Colorado may be saved from popular vote Nonsense

[Singlestack]

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2019/08/22/federal-appeals-court-torpedoes-national-popular-vote-movement-thanks-hillary-clinton-elector/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=d4baa59646612a7bdf8424d87739c943
Federal Appeals Court Torpedoes the National Popular Vote Movement Thanks to a Hillary Clinton Elector Posted at 3:00 pm on August 22, 2019 by streiff (https://www.redstate.com/streiff)










(?subject=Redhot&body=Federal Appeals Court Torpedoes the National Popular Vote Movement Thanks to a Hillary Clinton Electorhttps://www.redstate.com/streiff/2019/08/22/federal-appeals-court-torpedoes-national-popular-vote-movement-thanks-hillary-clinton-elector/)
(?subject=Redhot&body=Federal Appeals Court Torpedoes the National Popular Vote Movement Thanks to a Hillary Clinton Electorhttps://www.redstate.com/streiff/2019/08/22/federal-appeals-court-torpedoes-national-popular-vote-movement-thanks-hillary-clinton-elector/)
(https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2019/08/22/federal-appeals-court-torpedoes-national-popular-vote-movement-thanks-hillary-clinton-elector/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=d4baa59646612a7bdf8424d87739c943#disqus-comments)
(https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2019/08/22/federal-appeals-court-torpedoes-national-popular-vote-movement-thanks-hillary-clinton-elector/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=d4baa59646612a7bdf8424d87739c943#disqus-comments)



Quill ballpoint pens sit ready for Elector College electors, Monday, Dec. 19, 2016, in Olympia, Wash. Members of Washington state?s Electoral College met at noon Monday in the Capitol to complete the constitutional formality. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)



The genius of our Founding Fathers was in realizing that in order for a collection of sovereign states to agree to delegate some of the sovereignty to a federal government, even the smallest of states had to be guaranteed that their rights would not be trammeled and that the resulting nation would be a true republic and not merely perpetual rule by the largest states. The creation of a Senate elected by the state legislatures was one such check. The requirement of a super-majority of both Congress and of the States to amend the constitution was another. The masterpiece was the decision to have the president elected by an Electoral College ensuring that the president had widespread support throughout the country rather than being a regional candidate put in office by running up a large margin of victory in a small number of large states.
After George Bush defeated Al Gore while narrowly losing the popular vote, the progressive forces who would like nothing more than to destroy the republican character of the United States, came up with the idea of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). The idea being that if a large number of states made an agreement among themselves to cast their electoral votes for the candidate who won the popular vote, regardless of how many votes that candidate received in state elections, that the Electoral College could essentially be corrupted from its true purpose and made to serve the ends of a purely democratic election process, something, by the way, that the Founders abhorred.


Since its inception in 2007, 16 states controlling 196 electoral votes have signed on.


There are a lot of reasons to doubt that this is legal. The Constitution expressly forbids interstate compacts. Some law professors have argued that this is really THAT kind of compact but a TOTALLY DIFFERENT kind of compact which would pass constitutional muster. (If you can find an idea so bizarre that you can?t get an Ivy League law professor to argue in favor of it, please let me know. Its sort of like the old joke about why scientists have started using lawyers rather than rats in lab experiments (http://www.ahajokes.com/law019.html).) And, of course, when you cast a vote for president you are actually casting a vote for an elector who is generally understood to be able to vote how they wish. Hence the hunt for ?faithless electors? in 2000 and 2016, that is, electors who would vote for the Democrat rather than the person they were pledged to support.
What is so offensive about this is that it is a typically dishonest move by the left to find and end run around part of the Constitution they don?t like. There is a mechanism for getting rid of the Electoral College. It?s called a ?constitutional amendment.? But to get there they would actually have to convince a large majority of Congress and of Americans that this makes sense when it really doesn?t. So they?ve come up with this cute little idea knowing that they only have to be clever enough to convince a handful of like-minded federal judges to go along with the lies and with the fiction and they have effectively changed the Constitution without anyone being able to object.


Regardless of the legality, the practicality suffered a significant blow yesterday when an appeals court ruled that an elector cannot be bound by a state to vote any particular way.


(https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2019/08/22/msnbc-reporter-announces-women-politicians-dont-character-problems/)







This is the set up (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/22/he-tried-stop-trump-electoral-college-court-says-his-faithless-ballot-was-legal/).
The ballot was pre-filled with Hillary Clinton?s name, but Micheal Baca didn?t want to vote for Hillary Clinton.

