Tweet 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...
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Tweet 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,...
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Tweet 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...
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Tweet 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...
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Tweet 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...
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Tweet The National Popular Vote interstate compact would wipe away state lines and turn the entire nation into one giant “single-member district” for presidential elections. This, according to computer scientist and NPV inventor John Koza, will make “every voter equal.” That is the title of Koza’s self-published book and the lead slogan employed in...
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Tweet Traveling around the country defending federalism and the Electoral College, I have heard an amazing array of different–sometimes contradictory–claims made by National Popular Vote (NPV) advocates. Some of this is reasonable, since different NPV backers have different complaints about the current system and very different explanations of how NPV would work. Other contradictions...
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Tweet According to National Popular Vote, it don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing. Voters outside of “swing states,” NPV’s materials claim, are “spectators to the presidential election” and are “effectively disenfranchised.” A closer look reveals that NPV’s claims come from a superficial understanding of political campaigns that does not survive...
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Tweet The Electoral College was one of the least controversial provisions of the original Constitution. The state-by-state way we elect the President of the United States gives each state a number of Electoral Votes equal to the sum of their U.S. Representatives and Senators (and Washington, D.C., gets three). Nearly all states award all...
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Tweet Next week, the Cato Institute will host two leading legal scholars in a debate about the merits of the Electoral College. Tara Ross, author of Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College (it’s in our bookstore), will face off against Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, who is also a professor of constitutional...
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Tweet On Friday, Alaska’s Senate Judiciary Committee heard the state’s National Popular Vote bill (SB 92). The measure actually already passed the State Affairs Committee with the support of Senators Linda Menard, Hollis French (who chairs the Judiciary Committee), and Albert Kookesh. (Watch the Judiciary hearing.) Alaska, the largest state by landmass but with...
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Tweet Dr. John Koza, creator and chairman of National Popular Vote, is a pioneer in his field—not political science but computer science. Koza designs computers that he hopes will in turn design their own inventions without “being encumbered by preconceptions that limit human problem solving….” While a graduate student, Koza created a board game...
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