Annette Meeks is one of the big thinkers of the local wing-nut faction. She's known, among other things, for arguing that the position of lieutenant governor be abolished, then accepting Tom Emmer's invitation to run for lieutenant governor. Here she writes in defense of the electoral college. Let's hear her in her own words, with reality interpolated.
Sometimes the biggest changes happen when no one is looking. A small but committed national group has descended upon the Minnesota Legislature with a plan to quietly change how America elects its president. With 10 paid lobbyists and many more paid consultants in state, the National Popular Vote movement appears determined to make Minnesota the next to sign on to its interstate compact.
She makes the National Popular Vote movement sound like a sinister, secretive cabal. Actually, its only object is to get state legislators to adopt a rule whereby their state's electoral votes would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote--but only when states possessing 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win in the electoral college, have opted in to the compact. The proceedings of state legislatures are open and free and governed by rules that the National Popular Vote movement observes.
Ten paid lobbyists! OMG! Our politics are so corrupt!
The purpose of this compact is simple: It would dictate that Minnesota’s 10 presidential electors be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote for president, rather than to the candidate who received the highest number of votes from Minnesotans. It is an end run around the purposefully difficult process of amending the U.S. Constitution. Our legislators should prevent this from becoming law.
There is a reason Meeks only suggests underhandedness instead of declaring that laws are being broken. Here is what the Constitution says on the matter at hand: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors." There is no reason to amend the Constitution. All that's necessary is to persuade states to change the manner of their direction. That's what the National Popular Vote movement is trying to do.
Since 2006, a tax-exempt nonprofit with a well-funded lobbying arm has attempted to “right the wrong” of the 2000 presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, in which Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College tally. The results will be debated in constitutional law classes for many years to come. Yet the scenario has occurred only four times since the Constitution was ratified 225 years ago. It had been more than a century since it had happened prior to Bush vs. Gore — a pretty good track record for the Electoral College system.
This is incoherent. Meeks seems to acknowledge that it is a kind of an error when the candidate receiving the most national votes loses the national election. Well, the remedy is at hand. Four errors wouldn't have occurred.
Supporters of NPV have gained ground with legislators by saying that “[I]n a democracy, the winner should win — not the candidate who can game the system to get the most electoral votes.” This quote is from Thomas Golisano, a New York millionaire activist and one of the principal funders of NPV.
What supporters of NPV don’t want you to know is what Golisano said after that sentence: “We can easily change to a system where the candidate with the most votes always win” (emphasis added).
Supporters of NPV have gained ground with their arguments because they are good arguments. All Meeks seems to have are these dark, false pictures she paints. Does she have anything more?
Golisano and his troops are attempting to “easily change” our voting system by circumventing the difficult process of actually amending the U.S. Constitution. Why? Because they acknowledge that a constitutional amendment would never be enacted, since a majority of states would lose their ability to remain “players” in the presidential sweepstakes. In essence, small states would be forgotten while presidential candidates focused their attention on the large media markets and densely populated coastal states. According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation, 29 states “lose influence from the move to direct election.”
Such small states as Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii receive no attention whatever from the nominated presidential aspirants of our two parties. It therefore appears that Meeks must have a private definition of "players." I wish she would divulge it, for the weakness of her argument would not then be obscured by vagueness.
So Golisano and his troops are pursuing an NPV “state compact” in place of the arduous task of amending the Constitution.
Yes, yes, you've already said that, and I've already explained why it's a lot of hooey.
Our founding fathers specifically rejected direct election of the president, fearing the control large states would have over those more sparsely populated. At the Constitutional Convention, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina said that the “most populous States by combining in favor of the same individual will be able to carry their points.” Minnesotans can be thankful that delegates rejected the idea of a national direct election. The Electoral College system, as well as an extremely engaged state electorate, has made Minnesota a player in nearly every presidential election, even for Republican presidential candidates who haven’t seen victory in Minnesota since 1972.
Oh, yes, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina! At the Constitutional Convention, he proposed the Fugitive Slave Clause, which was eventually adopted into the document (Article 4, Section 2). It was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment, but we are still stuck with the electoral college. That its original appeal is connected to the maneuverings of slave owners fearful of their interests being defeated at the polls in direct elections does not seem to me like a very good advertisement for the electoral college.
In the last sentence, the recurrence of "player," now augmented by murky syntax, has the possibly deliberate effect of obscuring the implausibility of what Meeks says. If Minnesota is a "player," why don't the candidates come here to campaign? Is a state, just by virtue of being a state, a "player"? If so, what is the point of saying this state and that one are "players"?
Notice that Meeks, citing the right-wing Heritage Foundation, backhandedly admitted in the previous paragraph that 21 states would gain influence from the move to direct election of the president. Would one be California? Would another be Texas? Would a third be New York? Why so much emphasis on states and so little on voters?
If Meeks thought most voters would lose influence by a move to direct election, I bet she'd say so.
The uniqueness of America’s political process must not be taken for granted. Presidential elections matter in every corner of this country. It’s important that candidates appeal to a broad cross-section of the electorate from all regions. Our presidential election process is really 50 diverse state elections occurring on the same day. It was designed to be a difficult process, and it remains so. But most important, it’s a process that is extremely difficult to manipulate — it requires campaigns to focus on garnering a majority of the Electoral College votes, which allows small states like Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin to remain “players” as campaign strategists understand that candidates can cobble together smaller states to achieve victory.
That presidential elections matter in every corner of our country is a girl scout's cliche. The outcome matters, but the outcome is determined in about eight so-called "swing states." The rest of us are spectators. Maybe Meeks doesn't comprehend this, but the candidates show they do by spending all their time and money chasing the only votes that matter.
A "broad cross-section of the electorate"? That must be why we are quadrennially subjected to endless disquisitions concerning the views of "auto workers in northwestern Ohio" and "Mormons in Nevada." Meanwhile, most of the rest of us are ignored, our ballots so discounted as to be practically worthless. For Democrats in red states and Republicans in blue ones, the only way to have a voice is to give large quantities of cash.
Yes, our "political process" is characterized by its "uniqueness."
Under the NPV plan, a presidential campaign would likely never darken the doors of Bemidji or Rochester. It could focus on the millions of voters in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. This compact seeks to destroy the genius of the existing electoral process and federalize our presidential election.
They don't go to Bemidji or Rochester now. Calling out Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, like the earlier reference to Gore v. Bush, is a dog whistle. And "federalize" is a silly pejorative. The presidency is a national office. A presidential election, therefore, should be--a national election.
Our diversified state-based system of elections helps preserve liberty by decentralizing our presidential election. Under our republican form of government, states were given the power to run elections, and that system continues to function pretty well.
This is cant. How is liberty preserved by turning over the selection of the Chief Executive to the voters of Ohio, Florida, Viriginia, and a handful of other states?
We cannot allow a well-funded and determined group of individuals to quietly undermine a central tenet of our Constitution with their solution in search of a problem.
The adjective "well-funded" would more accurately describe the recipients of Sheldon Adelson's largesse. The constitutional claim, for reasons I have explained, is bogus. And a "solution in search of a problem" would more accurately describe, say, voter ID laws. The deficiencies of the electoral college are obvious.
The map above shows, by state, the number of campaign events hosted during the 2012 general election campaign.
