Connecticut Subverts the
Electoral College, Rejecting Its Own History, by Tara Ross, 5/10/18, The Daily
Signal
Opponents of the Electoral
College achieved an important victory last weekend when Connecticut’s
legislature passed the so-called National Popular Vote compact. Democratic Gov.
Dannel P. Malloy is expected to sign the measure.
Most Americans have never
heard of the National Popular Vote compact, but it is shockingly close to
causing a major political and legal firestorm. It is a clever scheme to change
how we elect the president without the bother of having to pass a
constitutional amendment.
States that approve this
legislation enter a simple compact with one another. Each participating state
agrees to allocate its electors to the winner of the national popular vote
regardless of how its own citizens voted. The compact goes into effect when
states holding 270 electoral votes (enough to win the presidency) have agreed
to the plan.
With Connecticut’s vote,
11 states and the District of Columbia have now approved the measure, giving
the compact a total of 172 electors. It needs only 98 more to reach the 270 mark.
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Tara Ross’ book, “The Indispensable Guide to the
Electoral College, Destroying the Electoral College” The Constitution State
has drifted far from its roots. What would Founders such as Roger Sherman
think? That Connecticut statesman was an influential delegate at the
Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Great Compromise—sometimes called the
Connecticut Compromise— which gave Congress its bicameral structure, might
never have been brokered without him.
Moreover, Sherman was one of many delegates
from small states who refused to go along with the idea of a direct popular
vote for the presidency. He knew that little
Connecticut would be
outvoted time and time again. The people at large, Sherman told the Convention,
“will generally vote for some man in their own state, and the largest state
will have the best chance for the appointment.”
His words reflected the
sentiments of other small state delegates.
“An election by the people
[is] liable to the most obvious and striking objections,” Charles Pinckney of
South Carolina said. “They will be led by a few active and designing men. The
most populous states by combining in favor of the same individual will be able
to carry their points.”
Hugh Williamson of North
Carolina added that “the people will be sure to vote for some man in their own
state, and the largest state will be sure to succeed.”
Another delegate was much
more direct. “I do not, gentlemen, trust you,” Gunning Bedford of Delaware
blasted. “If you possess the power, the abuse of it could not be checked; and
what then would prevent you from exercising it to our destruction?”
His statement was strong,
but it reflected the fear felt by every small-state delegate in the room.
The 2016 election showed
just how reasonable those fears were. Much has been made of Hillary
Clinton’s victory in the
national popular vote, but less attention has been paid to where she achieved
that victory.
More than 20 percent of
Clinton’s 65.8 million votes came from only two states: New York and
California. Indeed, if we remove those states from the national tally, Clinton
loses by more than three 3 million votes.
Such a lopsided result is
not what she had in mind, of course, and she surely wishes that she could move
some of those votes to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. She needed to
diversify her support in order to win because of the Electoral College. She
failed to do that.
Now imagine what Clinton—or
any candidate—could do without the restraints inherent in the Electoral College
system.
If Clinton reaped a reward
from those landslide victories in Los Angeles and New York City, wouldn’t she
have worked even harder to run up her tallies there? Why would she make extra
visits to Rust Belt states if she could make up the votes with massive voter
drives in the big cities?
With the Electoral
College, the Democratic Party received a firm reminder not to take those states
for granted. Without the Electoral College, such states—which make up vast
swaths of the electorate—could simply be ignored.
The 1888 election taught a
similar lesson. Landslide margins in a few Southern states gave Grover
Cleveland the edge in the national popular vote. But lopsided regional support
wasn’t enough to win him the White House. He learned from his mistakes and came
back to win in 1892.
The Electoral College
discourages overreliance on a single kind of voter. That’s healthy in a country
as diverse as ours. It ensures that small states and less populated parts of
the country can make themselves heard. It encourages presidential candidates to
build diverse coalitions.
These are principles that
Roger Sherman understood so well. He surely wouldn’t understand the decision
made by his own state last weekend.
Connecticut has joined an
effort to subvert a constitutional institution, even as it attempts an end run
around the constitutional amendment process. The Constitution State may no
longer be worthy of its name.
Editor’s note: Some quotations
in this article have been modified for formatting.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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