Article Link

A Vote to Quit the Electoral College

Legislators pass a bill that could launch a national movement to elect the president by popular vote.

By Nancy Vogel, Times Staff Writer
August 31, 2006

SACRAMENTO — Lawmakers sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill Wednesday that would make California the first state to jump aboard a national movement to elect the president by popular vote.

Under the legislation, California would grant its electoral votes to the nominee who gets the most votes nationwide — not the most votes in California. Get enough other states to do the same, backers of the bill say, and soon presidential candidates will have to campaign across the nation, not just in a few key "battleground" states such as Ohio and Michigan that can sway the Electoral College vote.

"Frankly, the current system doesn't work," said Assemblyman Rick Keene (R-Chico), the only Republican to vote for the bill. "Presidential candidates don't bother to visit the largest state in the nation…. California is left out."

If Schwarzenegger signs the bill — AB 2948 by Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Anaheim) — California will be the first state to embrace the "national popular vote" movement, though legislation is pending in five other states: New York, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado and Louisiana.

The California legislation would not take effect until enough states passed such laws to make up a majority of the Electoral College votes — a minimum of 11 states, depending on population. The governor's office said Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the bill.

Many Republicans spoke against the legislation, arguing that it was an "end run" around the U.S. Constitution and would drive presidential candidates to campaign in big cities and ignore rural areas.

"Those who are running for president," said Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), "are going to talk to Los Angeles and San Francisco."

Late Wednesday, a measure that would impose a container fee at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports to raise half a billion dollars a year for tougher security and cleaner air passed the Assembly. . The vote on the bill — SB 927 by Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) — was 36 to 41, the minium needed to pass.

Republicans had warned that the $30-per-container fee would be passed on to consumers. Democrats who voted for the bill argued that the money would be used to clean up diesel soot that now sickens thousands of Southern Californians a year. Republicans compared a purplish chart of the estimated health risks from port pollution to a map of the Soviet Union while Democrats saw it as a malignant cancer growth.

"What we will have is about 2,000 more bureaucrats running around, driving their cars around, figuring out how to regulate trucks," said Assemblyman Ray Haynes (R-Murrieta).

"I think this is the most critical public health crisis facing the Southern California region," responded Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills).

The Assembly Appropriations Committee had killed a different bill with the same content earlier this month, but Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) revived the measure last week by gutting and amending another bill. Nuñez acted after environmental activists surrounded him at a youth sports clinic in Los Angeles and handed him a soccer ball with the port container fee bill attached.

The bill charges $30 for each container unloaded at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles — a complex responsible for 40% of the country's port cargo. A third of the estimated $500 million a year the fee would generate would be earmarked for improving infrastructure to handle the tripling of cargo expected by 2020. Another third would be spent buying equipment or hiring workers to improve security; only 2% of containers moving through the ports are inspected. The final third would go to the California Air Resources Board to reduce truck, ship and rail pollution associated with the ports, which are the largest source of air pollution on the South Coast.

Two other Lowenthal port bills died this month in the Assembly Appropriations Committee: SB 1829, which would have limited trucks to idling no more than 30 minutes as they line up to get into the ports, and SB 764, which would have required the ports to reduce air pollution to 2001 levels by 2010.

In other action, the Assembly passed a bill to toughen penalties for sex offenders, including those who arrange to meet children over the Internet.

Estimated to cost the state an additional $200 million in prison, mental hospital, probation, training and treatment expenses, SB 1128 by Sen. Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) passed with bipartisan support, 66 to 0.

It is a Democratic attempt to counter a Republican-backed initiative on the November ballot — Proposition 83 — that would require electronic monitoring of convicted sex offenders for life and ban child molesters from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks.

The bill returns to the Senate for a final vote.

There is no perfect answer here. But I certainly prefer the popular vote over the electoral college.

Yay! I hate the electoral college. Burn in hell, you fucking electoral college!

Is there no end to electioneering? What a disaster... allowing the popular vote to decide our future? Now I might move to Canada with Alec Baldwin.

Two recent elections have shown that the electoral college is a flawed system. The 2000 election, of course, where the loser ended up winning the popular vote. The 1992 election is another example - Ross Perot received 19% of the popular vote but was blanked in the electoral college count.

There is always the argument that the rural areas' concerns will not be given the weight that the urban areas will...but then again candidates will pay little attention to, say, a solid "red" state and focus on states that are "blue" and the "swing" states. So either way, groups of people are rather ignored.

I think the only ones who would miss the electoral college system would be the media....they wouldn't be able to call an election as quickly. I never understood how they could declare a victor for a state where 5% of precincts had officially reported, but they do.

To those hoping the electoral college will go away: Its too early to bury it.
To those hoping it will stay: Its still breathing.

Its an interesting article, but we'll have to wait and see how things turn out.

In 92, Bill Clinton won Montana with less than 40% of the popular vote in that state. Crazy shit.

I've worked on alternate electoral college schemes in the past six years, but I've never come up with one that works any better than the current system. I'm leaning pretty heavily towards a straight popular vote system these days.

BTW, I think this California legislation may be unconstitutional, but I'll look into it.

Way too early. As much as I hate the electoral college, I think it will be some time before it's done any other way.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution ... l#section1



That leads me to believe that it would be constitutional.

Yea, its definitely constitutional. States have the right to govern over all that. I don't know if its good though, because I would bet that it will cause even more people to not vote. When your vote is one out of a possible 300 million others, it kind of makes you feel extraordinarily small and meaningless. But probably not that much more than it is now, in that most states are pretty much the same every year on which party wins the Presidential election there. Pretty much no matter what I do, a Democrat is going to win in New York, and a Republican will win in Texas. But these things are somewhat temporary. Ohio, Florida, etc, arent going to be the swing states forever. Tough call I think.

The part I think may be questionable is that California is saying that they will choose their electors based on the popular vote of the entire country, not just California. I wonder whether that is somehow exceeding their scope of authority. It might be OK, but as a Californian, I might be a bit miffed if my electors were being determined based on the votes of someone in another state.

Of course, a person voting in Wyoming has about twice as much weight to their vote than a person in California under the current system, so maybe I wouldn't care.

Doesnt Maine already do something different with their electoral votes? Dont they split them? It's not a winner take all scenario, like all the other states.

Just thought I'd point it out, since there is at least one example of a state doing something different.

Maine and Nebraska allow for splitting of the votes under some circumstances (I can't remember what those are). But whatever it is, it's entirely based on voting WITHIN the state.

Two of their electors go to the popular vote--the remaining ones are split one apeice by each congressional district.

Also, this part of the bill is very important to take into account:



That way, an election won't be swayed by California alone.

That's right. In Nebraska it's almost never an issue since the whole state goes GOP everytime (forever), but Maine has split more often.

Only once, actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Elect ... ine_method

Maybe the idea is to get the other states to sign on to this idea so that it would be a straight up and down popular vote, and maybe easier to tabulate than state by state. Yo no se. If only the state legislature would try to resolve more pressing local matters. =/

wow, this would be pretty big. I'm all for change, lets do it.

What a retarded law. How would California manage counting ballots in the other 49 states?

Why wouldn't they just introduce a Constitutional amendment and try to start an actual nationwide movement that way?