Deep thinking and deliberation are getting in the way of the National Popular Vote campaign in Oregon (HB 3517). This is my conclusion after stopping briefly in Salem yesterday and talking with a few legislators and several legislative staff.

It was all true to a pattern that I’ve seen in my cross-country travels. NPV’s soundbites, at first, have some appeal. Yet as thoughtful legislators consider the novel—not to mention profoundly important—issue of how best to elect the President of the United States, they come to realize how many questions NPV simply does not, cannot, answer. Cosponsors back out; chairmen hold off.

NPV brags about how many bills they have had introduced, how many hearings have been held, but almost every time, NPV legislation has then died. Often the very same legislators who initially moved NPV later had second thoughts. This is happening in Oregon, and rightly so.

It is a credit to legislators when they are willing to consider all the evidence and even to change their minds. I always give legislators the benefit of the doubt—often talking with cosponsors and even prime-sponsors of NPV. Wisconsin is just one example of a state where legislators changed position after hearing the “other side.” (Yesterday was the only time I’ve encountered a rude legislator, Vicki Berger, who appeared desperately out of her depth and almost frantic that someone would disagree with her in her office.)

A legislative session isn’t over until it’s over. NPV has hired at least two high-powered lobbyists in Salem. (A lobbyist in another state capital who was offered a contract by NPV tells me that they pay “very well”; nevertheless, he recognized the threat NPV poses to our republic and he  turned them down.) Yet a growing number of Oregon legislators are asking the right questions about NPV, making it evermore likely that the legislation there will fail.

The balance of power between state and national governments was one of the most contentious issues for the American Founders.

The states were important historically, but also as a way to keep government close to the people and to divide government power into as many hands as practical in order to preserve liberty.

At the Constitutional Convention small states wanted every state to have an equal voice in the national government. Large states desired just the opposite—representation based on population would give them more power.

It was a compromise that created the U.S. Congress, where states are represented equally in the Senate but according to population in the House. That compromise not only broke the deadlock that threatened to derail the Constitution—it became the foundation for the unique American system of Federalism.

The national government was set up to provide national defense, manage foreign trade, and referee disputes between the states—in short, to provide the states with safety and commerce similar to the way the British Empire did for the 13 original colonies. The states were left to manage their internal affairs and to compete with one another; thus the states are sometimes referred to as our “fifty laboratories of democracy.”

Federalism fosters diversity by allowing groups of people in different states to manage their affairs differently, to innovate or remain the same, to address local needs. And by keeping government local, dividing it up, and making it compete, Federalism protects freedom.

The American system of states is not just unique—it has been uniquely successful. Federalism is an American invention worth preserving.

NPV/Koza legislation is moving in Oregon as well. House Bill 2588 passed their house on March 12 and has been referred to their Senate Rules Committee.