AP (“Maine joins compact to elect the president by popular vote but it won’t come into play this November“):
Maine will become the latest to join a multistate effort to elect the president by popular vote with the Democratic governor’s announcement Monday that she’s letting the proposal become law without her signature.
Under the proposed compact, each state would allocate all its electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote for president, regardless of how individual states voted in an election.
But the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is on hold for now — and won’t play a role in the upcoming November election.
Gov. Janet Mills said she understands that there are different facets to the debate. Opponents point out that the role of small states like Maine could be diminished if the electoral college ends, while proponents point out that two of the last four presidents have been elected through the electoral college system despite losing the national popular vote.
Without a ranked voting system, Mills said she believes “the person who wins the most votes should become the president. To do otherwise seemingly runs counter to the democratic foundations of our country.”
“Still, recognizing that there is merit to both sides of the argument, and recognizing that this measure has been the subject of public discussion several times before in Maine, I would like this important nationwide debate to continue and so I will allow this bill to become law without my signature,” the governor said in a statement.
The compact would take effect only if supporters secure pledges of states with at least 270 electoral votes. Sixteen states and Washington, D.C. have joined the compact and Maine’s addition would bring the total to 209, the governor said. Other hurdles include questions of whether congressional approval is necessary to implement the compact.
In Maine, one of only two states to split their electoral votes under the current system, the debate in the Maine Legislature fell along partisan lines with Republican united in opposition.
The project was introduced in 2006 and I wrote the first of many OTB posts on the subject (“Abolishing the Electoral College by Stealth“) on April 22 of that year—almost exactly 18 years ago. It gained its first signatory, Maryland, in April 2007. I wrote about that one (“Maryland Passes ‘National Popular Vote’ Law“), too. There have been a whole passel of OTB posts on the subject since, with Doug Mataconis passionately against, Steven Taylor and I reservedly in favor, and Robert Prather skeptical of its constitutionality.
Steven and I both thought from the beginning that this agreement is likely in accord with the Constitution, as state legislatures have near-plenary power in how they allocate their Electors. Indeed, there’s no requirement to even hold a popular vote. But Doug and Robert are joined by many legal scholars who contend that this amounts to an interstate compact and thus requires Congressional approval. Others argue that, since this effectively eliminates the prospect of the House of Representatives having the power to elect the President in the event of an Electoral College tie, it’s an unconstitutional changing of the federal-state balance. Still others argue that this would violate the 14th Amendment, since some states would have wildly different election laws than others.
With steady progress, we’re getting considerably closer to the 270 Electoral Votes needed to put this to the test. Wikipedia shows how it unfolded:
It’s noteworthy that the 17 states and the District of Columbia that are on board are all solidly Democratic. That’s not surprising, in that the current construct considerably advantages Republicans, as seen most vividly with the 2000 and 2016 elections.* Not only would NPV change the rules in their favor but there’s very little downside risk for them: if the Republican candidate won the popular vote, it’s a near-guarantee they’d win the electoral vote, too.
It’s highly unlikely, then, that Texas and Florida, our second and third most populous states, with 40 and 30 Electors, respectively, will join. The current rules advantage the party that their constituents tend to prefer.
Pennsylvania, with 19 Electors, is the next biggest prize. They tend to be in the Blue column but are a swing state and get outsized attention from candidates under the current system. They’re unlikely to join.
Ditto Ohio (17), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16). They’re all swing states at this point, albeit ones that tend Red.
Michigan, then, is the next biggest gettable prize, with 15 Electors. That would put the total at 224—still 46 short.
Virginia is purple trending blue. It has 13 Electors.
You likely see where this is headed: the number of solid Blue states that haven’t already joined is small and we’d need most of them to sign on as they have a decreasing number of Electors. And, at that point, you run into the question that Maine had: do even Democratic-leaning small states want to give up the disproportionate voting power they have under the existing model?
We’re still a very long way away from 270. At which point we can test it in the courts.
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*Indeed, the string goes back to the 1888 and 1876 elections but the parties and electoral configurations were sufficiency different to make them a distractioon.
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Author: James Joyner
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