Virginia state Sen. Ralph Smith (R)
We've been focusing quite a bit lately on Republican efforts to rig the 2016 presidential election by changing how electoral votes are allocated in several key states. Slowly but surely, this burgeoning political crisis has captured more attention, culminating this morning with a front-page piece in the Washington Post.
The larger fight, however, is anything but static. GOP leaders in Florida's legislature are already announcing their opposition to the scheme, and in Virginia, where the Republican plan to rig the election is an immediate threat -- a vote may come as early as next week -- GOP unanimity is starting to crumble.
My colleague Laura Conaway noted yesterday that Virginia state Sen. Jill Vogel (R) is "generally not" in favor of the plan, and this morning, another key Virginian joined her.
If a bill to reapportion Virginia's presidential electoral votes by congressional district is a Republican plot, someone forgot to tell state Sen. Ralph Smith, R-Bedford County.
Smith said this morning that he opposes the legislation, calling it "a bad idea." Smith sits on the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, which will hear the bill next week. Without Smith's support, it's unlikely the bill could get to the Senate floor. The Privileges and Elections Committee has eight Republicans and seven Democrats.
"What if all states got to skewering it to their advantage?" Smith said in an interview this morning.
Given furious Democratic opposition to the scheme, and the closely divided nature of the Virginia Senate, any Republican opposition is likely to kill the proposal.
Smith's conclusion that this is a "bad idea," in other words, is absolutely critical to its demise, and one can assume he'll be the subject of intense lobbying from his party between now and the upcoming vote.
Before we move on, I just have to mention this quote from the Post's article.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Charles W. Carrico Sr. (R-Grayson County), said he wants to give smaller communities a bigger voice. "The last election, constituents were concerned that it didn't matter what they did, that more densely populated areas were going to outvote them," he said.
"This is coming to me from not just my Republican constituents," added Carrico, whose district voted overwhelmingly for Republican Mitt Romney in last year's presidential election. "I want to be a voice for a region that feels they have no reason to come to the polls."
It's important to realize this is insane. Carrico is arguing that some voters feel like they're outnumbered by other voters, so there's an expectation that Republicans will create an unlevel playing field -- on purpose -- so the candidate who gets fewer votes is allowed to win.
It's as if democracy itself no longer has any meaning to some folks. It's why, in response to public rejection, they're prepared to cheat rather than improve.
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Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Ohio all have governor's races in 2014 and this cunning scheme is Democratic wave election bait. Some of the pols are evidently smart enough to realize that.
Wisconsin is another state with a sitting governor up for re-election in two years. Notice how Scott Walker backed away quickly from this little scheme?
Virginia's gubernatorial election is this year. Imagine my glee when one campaign ended and an even batpoo crazier one is about to begin.
Virginia's Governor race is *this* year, not in '14, as are all the other state races. That's why they were in such a tearing hurry to redistrict out of turn. The second part of the rigging (elector allocation in presidential elections) that is looking forward to '16, although it is building on that first move. You wouldn't have known that this session is only 46 days long and that they have other business to see to before disbanding, would you?
BTW... Smith would become my Senator, after the redistricting (2nd in as many years!); my current one -- Creigh Deeds (D) -- being knocked out due to the 25th district's "re-carving".
Ohio voters turned down an effort in the past November to create a panel to supervise re-districting after every census, instead of leaving it to the legislature. I thought this was an excellent idea that would if not stop gerrymandering, at least take some of the politics out of it. Opponents said this panel was something that would not be accoutable, it was bigger government, etc. But no one thought about Kasick's Jobs Ohio, a non-elected, non-accountable group using liquor receipts to create jobs, and their meetings would not be subject to sunshine laws. This state is in serious need of cleaning up. I hate to think what they will try to do to follow the Virginia idea other than proportional electoral college votes which is also a danger to the democratic process.
Yet another reason to return a vigorous, substantive, REQUIRED civics curriculum to our schools!
I second that!
Something I've been saying for a while along with anyone desiring to run for public office must first be able to pass a high school Civics final exam. However, as far as making it mandatory curriculum? Fine. Problem is is that now when teachers try to make Johnny do his homework and actually study for class, Mommy and Daddy are all over the school board when that teacher gives Johnny detention for NOT applying himself in class. School districts have limited budgets and teachers have limited patience so Johnny keeps getting promoted to get him the f' out of their class and out of the school. Ergo, all the kids currently walking around with diplomas that don't know jack! Parents need to go back to siding with faculty and administration and being freaking parents. Yes! It's a sucky job. Your kids will hate you..if you're doing it right but then you end up with ones who are making more money than you at a better job after earning nice academic scholarships to go to a good college. If you were also nasty enough to give them chores and make them follow the rules at home...they also have a work ethic. To those parents who let Johnny skate through high school, funded a useless degree and now I have to work with your lazy spawn...Thanks for nothing! So yes, we do need to wake America up, teach it about how its government was supposed to work and get back to being a risk taking, hard working, participating citizens.
I just have to disagree, respectfully. While I, of course, advocate civics classes, let's not pretend these politicians don't know exactly what they're doing here. This isn't from ignorance of civics. This is outright cheating and let's not all be coy about it. It's an attempt to rig elections and it cannot be allowed to happen.
When was the last time it *was* vigorous or substantive? Probably before plate tectonics entered the secondary school curriculum. Or about the same time as creationism began to (over)rule curriculum. Sorry, but I'm old.