The 24-year-old presidential elector in Colorado had a different plan. Weeks earlier, following Donald Trump?s victory in the general election, Baca and a fellow elector began a movement they called ?Hamilton Electors,? a long-shot bid to stop Trump from winning the presidency. The idea was to convince enough members of the electoral college ? the body of 538 members who vote for president ? to instead cast ballots for Republicans such as former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, depriving Trump of just enough electoral votes required to become president.
?
Everyone told Baca it was a long shot ? but he didn?t think so. All they needed was 37 out of 306 Republican electors to vote for a candidate other than Trump, and they also sought out Democrats to vote for moderate Republicans. Baca found two takers in Colorado: Polly Baca (no relation) and Robert Nemanich.

Ballot of Micheal Baca, who voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and made state history. #ElectoralCollege (https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #hamiltonelectors (https://twitter.com/hashtag/hamiltonelectors?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) @COindependent (https://twitter.com/COindependent?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) pic.twitter.com/UaqpKpdrSE (https://t.co/UaqpKpdrSE)
? Marianne Goodland (@MGoodland) December 19, 2016 (https://twitter.com/MGoodland/status/810993294427574272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Just an observation. What did he hope to accomplish? The best he could do would be to have had the election thrown into the House of Representatives which had a Republican majority, but virtue signaling is nothing if not a spectator sport.
The Colorado Secretary of State wasn?t amused. (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/21/electoral-college-members-not-bound-popular-vote-c/)

Then-Secretary of State Wayne Williams refused to count the vote and removed Baca as an elector. He replaced him with another elector who voted for Clinton.
Just think about how little an actual election made if the Secretary of State can summarily remove an elected official for not doing his bidding and replace him with a compliant, stump-broke susbstitute, because there is nothing really different about an elector and any other elected official.
Baca, not being a total twit, sued. Today the Tenth Circuit ruled.

Now, for apparently the first time, a federal appeals court has upheld the right of ?faithless electors? to vote with their conscience ? a ruling that ?throws into question? states? winner-take-all election systems that bind electors to vote for the state?s popular vote winner, attorneys on Baca?s case said. In a 125-page split opinion Tuesday, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled that Colorado?s decision to nullify Baca?s vote and remove him as an elector was unconstitutional.
?The text of the Constitution makes clear that states do not have the constitutional authority to interfere with presidential electors who exercise their constitutional right to vote for the President and Vice President candidates of their choice,? U.S. Circuit Judge Carolyn B. McHugh, an Obama appointee, wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Jerome A. Holmes, a George W. Bush appointee. Mary Beck Briscoe, a Clinton appointee, dissented, arguing the case was moot because no damages could be awarded.
Read the whole opinion (https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/18/18-1173.pdf).
The impact on the NPVIC nonsense is pretty clear. State parties choose the slate of electors to vote for president. The NPVIC is predicated on the (erroneous) notion that state governments can bind these officials in how they vote. Now its pretty obvious that they can?t. Now that this truly bad idea is pretty much dead, the left is flogging the idea that this means the end of our system of government.

?This court decision takes power from Colorado voters and sets a dangerous precedent,? said Jena Griswold, Colorado?s secretary of state. ?Our nation stands on the principle of one person, one vote. We are reviewing this decision with our attorneys, and will vigorously protect Colorado voters.?
Actually, it returns to the voters of Colorado to vote for the candidate of their choice for president instead of having the voters of New York and California making that choice for them.
There may be a trip to the Supreme Court in the future. Even if Colorado doesn?t appeal (I don?t think they will because they know they?ll get their clock cleaned and that will finish the NPVIC for good), there is a conflicting decision from the Washington state supreme court ruling that electors are bound to vote in the way directed. The decision seems like lunacy but it is Washington and the Ninth Circuit so lunacy is sort of the way of life there.
This now seems to put the dream of ending the Electoral College back where it belongs, which is requiring a constitutional amendment. Good luck with that.

[Gman]

I read this article yesterday: Faithless elector: A court ruling just changed how we pick our president (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/faithless-elector-a-court-ruling-just-changed-how-we-pick-our-president/ar-AAG8tdZ)

I thought it attempted to painted a picture of how terrible the electoral system is, right down to the name of the article.


A federal appeals court ruled late Tuesday that presidential electors who cast the actual ballots for president and vice president are free to vote as they wish and cannot be required to follow the results of the popular vote in their states.

The decision could give a single elector the power to decide the outcome of a presidential election ? if the popular vote results in an apparent Electoral College tie.

"This issue could be a ticking time bomb in our divided politics. It's not hard to imagine how a single faithless elector, voting differently than his or her state did, could swing a close presidential election," said Mark Murray, NBC News senior political editor.

It hasn't been much of an issue in American political history because when an elector refuses to follow the results of a state's popular vote, the state simply throws the ballot away. But Tuesday's ruling says states cannot do that.

The decision, from a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, is a victory for Micheal Baca, a Colorado Democratic elector in 2016. Under state law, he was required to cast his ballot for Hillary Clinton, who won the state's popular vote. Instead, he crossed out her name and wrote in John Kasich, a Republican and then the governor of Ohio.

