Following four failures in Rhode Island and two in New York, National Popular Vote may have sealed up a California victory with recent legislative approval of their interstate compact legislation. (For a description, see “What is ‘National Popular Vote’?“)

Dr. John Koza and Tom Golisano (the campaign’s founder and their new billionaire supporter, respectively) have shifted focus to Virginia their attempt to gain the 270 electoral votes needed to bring their plan into effect.

The Washington Post recently announced that NPV heavy-hitters Golisano and Fred Thompson, the lackluster 2008 Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, were venturing to Richmond along with former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver in an attempt to pump life into their thrice-failed Virginia campaign.

Unlike NPV’s previous successes–all Democratic “blue” states–Virginia is “purple”, with Republicans holding a majority in the House of Delegates. Why would the campaign pour time and resources into this state when they’ve historically only had successes with Democrat majorities? Five years of campaigning from their California headquarters failed to sway any California Senate Republicans.

Perhaps Virginia is seen as their best opportunity to get a foothold among Republicans, as well as in the South—and the 13 electoral votes wouldn’t hurt any, either.

Ultimately, John Koza and NPV have their work cut out for them if they believe that “four” is the lucky number for winning Virginia.

This morning the California Senate passed AB 459 (the Electoral College Compact Bill) 23-15 in third reading, sending it back to the Assembly and then on to Governor Brown.

The margin was narrower than many expected. NPV founder and scratch ticket inventor John Koza has spent millions lobbying for the measure across the country. In California, he hired former Republican Sen. Ray Haynes (who opposed NPV while in office) to woo current Republican legislators. NPV hoped for uniform Democratic support along with several Republican coauthors, giving them at least a 28 votes in favor. Instead the Republican coauthors deserted the bill and Democratic Sen. Rod Wright voted no. The measure passed with only Democratic support and with bipartisan opposition.

Should Governor Brown sign the bill, NPV will near the “halfway” point toward their trigger (an electoral vote majority, at least 270), jumping from 77 to 132 electoral votes.

The NPV (a state-by-state campaign to abolish the Electoral College) has amassed 77 electoral votes by state legislatures passing bills committing their votes to the winner of the national popular vote. For more back story, click here.

What’s surprising is the amount of time, energy and money they’ve spent in one tiny state: Rhode Island. NPV was the top lobby in the state this year, looking to spend almost a quarter of a million. The whole Senate backed the bill, which made things look pretty rosy for Dr. John Koza, head of NPV.

For example, consider Illinois (which already passed NPV). Even with some hefty rural resistance they pushed it through. (See below)

So wait, you’re saying NPV was still shot down? How is that possible?

Oh yeah, this is becoming an annual ritual in the nation’s smallest state. The campaign has failed not once, not twice, but three  times. We’ve done a little background research into what have been the three “rounds” of lobbying for the three bills, who’s been lobbying them and how much has been spent.

Obviously there is a story to be told by the data. Certainly the NPV campaign can’t be simply unlucky? Perhaps Rhode Islanders aren’t too keen on the thought of west-coast out-of-towners bringing in their money and legislation to push through the legislature. Maybe legislators saw how partisan the NPV really is?

Round One, 2007

Beneficiary: Arianne Lynch, Clarendon Group
Result: Bill didn’t pass committee.

Round Two, 2008

Result: Bill passes both houses, vetoed by governor.

Beneficiary: Will Farrell, Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels

Beneficiary: Arianne Lynch, Clarendon Group

 Round Three, 2011

Result: 2011 Feb 3rd to Present, S164 Passes Senate, Heads to House.

Beneficiary: Wallace Gernt, Jr.

Beneficiary: Christopher Reilly

Beneficiary: Ryan O’Donnell

From Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, through every recession and rise in the economy, we’ve had one constant this century: A flood of money to the California far-left from Dr. John Koza. Check out “Do NPV & Koza really ♥ California Republicans?“ and “Who is John Koza?“ for the full scoop on Koza’s background pushing scratch-ticket lotteries and National Popular Vote (NPV).

Now certainly there’s nothing wrong with participating in politics, as long as it’s honest. The question is how seriously anyone should take Koza’s current campaign to convince California Republicans to back NPV.

To investigate for yourself (there’s over 50 entries) click here.

California may cast a critical vote on AB 459 as soon as tomorrow and Dr. John Koza couldn’t be happier. This isn’t his first foray into matters of the state. He has succeeded in using the government as a tool to secure his fortunes, and he believes he will win on more serious matters. California would supercharge his anti-Electoral College alliance and shoot them from 77 votes to 132 (toward their objective of 270). However there are a slew of reasons why legislators on both the right and the left shouldn’t bow to Koza’s financial and political prowess.

Is Koza confident? Perhaps. He’s spent millions pushing NPV, with a recent drive to convince Republicans that he’s on their side. It’s a tough sell, given the evidence.

Exhibit A: Koza acted as a California Elector (in the Electoral College) for both Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

Exhibit B: The only states to pass NPV have been dark blue.

Exhibit C: Koza’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.

Here’s just a sampling. (Come back for updates.)

Check out the full PDF of Koza’s FEC-registered contributions here.

