NJ Assembly passes National Popular Vote
New Jersey’s lower house has passed the National Popular Vote plan:
The Assembly voted 43-32 on Thursday to approve legislation delivering the state’s 15 electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote, although the measure could result in the electoral votes going to a candidate opposed by Garden State voters.
The apparent warning reminds me how much this discussion is mired in a state-by-state paradigm. No other consolidated, presidential democracy uses an electoral college, and our government certainly would not set one up in any autocracy it overthrew.
Though some congressional districts near New York City have gotten gradually more Republican-leaning since 2000, there’s little chance New Jersey would see its electors go to a Republican candidate any time soon. That would require seismic movements in the major parties’ coalitions.
One letter writer implores voters to “listen to and respect the wisdom of the founding fathers” who intentionally designed the system to protect small states and check mob rule. Yet another reminder of how misinformed the debate is.
The electoral college was a last-minute compromise in the spirit of keeping perfect’s hands off the good. In the final days of the convention, delegates could not agree on how to elect a president - whether one should be elected at all, in fact - so they threw the matter to the individual states.
The electoral college moreover does not protect small states, depending on the observer’s time horizon. It protects “battleground” states like Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio. Everyone else doesn’t matter.
According to BAN, the state senate votes on the bill on Monday.
MSS on 14 Dec 2007 at 12:59 pm #
“No other consolidated, presidential democracy uses an electoral college.”
Nor does any ‘unconsolidated’ presidential democracy, nor any presidential authoritarian system.
It is a vestige of the past, and the few other examples (Argentina, 1940s-50s Cuba) are all gone.
There are electoral colleges for the heads of state in some parliamentary systems, but these are a very different beast, both in the nature of the office being elected and in the nature of the electors themselves.
And then there is Bolivia: The only case other than the USA where the candidate with the most votes in a single round of popular voting could be denied the presidency (in Bolivia’s case because congress makes the selection if there is no majority in the popular vote).
That’s good democratic company, no doubt.
Fruits and Votes » Prof. Shugart's Blog » NJ developments on 14 Dec 2007 at 4:38 pm #
[...] By way of a couple of blogs I checked at lunch time, I see it has been a very good week in the New Jersey legislature. NJ Assembly passes National Popular Vote (see TDP) [...]