The secretary of state removed Baca as an elector, discarded his vote and brought in another elector who voted for Clinton. In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court said the nullification of Baca's vote was unconstitutional.

When voters go to the polls in presidential races, they actually cast their votes for a slate of electors chosen by the political parties of the nominees. States are free to choose their electors however they want, Tuesday's ruling said, and can even require electors to pledge their loyalty to their political parties.

But once the electors are chosen and report in December to cast their votes as members of the Electoral College, they are fulfilling a federal function, and a state's authority has ended. "The states' power to appoint electors does not include the power to remove them or nullify their votes," the court said.

Because the Constitution contains no requirement for electors to follow the wishes of a political party, "the electors, once appointed, are free to vote as they choose," assuming that they cast their vote for a legally qualified candidate.

A total of 30 states have laws that bind electors, requiring them to cast their votes for whichever candidate won that state's popular vote. But the laws are weak, providing only nominal penalties for what are known as "faithless electors" who fail to conform to the popular vote.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1952 that states do not violate the Constitution when they require electors to pledge that they will abide by the popular vote. But the justices have never said whether it is constitutional to enforce those pledges.

Legal scholars said Tuesday's ruling was the first from a federal appeals court on the issue of faithless electors. It applies immediately to the six states of the 10th Circuit: Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Kanas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

?This court decision takes power from Colorado voters and sets a dangerous precedent," said Jena Griswold, Colorado's secretary of state. "Our nation stands on the principle of one person, one vote. We are reviewing this decision with our attorneys, and will vigorously protect Colorado voters.?

The federal court ruling conflicts with a decision from Washington state's Supreme Court in May, which said electors must follow the results of the popular vote. "The power of electors to vote comes from the state, and the elector has no personal right to that role,? the court said.

Lawyers from the nonprofit Equal Citizens, which represented the Washington state electors and Baca in Colorado, said they will appeal the Washington ruling to the Supreme Court.

?We know Electoral College contests are going to be closer in the future than they have been in the past. And as they get closer and closer, even a small number of electors could change the results of an election," said Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor who founded Equal Citizens and is part of its legal team. "Whether you think that?s a good system or not, we believe it is critical to resolve it before it would decide an election.?

If the Supreme Court chooses to take up the dispute, it would have time to rule on the issue before the Electoral College meets in December 2020 to cast the formal vote for president.

Drives me nuts when the 'experts' refer to our government as a "democracy" and misconstrue concepts like "Our nation stands on the principle of one person, one vote."

The United States is a constitutional republic. We plaud our system for being able to protect the minority, while some push for giving in to the will of the majority. True democracy can easily turn into 'mob rule'.

[Aloha_Shooter]

The national popular vote movement is sheer idiocy but the faithless elector is pretty bad too. The issue is not that Baca didn't do what Wayne Williams wanted him to, the issue is that Baca didn't exercise the will of the voters he had agreed to represent. Note that 1) he was a Democrat and 2) his goal in this was to prevent Trump from being elected. The media is lying about the case the same way they've been distorting the truth for the last 4 or 5 decades (but been increasingly more blatant about it). The articles say he didn't want to vote for Hillary Clinton but what he was really doing was trying to trade his vote (which wouldn't have mattered anyway since he was appointed to vote for the loser) to convince electors for the winner to change their votes in the Electoral College. I'll give him credit for ingenuity in trying to make lemonade out of his situation but the faithless elector makes it much easier to undermine the electoral system.

Electors are a buffer yes but the faithless elector means the Left can and will shift their efforts to winning by any means necessary, including social pressures and intimidation of the electors. The SJWs just dumped a an active duty service member from the Ms America pageant, cheered the death of one of the Koch brothers, and have destroyed 3 major entertainment franchises (Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Star Wars) with efforts underway to torpedo another (Marvel). They have actively picketed and assaulted staff members and appointees from the Trump administration at their homes or while eating dinner. You think they're going to have any compunction at all about pursuing electors for Trump next year?

[XJ]

Do you guys remember that ballot-by-mail was a higher priority than the gun bills when they had the full legislature & Hick? Combine that with same-day fraud and every election is now suspect. I have faith in El Paso County (for now), but not some others.

I highly doubt we will ever see East California be competitive at the national level for Republicans again. Sending their brown shirts to harass electors won't even be necessary.

[Singlestack]

Electors are a buffer yes but the faithless elector means the Left can and will shift their efforts to winning by any means necessary, including social pressures and intimidation of the electors. The SJWs just dumped a an active duty service member from the Ms America pageant, cheered the death of one of the Koch brothers, and have destroyed 3 major entertainment franchises (Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Star Wars) with efforts underway to torpedo another (Marvel). They have actively picketed and assaulted staff members and appointees from the Trump administration at their homes or while eating dinner. You think they're going to have any compunction at all about pursuing electors for Trump next year?