And some more via California’s database:

2007-2008
2005-2006

In a shocking twist, ex-Senator Fred Thompson has joined the effort to abolish the Electoral College. He claims that the National Popular Vote movement is “totally consistent with our constitutional principles.”

I like Thompson. I voted for him in the 2008 presidential primaries. But his endorsement of NPV simply cannot be reconciled with the Constitution. It is a pity, because he has spent so much of his public life defending these important principles. It is puzzling that he has abandoned them now.

NPV is consistent with the Constitution?

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected a nationwide popular vote for President. The small states would never have ratified the Constitution with such a system in place, for fear that they would be constantly outvoted by big states such as Virginia and New York. NPV implements the system that was rejected and pretends that it is somehow consistent with this constitutional history.

The Constitution requires approval from three-quarters (38) of the states before radical change can be made to constitutional processes. NPV is on track to change the method of electing a President with the approval of fewer than 20 states.

The Constitution implements a system that combines the best elements of federalism, republicanism, and democracy. The Founders understood from their study of history that a pure democracy “is one of the greatest of evils” that “soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.” It is “very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.” NPV shuns the lessons of history—so important to the Founders—and replaces America’s federalist, republican, democratic presidential election process with a purely democratic one.

There is more: NPV will likely cause Equal Protection, legal and logistical problems that I have discussed at length elsewhere. But even these few examples should show that Thompson and others need to more thoroughly study the history of our Constitution and the Electoral College before casually claiming that NPV is consistent with America’s founding principles.

Perhaps you wouldn’t expect Texas to join an effort to eliminate the Electoral College.  In fact, you may find such an idea to be ludicrous and a bit far-fetched. Unfortunately, a California-based group is working hard to prove you wrong. Indeed, its proponents are in the state today, making a pitch to the legislature’s House Committee on Elections. They want Texas to join an anti-Electoral College effort that has already been approved by six states and the District of Columbia.

National Popular Vote is practically guaranteed to tell Texas’s largely conservative, Republican legislature that its end-run around the Constitution is good for the Republican Party. Unfortunately, some Republicans in other states have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. Others fell for the line at first, but then learned more and began to see that the Emperor has no clothes. Here’s hoping that Texas legislators will see through the ruse right from the beginning.

NPV asks state legislators to change the way that their states allocate presidential electors. Instead of giving them to the winner of a state’s popular vote, electors would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote. So, for instance, Texas’s thirty-four electors would have gone to Barack Obama in 2008, despite the fact that John McCain won by a landslide within our own borders. If enough states were to agree to such a method of elector allocation, the Electoral College would be effectively eliminated, all without the bother of a constitutional amendment.

This probably sounds like a crazy liberal idea that could only succeed in places like Massachusetts and California. It probably should be, but NPV has more political savvy than that. It saw the writing on the wall last November: The emergence of the Tea Party as a political force convinced NPV to reconstitute itself. It now claims to be good for conservatives and good for Republicans. NPV describes its plan as pro-states’ rights, pro-federalism, and consistent with an originalist reading of the Constitution. Why, to listen to them describe it, you’d think the Founding Fathers practically expected states to do something like this eventually.

Yes, these would be the same Founders who explicitly rejected the idea of a direct national election for President, as proposed by NPV. Obviously, something doesn’t quite add up.

But NPV is hoping no one digs too deep or researches the issue too thoroughly. Otherwise, Republicans might start to wonder how NPV’s bill jibes with respect for the Constitution. Democrats might start to wonder why NPV is talking out of both sides of its mouth: It tells Democrats that NPV is a progressive measure that will update the Constitution, democratize American presidential elections, and consolidate political power in Democratic-leaning urban areas. But it tells Republicans that NPV is good for a center-right country that values the Founders’ wisdom; it will help the GOP to recapture the White House.

More research would show members of both political parties that the Electoral College serves everyone. It has a long and successful history of serving Americans in a non-partisan fashion. It ensures that the most successful presidential candidates are those who, in the spirit of FDR and Ronald Reagan, reach out to a wide variety of voters. It brings Americans together, encouraging us to focus on moderation and compromise—many other systems would instead drive us apart. It provides stability and certainty in presidential elections: It is harder to steal elections when you must predict in advance which state will be close and where stolen votes will matter. Finally, more research would show legislators the many dangerous legal and logistical problems created by NPV’s plan.

NPV has been introduced in the Texas legislature before. It was not taken seriously then, and it should not be taken seriously now simply because NPV has changed its tune and will be trying to sell the measure as a conservative, Tea Party measure.

States Representatives on the House Committee on Elections would act wisely if they treat the plan for what it is: An idea that is at odds with the lessons of history and inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution.

This article originally ran on TexasInsider.org on April 18, 2011.

Vermont is one gubernatorial signature away from joining an effort to ditch the Electoral College. The Vermont legislature gave final approval to the National Popular Vote plan last week. (More details regarding the mechanics of the legislation can be found here.)

As a legislator, Governor Shumlin once sponsored the bill, so he is expected to sign it now. His signature will make Vermont the seventh state to join NPV’s compact.

The full article can be found at National Review Online.