[EL] National Popular Vote fails in Maine, plus a legal question about its constitutionality

[Rob Richie]

I won't worry about Sean's hypothetical as it is purely that -- a
hypothetical that I can't imagine gaining support. Perhaps John Koza or
others might want to address it.

The Maine vote mirrored consideration of NPV there a few years ago. The
vote in fact was closer in the house this time even though no one outside
the legislature were talking about the bill there. The fact that an
un-lobbied bill can actually gain votes over one that was lobbied is in
fact a reflection of growing support in a mix of states.

I'll note that Sean wasn't quite as quick to showcase the vote on National
Popular Vote in the New York state legislature last week. Despite Sean's
efforts on the ground, a majority of Republicans and a majority of
Democrats in both chambers voted for NPV. In the state senate, the split
was 27-2 in favor among Republicans and 30-2 in favor among Democrats for
an overall margin of 57-4. Seems to me to reflect the triumph of reason
over emotion.

ButI'm not looking for dustups!

Onward,
Rob


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org


On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Sean Parnell <
sean at impactpolicymanagement.com> wrote:

> I know today is "The Day After McCutcheon," and also maybe "The Day People
> Argue About Voter Fraud in North Carolina," but I thought I'd also pass
> along the information that National Popular Vote has failed in Maine, both
> in the Senate (tie 17-17 vote to accept the minority committee report,
> which favored NPV) and in the House (60-85 to accept the minority report).
> As with all legislation there is of course the possibility that it will be
> revived, but that seems unlikely at this point.
>
>
>
> It does remind me however that I have a question to pose the list
> regarding the constitutionality of NPV and the legal theory underpinning
> it.
>
>
>
> As I understand it, the legal theory supporting the constitutionality of
> NPV is that states have an unfettered authority to determine the manner in
> which they award their presidential electors, so long as it doesn't bump up
> against other constitutional requirements such as by prohibiting women from
> voting for president. In the case of NPV, this theory means that a system
> in which states award their electors based on factors outside of the state,
> and in concert with other states, is constitutional.
>
>
>
> Now here's my question: under this theory, NPV's inclusion of popular vote
> totals in non-compact states is basically a courtesy. If they wanted to,
> the NPV compact would be amended to simply say that member states would
> collectively award their electors to the candidate who receives the largest
> number of popular votes in the compact states, and simply ignore states
> that aren't members of compacts. Furthermore, while the compact currently
> says that any state may join the compact, I assume that could be amended to
> say that a majority of states already in the compact must vote to approve
> the membership of other states who want to join, or some other limiting
> feature could be devised (I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that
> Oregon can't join The *Great Lakes*-St. Lawrence River Basin *Water*
> Resources *Compact).*
>
>
>
> *First question is, have I accurately understood the legal theory
> underpinning NPV's constitutionality and what it would allow? And the
> second question of course is, does anyone think the Supreme Court would
> look at that and say, "Sure, looks good to us"?*
>
>
>
> *I'd love to hear any responses, pro, con, or other, either on the list
> (it's been a while since we've had a good NPV dustup, I think!) or off. *
>
>
>
> *Best,*
>
>
>
> Sean Parnell
>
> President
>
> Impact Policy Management, LLC
>
> 6411 Caleb Court
>
> Alexandria, VA  22315
>
> 571-289-1374 (c)
>
> sean at impactpolicymanagement.com
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20140403/0860de99/attachment.html>