Very true, and good analysis Aloha. "Any means necessary" is "the ends justify the means".

It is amazing to me how quickly the far left rolls out their talking points on any issue, and the lock-step identical language used by politicians and media types. That is impressive, and a sign of having a good process that all of their people seem to follow.

[def90]

I have read several articles that say the national popular vote issue favors republicans. Here’s the reasoning. The states that are signing on to this are already blue and aren’t likely going to change so their electoral votes will go blueanyway and have nothing to gain. In those states such as California many republicans no longer bother to vote knowing that the states electoral votes will go to dems anyway so why bother.. what you end up with is a reason for these non voters to begin voting again because now their vote once again counts. Imagine if Trump this time around wins the popular vote, now California, NY, Colorado and others would be forced to cast their electoral votes for Trump even though the residents of those states likely voted blue. Think about the number of heads that would explode when that happens. Basically the odds of the popular vote causing a blue state to cast their electoral votes red are much higher than a red state being forced to vote blue.

[Bailey Guns]

^^ I have no idea if your analysis is right or wrong or in between. Having said that, what you've said sounds very much like the type of reasoning a leftist would use to try to convince non-believers in the popular vote nonsense that it's actually a good idea for conservatives. I have a really hard time believing that leftists haven't given this a lot of thought and there's no fuckin' way they'd sign on to this if they didn't think it was gonna help their cause.

[Great-Kazoo]

Very true, and good analysis Aloha. "Any means necessary" is "the ends justify the means".

It is amazing to me how quickly the far left rolls out their talking points on any issue, and the lock-step identical language used by politicians and media types. That is impressive, and a sign of having a good process that all of their people seem to follow.

I believe that's called Goose Stepping. The actual german word escapes me atm.

NVM, found it. marschierender Gnseschritt

[Singlestack]

I have read several articles that say the national popular vote issue favors republicans. Here?s the reasoning. The states that are signing on to this are already blue and aren?t likely going to change so their electoral votes will go blue anyway and have nothing to gain. In those states such as California many republicans no longer bother to vote knowing that the states electoral votes will go to dems anyway so why bother.. what you end up with is a reason for these non voters to begin voting again because now their vote once again counts. Imagine if Trump this time around wins the popular vote, now California, NY, Colorado and others would be forced to cast their electoral votes for Trump even though the residents of those states likely voted blue. Think about the number of heads that would explode when that happens. Basically the odds of the popular vote causing a blue state to cast their electoral votes red are much higher than a red state being forced to vote blue.

I don't buy this, at all. The popular vote is driven by the coasts and the big cities. The Dem advantage there is enormous, and likely fairly permanent. In those areas, the dem advantage is growing, not shrinking.

Because of that, "Basically the odds of the popular vote causing a blue state to cast their electoral votes red are much higher than a red state being forced to vote blue" does not follow.

[Gman]

Popular vote would kill us in the blue states. Not only did Hillary win California, but she won big, which tilts the national numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_Califo rnia

Nominee Hillary Clinton Donald Trump
Party Democratic Republican
Home state New York New York
Running mate Tim Kaine Mike Pence
Electoral vote 55 0
Popular vote 8,753,788 4,483,810
Percentage 61.73% 31.62%

That's a + ‭4,269,978‬ Dem popular votes on a national basis just from 1 state. The coastal regions and big cities that are overwhelmingly brain damaged Democrat will tip the national popular vote that much further in their favor.

[Circuits]

I have read several articles that say the national popular vote issue favors republicans. Here’s the reasoning. The states that are signing on to this are already blue and aren’t likely going to change so their electoral votes will go blueanyway and have nothing to gain. In those states such as California many republicans no longer bother to vote knowing that the states electoral votes will go to dems anyway so why bother.. what you end up with is a reason for these non voters to begin voting again because now their vote once again counts. Imagine if Trump this time around wins the popular vote, now California, NY, Colorado and others would be forced to cast their electoral votes for Trump even though the residents of those states likely voted blue. Think about the number of heads that would explode when that happens. Basically the odds of the popular vote causing a blue state to cast their electoral votes red are much higher than a red state being forced to vote blue.
I'll say it again.

NONE of these laws take effect until and unless there are enough states in the "compact" to form a majority of the EC.

NOTHING will happen in 2020 if the non-Democrat happens to win the popular vote.

Even if in some fantasy world enough states joined the "compact" to make an electoral college majority before the 2020 presidential vote, if the non-Democrat candidate won the popular vote, "Hawaii Judge" or the 9th Circuit would shortcut that nonsense immediately.