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2006-05-22 Fifth Column

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Posted by anonymous2u 2006-05-22 16:35|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Wow. Fifth column, indeed.

Sacramento - and the others who sign up for this premeditated act of sedition - are worthy of whatever happens to them. What a den of thieves and traitors.

Posted by random styling 2006-05-22 17:30|| 2006-05-22 17:30|| Front Page Top

#2 Read the comments at Lucianne, here's the 1st one:

This is not good. It allows the top 15 cities to elect the next President.

Posted by anonymous2u 2006-05-22 17:39|| 2006-05-22 17:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Courtesy of BugMeNot, the full article:
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Six years after Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the presidency to Republican George W. Bush, there's a new move afoot in the California Legislature and other states to ensure that such things never happen again.
The linchpin is a proposed "interstate compact," designed to guarantee that presidents will be selected by popular vote, without amending the U.S. Constitution or eliminating the Electoral College.

Assemblyman Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat who chairs the Assembly Election and Redistricting Committee, said the basic premise is understandable even to children.

"When you're in first grade, if the person who got the second-most votes became class leader, the kids would recognize that this is not a fair system," he said.

Umberg's Assembly Bill 2948, proposing such a compact, passed the Assembly's elections and appropriations committees on party-line votes, with Republicans opposed.

"We have a system that's worked effectively for more than 200 years," said Sal Russo, a GOP political consultant. "We probably should be very hesitant to change that."

John Koza, an official of National Popular Vote, which is pushing the proposal, said sentiment has not split along party lines in other states.

"I don't think anyone can convincingly put their finger on any partisan advantage," said Koza, a consulting professor at Stanford University.

Though Republicans disproportionately benefited from the Electoral College in 2000, when Bush edged Gore despite getting 544,000 fewer votes, Democrats nearly turned the tables four years later.

In 2004, Democrat John Kerry would have defeated Bush - despite 3 million fewer votes nationwide - if he had garnered Ohio's electoral votes by swaying 60,000 more GOP voters to his side.

AB 2948 would commit California to a compact in which each participating state would cast all its electoral votes for the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide.

The compact would not become effective until its member states control a majority of the Electoral College's 538 votes.

The binding commitment would be enforceable by the U.S. Supreme Court, Umberg said.

Any state could become a member of the compact, and any state could withdraw from the group - except during the final six months of a president's term.

Besides California, legislation to create a compact was introduced this year in Colorado, Missouri, Illinois and Louisiana.

Proponents are pushing to have similar bills in all 50 states next year.

America's founding fathers created the current system, in which each state determines how its votes will be cast in the Electoral College, which ultimately elects the president.

California and 47 other states have adopted a "winner-take-all" approach, committing their entire slate of electors to the candidate who receives the most votes statewide.

Nebraska and Maine allocate most of their electoral votes by congressional district.

Umberg argues that California is at a severe disadvantage under the "winner-take-all" system because its lopsided voter registration persuades presidential candidates from both parties to spend their campaign time - and money - in "battleground" states.

California is considered safely Democratic, with the GOP trailing by 8 percentage points in voter registration.

In 2004, for example, Kerry lost the national vote but won by 10 percentage points in California.

Supporters of AB 2948 claim it will revitalize elections and increase turnout.

In states with tilted voter registration, such as California, votes cast by the minority party will gain in importance as part of a much larger pool nationwide, proponents said.

"A voter in Rhode Island is as important as a voter in California, I think that's the key," said Theis Finlev of Common Cause, which supports AB 2948.

California, the nation's most populous state, suddenly would take center stage, Umberg said.

Rather than focus largely on key issues in smaller battleground states, presidential candidates would have to court Californians, too.

"You couldn't afford to have somebody else carry the state by 6 million votes," Umberg said.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said an interstate compact would remove the stigma attached to a ballot-box loser who becomes president.

"I think Americans are ready for a change," he said of AB 2948.

Under the proposed compact, however, a state could find itself compelled to cast all its electoral votes to a presidential candidate resoundingly rejected by its own residents.

Critics of AB 2948 say the Electoral College plays an important role in forcing presidents to build geographic coalitions.

Assemblyman Michael Villines, R-Clovis, said sidestepping the Electoral College would make have-nots of small states and rural areas.

"The small guy gets a voice only through the Electoral College process," Villines said.

California and nine other states account for more than 50 percent of the nation's population. Wayne Johnson, a GOP consultant, said a compact would alter campaign strategy.

"What you'd do is go into the heavily Republican areas or heavily Democratic areas and spend your money to run up the score in popular vote," he said. "You'd leave out whole sections of the country."

Supporters and opponents disagree on how a compact would affect all sorts of political issues, such as whether it would incite vote-count fights in numerous states or reduce the ballot-box leverage of racial and ethnic groups.

"This is the kind of scheme that would keep political junkies happily awake at night, thinking of ways it could go wrong," said Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College.

