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Help NPV get to Gov’s Desk! [Senate Roll Call Attached]

By


YES

Sen. Antonioni  

Sen. Augustus

Sen. Baddour

Sen. Berry

Sen. Brown

Sen. Buoniconti

Sen. Candaras

Sen. Chandler

Sen. Creedon

Sen. Creem

Sen. Downing

Sen. Fargo

Sen. Galluccio

Sen. Hart

Sen. Hedlund

Sen. Jehlen

Sen. Joyce

Sen. McGee

Sen. Menard

Sen. Montigny

Sen. Murray

Sen. O’Leary

Sen. Panagiotakos

Sen. Petruccelli

Sen. Resor

Sen. Rosenberg

Sen. Spilka

Sen. Tolman

Sen. Tucker

Sen. Walsh

Sen. Wilkerson

NO

Sen. Brown

Sen. Hedlund

Sen. Knapick

Sen. Moore

Sen. Morrissey

Sen. Pacheco

Sen. Tarr

Sen. Timilty

Sen. Tisei

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Comments

  1. What are the provisions in the bill to prevent a state legislature and governor from repealing it with an emergency vote?

    • withdraw from the interstate-compact at any time except during the six month window between July 20th of an election year and inauguration day, January 20th.

      • They are still sending electors to the electoral college, what forces those electors to honor the compact and not to ditch it at the convention in favor of their state’s choice instead?

        • our electors to honor our current system of distribution.  It would be state law and rather than having our electoral votes go to the person that won our state it would go to the person that won the national popular vote.

          • because currently it’s state law that binds electors.  If the state changes the law [drops out of NPV during that six month window], then one of two things can happen:

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            p>1.  The other NPV states shrug and don’t sweat it, or
            2.  They sue in Federal Court.

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            p>If it’s (2), then the Feds will decide the ultimate fate of the electors in question, not the state.  So, it’s certainly not “the same way that we enforce” things now.

            • that electors would be forced to vote for whichever candidate in the same fashion.  Or rather, that the same weakness applies.  “They” was trying to imply that NPV had this weakness when in actuality both systems do which makes sense since NPV is simply a use of the Electoral College.

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              p>

              How would that be enforced? They are still sending electors to the electoral college, what forces those electors to honor the compact and not to ditch it at the convention in favor of their state’s choice instead?

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              p>What you were discussing,

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              p>

              If the state changes the law [drops out of NPV during that six month window]

              <

              p>was something completely different from what “They” was asking.  That’s talking about the consequences after the law is broken rather than the enforcement to make sure the electoral votes are given to the correct candidate (of which the same laws would apply).

            • what would happen if a state decided to change their electoral votes illegally and went with a district approach rather than an all or nothing system that most states currently employ?

              <

              p>Then they would be brought to Federal Court as well and go through the exact same process.

              • I think electors do not have to vote as pledged, but usually they do because they represent their state and so why wouldn’t they?  So be it district by district, or winner-take-all, they are usually happy to represent their state.  But now we are talking about a scenario where a state’s electors would be about to elect someone they don’t want.  I don’t see what compels them to follow through, when it would be perfectly legal for them to show up and cast their electoral votes for their state’s choice.

                • What if a district in Massachusetts votes for McCain, but the state overall votes for Obama?  Exact same issue that you bring up.

                • The election elects the slate of electors, who were nominated by the parties prior to the election.  They don’t represent a district, they represent the winning party.  Does the NPV bill say that we would now elect the slate of electors nominated by the national winning party?

                • Here is the part I was wondering about:

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                  p>

                  The presidential elector certifying official of each member state shall certify the appointment in that official’s own state of the elector slate nominated in that state in association with the national popular vote winner.

                  <

                  p>The “shall” there looks a lot like the “shall” that we chose to ignore a few years ago when the governor was supposed to call the Legislature back into session, and our Supreme Court simply said there was nothing they could do to force them back into session, there was no penalty they could impose.

                  <

                  p>Yes, it’s probably true that currently, the law says that the official “shall” certify the elector slate that wins the state, but the incentive to follow the law in that case is a lot more obvious – the official is not about to certify the losing slate against the state’s wishes because the state would eat him alive.  

                  <

                  p>But the state would want him to break the law if they didn’t vote for the national winner, and as we’ve seen here, people are more than willing to support officials who break the law if they think it is the right thing to do.  So it’d be surprising if the official didn’t break with the compact and say “screw that”, because he’d be a hero to his state.

                • But the state would want him to break the law if they didn’t vote for the national winner

                  <

                  p>That’s the whole point of the national popular vote which is to make everyone’s vote equal and whoever gets the most votes on the national level wins.  How a state did vote overall would be irrelevant because each person’s vote would have been given equal weight and the end result would show that.  

                • People would say, why is our state in the wrong column?  Why is the bad guy getting our electors?  And then you’d remind of them of the NPV compact we entered into back in 2008, and they’d say, get out of it, that was a stupid idea.  They’d point to election irregularities in Ohio and Montana and Florida and say we shouldn’t trust those counts, that the NPV winner is probably our guy, and our electors should represent our guy, so he becomes president.

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                  p>It’d be a repeat of the “process liberal” flame war that went on here.  When self-righteous fascists have enough power, they find their way around laws.

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                  p>This isn’t a problem in the current system because the majority gets their way in the current system.  They don’t have to bend to some obscure law.

        • My understanding was that the state would just send the slate of electors associated with the NPV winner, rather than the slate of electors associated with the state’s own popular vote winner.  As in the current system, there’s no guarantee that an elector wouldn’t be “faithless”.  This has been rare, however, since each candidate chooses people loyal to them and their party as electors.

          <

          p>My opinion of the NPV bill is that it is clearly not perfect, but it is a better system than the one we have now.  I also think that once this NPV system is in use, it will drive a movement to really finish the job right and abolish the Electoral College via a constitutional amendment.  But right now there’s no way that an amendment is going to happen, so we might as well move towards replacing the current system with the best system (where all votes matter) that is currently feasible.

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          p>I called Sen Pres Murray’s office earlier to register my support for the enacting the bill and will call my own State Senator soon.  Will Patrick sign this if it gets to his desk?

          • some states have law which dictates that a faithless elector’s vote is null and void and a new one is to be cast, while the faithless elector is either lighter in the wallet, sitting in the can, or both.

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            p>Other states have no such legislation.

          • position on NPV and just called his office to confirm that he hasn’t released any statement on it.  I would think he would sign though.

            • But some governors claim it excludes the will of the voters of their states.  This seems particularly silly when it comes from governors of states like MA or, hmm…California, since the current process effectively excludes all voters of “safe” states from having a say in the election and this proposal would explicitly change that.  But hopefully Patrick would sign it.

              <

              p>I called my senator (Jehlen) a little while ago.  The aide I left a message with said the NPV bill “did not pass” and she didn’t seem aware of a way to have the bill enacted at this point.  She said she wasn’t the legislation expert, however, and she said I could call back on Monday morning to speak with a person with more knowledge of the bill and the process.

  2. Even one no vote will stop a bill from passing in informal session — and there are no more formal sessions this year.  So NPV is pretty much dead in MA till next year.  

    • it must have already gone through a roll call vote and be of a “non-controversial nature”.  I believe it’s the Senate President however who decides if a matter is non-controversial or not.  Having 9 out of 36 Senators vote against NPV may or may not constitute a bill being controversial….I would like to find out though.

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