The Abomination of the "National Popular Vote" movement

This is almost beyond my ability to believe, but 6 states have so far adopted the "National Popular Vote" bill.

The intent of this bill is do effectively do away with the Electoral College system by negating it. The provision is that every state that adopts this bill agrees to give up its sovereignty in presidential elections as soon as enough states to equal 270 electoral college votes have adopted the measure.

The bill actually provides that, upon activation, all of the adopting state's electoral college votes will be awarded to the presidential candidate who gets the most total votes across the country. This means that a state's population could well have given the majority of their votes to one candidate, but have their votes rendered null and void because a different candidate won the popular, nationwide vote, causing all of that state's electoral college votes to be given to that other candidate. Taken to an extreme, even if 100% of the citizens of a state voted for candidate A, the state could be required to support candidate B and put him/her in office over the objections of every voter in the state.

How anybody of good faith could support this bill is quite beyond my ability to comprehend. But, maybe, that is the issue, and the people who have put this in place in Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington are NOT people of good faith, but something else entirely.

Let us hope that the expected Republican landslide in governorships and state legislatures will roll this back in many of these places, perhaps enshrining opposition to anything like this in their state constitutions so simple majorities in the state legislatures will not be enough to strip the citizens of the state of their right to decide, as a state, who should be president of the United States.

Restoring States' Rightful Place in the Balance of Power

The federal government was created by the states. It took ratification of the Constitution by the states. The states, therefore, should be the masters of the federal government, not the other way around. The federal government should only by able to govern with the consent of the states. The states, on the other hand, answer to the people of the state, and should only be able to govern with the consent of the people of the state.

Things have gotten very turned around, with the federal government exerting power never delegated to it by the states. The courts have proven that they are not adequate protectors of the states.

A couple of changes would fix this. One is to repeal the 17th Amendment, and restore the selection of Senators to the state legislatures. The original design was that the House of Representatives would represent the people directly, by being subject to election by those people, and that the Senate would represent the states, by being subject to selection by the state legislature. This would return us to the smarter original design and intent where both the people and the states would have representation in the federal government.

The other would be to give the states, collectively, effective veto power over federal legislation by allowing a majority of the state legislatures to vote to overturn any federal legislation. This would require a constitutional amendment, but it would put ultimate power back into the hands of the entities who originally created the federal government and gave it all of its delegated powers.

Progressives and statists will hate both of these provisions, which makes them all the more important. (It is interesting to watch political ads in Colorado against Republican Senate nominee Ken Buck proclaiming that he wants to "rewrite the Constitution" and "take away your right to vote" by repealing the 17th Amendment and restoring representation to the states. If only people knew their history, they would see this for what it is. What he really wants to do is un-rewrite the Constitution and restore the original wisdom of the founders.)

A Lesson to Learn for the 2012 Elections

For me, the 2010 elections are about one thing, and one thing only: stop the train by replacing as many Ds with Rs as possible. I don't care about the qualifications of the Rs this time. This is about stopping the bleeding with whatever is handy.

For 2012, we will have the opportunity to get more picky. And I hope we all remember to be very, very picky. No longer should it be acceptable for a candidate to paint his promises with such broad strokes that everybody can read into them what they wish. We must nail candidates down to specifics, we must look at everything - their record, their experience, their associations. And we must force them to tell us exactly where they stand on the issues that will matter most to us. No waffling. No room to later spin their words to have meant something else entirely. We really must hold them accountable, and not just hope they are what we want.

A Prediction Regarding the Democratic Party

Pretty much everybody is aware of and acknowledging the likely direction of the November elections, if not the magnitude of the shift that is coming. The Democrats have proceeded blithely into the craw of the American people and are about to be chewed up and spit out, as they rightly deserve.

There has been talk of the potential for a dying grasp at power by way of a lame duck session of Congress. It is about that potentiality that I have a prediction to record. IF the Democrats, following a resounding thrashing at the polls, exhibit the audacity to even try to push any of their unpopular policy items (e.g. Card Check or Cap and Trade) during a lame duck session, I herewith predict that 1) their attempts will fail and their efforts will be thwarted and 2) the very attempt may spell the death knoll of the Democratic party as a viable major player in American politics for a generation, if not more. I think the ramifications of such a brazen attempt to wrest America from the people would be a new 2-party landscape consisting of the Republican party on the "new left", and the Tea party on the "new right".

And wouldn't it be wonderful being able to choose between two parties which are both to the right of today's center, which are competing with each other over the right to restore respect for our Constitution, the principles of limited government, and respect for our founding principles? I look forward to the day.