But Umberg said the biggest hurdle for AB 2948 may be a reluctance by lawmakers to change fundamental political tenets.

"They're (legislators) by virtue of how the process worked in the past," he said.

Posted by random styling 2006-05-22 17:41|| 2006-05-22 17:41|| Front Page Top

#4 So, the usual Donk gig: if you lose, then change the system.

Posted by random styling 2006-05-22 17:45|| 2006-05-22 17:45|| Front Page Top

#5 Don't worry they will attach an amendment to grant civil rights to teensi flies and then they bill will die. How come the Donks were not all that hot to change the system when Nixon got screwed by JFK?

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2006-05-22 18:06|| 2006-05-22 18:06|| Front Page Top

#6 I say go for it. Only the most leftist Democrat controlled states will sign up. It will be delicious to see the look on California electors faces when they are all pledged to support the Republican candidate.

Posted by ed 2006-05-22 18:13|| 2006-05-22 18:13|| Front Page Top

#7 This will be big in the blue states that went for Gore. No where else.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-05-22 18:34|| 2006-05-22 18:34|| Front Page Top

#8 Making the Presidency subject to the 'popular' vote would be the third and final nail in the coffin of the Republic ("A republic, if you can keep it" Ben Franklin, IIRC.) Transferring the election of Senators to popular vote was the second major step to the destruction of the Republic as it was created (the military abolition of States Rights in 1861-65 was the first, even if for all the right reasons.)

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2006-05-22 19:02|| 2006-05-22 19:02|| Front Page Top

#9 Assemblyman Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat who chairs the Assembly Election and Redistricting Committee, said the basic premise is understandable even to children.

"When you're in first grade, if the person who got the second-most votes became class leader, the kids would recognize that this is not a fair system," he said.

That is why our electoral system was designed and run by and for ADULTS.

Sheesh.

Recently I came across a World Workers Party (or other lefty money pit) front organization, dedicated to the concept that the Senate represents more 'blue voters' than 'red voters' and thus should be reconfigured to align to the tyranny of the majority. I should have bookmarked the site.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2006-05-22 19:10|| 2006-05-22 19:10|| Front Page Top

#10 Mark Leno is a scum (and other objects) sucking communist

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-05-22 19:44|| 2006-05-22 19:44|| Front Page Top

#11 Several problems with this:

First, if California's voters vote for candidate "A", but candidate "B" gets the national popular vote, then the electors from California are going to ignore their state voters and vote for "B"? Nice in theory, but it would probably happen just once and then the system would be junked (I would also not want to be trusting the California legislature on any of this).

Second, I believe the electors are chosen by the people, not by the state, and the consitution does not require the electors to vote for anybody. The proposed system seems to mean that voters would no longer be selecting electors, the electors would be selected by someone else and then they would be required to vote for a particular candidate. I'm not sure either proposal is constitutional.

The proposed system would strip most states of power. Small population states are over represented in the electral college. Only the roughly 10 most populous states stand to gain. This is why there is no movement to change the constituion properly, via an amendment. The majority of states would not agree to this change.

People tend to ignore that the constitution is, fundamentally, a contract between states. The Constitution itself has never been ratified by popular vote. It was adopted by the states.

Posted by DoDo 2006-05-22 20:14|| 2006-05-22 20:14|| Front Page Top

#12 So, can states get together and form a "compact" to change any other part of the Constitution without actually going through the specified process?

DoDo: The electors are chosen in a method decided by the state legislature. So, a single state could indeed decide to do this. But, two states cannot form a binding agreement to do so.

Going back to 2000, if this monstrosity had been in effect, we would have had fifty Florida's. Nobody bothered with recounts in Michigan or Pennsylvania because it wouldn't have changed enough votes to flip the state. But in this case, get 50,000 votes here, another 70,000 there, perhaps 10,000 over there, and you got it made. Massive Democrat fraud all over the country.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2006-05-22 21:07|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2006-05-22 21:07|| Front Page Top

#13 Nope, cannot change the Constitution legally except by constitutional amendment. They can go ahead and try, and it will fail US Supreme Court review -- probably won't make it past the first state-level court challenge. I doubt that even the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal {Fed} is stupid enough to approve this.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2006-05-22 21:36|| 2006-05-22 21:36|| Front Page Top

#14 Jackal: I see your point, but I strongly doubt the legislature could constitutionally provide for a system that awards seats in the electoral college based on something other than the state's popular vote. If that were the case a multi-state compact would not be needed, it would only need a handshake between state legislatures.

Also, it would be more than 50 Floridas because popular vote is driven at the precinct level. We would be dependent on the honesty of party machines in Seattle and Philadelphia. Think Cook county in 1960.

Posted by DoDo 2006-05-22 22:26|| 2006-05-22 22:26|| Front Page Top

#15 Never underestimate the 9th Circus, #13.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut"> Barbara Skolaut 2006-05-22 22:30|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html] 2006-05-22 22:30|| Front Page Top

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