Being Popular

I’ve written a couple pieces about the National Popular Vote Compact Initiative, but there’s a bit of a new tidbit in regards to it. 

A brief summary about what the whole thing is.  The Compact is designed to eliminate the use of the Electoral College, whose role has long-since expired, and doing so without having to pass a Constitutional Amendment.  It says that a state will give all its Electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote – not to the candidate who wins its state.  In order to not disadvantage states who adopt the Compact early, the law doesn't kick in until enough states have passed it so that their collected Electoral votes add up together to a minimum of 270. That, of course, would then be enough to give the election to the candidate who won the national popular vote – regardless of how other states vote who haven’t signed the Compact.  After all, once a candidate receives those 270 Electoral votes from the states who have passed the Compact, that candidate is elected president.  At the moment, 16 states have signed on whose Electoral Votes bring the total to 195.  That’s a lot, but still 75 short.

What’s slightly changed is something I noticed after the Mid-Terms.  It’s not something that’s gotten any attention, but then this isn’t something that really ever does get attention.  I suspect it won’t get attention until all it takes to be enacted is maybe just one state.

But what I saw were three separate news stories.  It’s that Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota all flipped their state houses to Democratic.  That by itself is good news on general principle.  But even more, as it happens, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota – three large states with big Electoral Votes – have all three not yet signed onto the Compact.  And all three have Democratic governors.

Further, both Michigan and Minnesota have already passed the Compact in at least one chamber of their state’s legislature.

So, if all three of those states put forward bills for the National Popular Vote Compact Initiative and pass it – and it’s signed into law by their Democratic governors – that will add 44 more votes to the total, bringing the number to 239.  Which would then just be 31 votes short and truly in sight.

I have no idea what it will take for those three states to put forward bills.  I have to believe that those in charge of the Compact Initiative do have an idea of what it takes and will be acting on it.  But however little my efforts, I’ll do my part to bring attention to this.  Because it strikes me as substantive and in the moment.

Hopefully other states will join them, and push the number close.  But starting with these three is a really good jumping off point.