The Connecticut Compromise

image credit: www.forbes.com

Coming soon to a state near you?

From Tara Ross at The Daily Signal:

Opponents of the Electoral College achieved an important victory last weekend when Connecticut’s legislature passed the so-called National Popular Vote compact. Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is expected to sign the measure.

Most Americans have never heard of the National Popular Vote compact, but it is shockingly close to causing a major political and legal firestorm. It is a clever scheme to change how we elect the president without the bother of having to pass a constitutional amendment.

States that approve this legislation enter a simple compact with one another. Each participating state agrees to allocate its electors to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of how its own citizens voted. The compact goes into effect when states holding 270 electoral votes (enough to win the presidency) have agreed to the plan.

With Connecticut’s vote, 11 states and the District of Columbia have now approved the measure, giving the compact a total of 172 electors. It needs only 98 more to reach the 270 mark.

The Constitution State has drifted far from its roots. What would Founders such as Roger Sherman think? That Connecticut statesman was an influential delegate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Great Compromise—sometimes called the Connecticut Compromise— which gave Congress its bicameral structure, might never have been brokered without him.

Moreover, Sherman was one of many delegates from small states who refused to go along with the idea of a direct popular vote for the presidency. He knew that little Connecticut would be outvoted time and time again. The people at large, Sherman told the Convention, “will generally vote for some man in their own state, and the largest state will have the best chance for the appointment.”

His words reflected the sentiments of other small state delegates.

. . .

Now imagine what Clinton—or any candidate—could do without the restraints inherent in the Electoral College system.

If Clinton reaped a reward from those landslide victories in Los Angeles and New York City, wouldn’t she have worked even harder to run up her tallies there? Why would she make extra visits to Rust Belt states if she could make up the votes with massive voter drives in the big cities?

With the Electoral College, the Democratic Party received a firm reminder not to take those states for granted. Without the Electoral College, such states — which make up vast swaths of the electorate — could simply be ignored.

Read the rest of the article (“Connecticut Subverts the Electoral College, Rejecting Its Own History”) here.

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