Plooka32, I'm afeard I have to agree with you there. It takes considerable political intelligence to bury illegality under tons of ideological bs. Not the kind of people you'd trust fixing your car, eh?
I think some of the Republicans were so convinced in the rightness of rigging the election this way, they had no problem bragging about it. Which is probably for the best, we've seen what they're capable of when they keep attention off of them.
Yeah, that whole conservative echo chamber is turning their brains to mush. Do they really believe people will overlook such a shameless power grab? Their methods generated powerful revulsion in the voting public in 2012. Wake up, Republicans. You're your own worst enemy!
I believe they have a real problem with their own self-rightousness. Religionists do believe that they are better than most & also believe that those who follow them are as well. Unfortunately, for the GOP'ers, this isn't reality, it is just a terrible belief. The majority of us live in the real world & get riled up when people like them think they have a right to step over the boundaries of democracy & rules.
This has concerned me so much. I live in MI where Snyder rammed the RTW law down our throats during a lame duck session. I wouldn't put this kind of thing past him. He says "He could go either way" on this. That speaks for itself. We need to stay on top of this and not let thses a--holes get away with t his kind of thing. Everybody contact your state rep and tell them you're watching every move.
Is it not also possible for Republicans in the VA statehouse to mention that they value and respect their colleague Sen. Henry Marsh and his decision to attend the inauguration, and that it was at least distasteful (if not unconscionable) to manipulate his absence from the chamber that day?
No.
My family is concerned that no matter what they do, their voice is drowned out by ignorant politicians like Sen. Carrico. That's why I'm proposing a bill that will allow only my family member to vote for members of the state Senate.
If we were talking about a student gaining admission to a law school or a person being hired for a job, the very same people would be calling what they're doing Affirmative Action and would be seeking a court ordered remedy to stop it. Careful GOP, your intellectual dishonesty is showing.
Carrico has never heard of "one person, one vote"? He wants some votes to weigh more than others? He needs to get the hell out of the U.S. or learn how out system is supposed to work.
His ancestors thought they had the right to commit treason and get away with it. The fact he exists shows we were far too lenient with his traitor ancestors.
It is nice, however, to be reminded by the actions of the minority of Repulbicans who still understand the laws of the country, that 1/3 of the South fought in the Civil War against the traitors.
He thinks that some folks are still only worth 3/5 of a vote.
If he wants autocracy he should move to Saudi Arabia or something. This is America. Act like it.
A survey of Virginia voters showed 74% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
By age, support for a national popular vote was 82% among 18-29 year olds, 75% among 30-45 year olds, 75% among 46-65 year olds, and 68% for those older than 65.
By gender, support was 82% among women and 65% among men.
By race, support for a national popular vote was 73% among whites (representing 76% of respondents), 79% among African Americans (representing 21% of respondents), and 65% among Others (representing 3% of respondents).
By political affiliation, support was 79% for a national popular vote among liberal Democrats (representing 17% of respondents), 86% among moderate Democrats (representing 21% of respondents), 79% among conservative Democrats (representing 10% of respondents), 76% among liberal Republicans (representing 4% of respondents), 63% among moderate Republicans (representing 14% of respondents), and 54% among conservative Republicans (representing 17% of respondents), and 79% among Others.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
When the bill is enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA –78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH –69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA –74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT –74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states with 243 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions with 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc
???
So, say I live in New York and New York went along with this.
If the Republican Presidential candidate won a majority of the popular vote nationwide, then, even if the Democratic candidate won a majority of the popular vote in New York, all of the New York Electoral College votes would go to the Republican?
.....................?
This would maybe be fair. But only if every eligible voter in the country has equal opportunity to vote, no ineligible person can vote and every single vote cast is counted correctly.
mvy...
Spamming this, AGAIN?
I realize this is an important issue, to you and to everyone else, but you have repeated the SAME BASIC POST, with minor variations, 64 TIMES in the past three months...Sometimes a dozen times to the SAME ARTICLE...
Don't you have ANYTHING else to talk about?...
then why are your reading it
Mary...
Who said I bothered to read it? I've seen it so many times, I practically know it by heart!
After the first paragraph or two, to make the post appear to apply directly to the article, it's the same call to arms. followed by long paragraphs extolling the virtues of the National Popular Vote, How it fits in the Founding Fathers' scheme of things, followed by a LOOONG paragraph listing the percentage of every state's population, grouped by size, who favor the idea of the National Popular Vote, all ended by a suggestion that EVERYONE should go to the NPV website and JOIN THE FIGHT TODAY!!! And that was just what I recall off the top of my head...
This is what is called 'advertising', and it is a Newsvine Code of Honor violation... You do know what the CoH is, right? Posters who do too much of it end up getting suspended, or banned... It doesn't matter if you're a right-wing troll, or a left-wing advocate like mvymvy, whether it's insulting or filled with statistics... Spamming the same mountain of verbiage, 64 TIMES, is asking for trouble...
If this were reported to the Newsvine moderators, mvymvy would be gone... I haven't done that, because I believe he/she can contribute to the blog if he/she would just TRY... But, intellectual as it is, posting the same message, over and over, is not contributing, it is BORING... I just hope he/she gets the hint...
BTW, Mary...
Click on 'mvymvy's user name... This will take you to his/her Newsvine page... at the end of the Latest Comments section, click on Read More'... This will show you the first lines of every post 'mvymvy' has made, selectable by month... For the months of January, December and October, every post would appear to be a lead-in to the same basic posting...
After reading the same message for the fourth or fifth time, I started to get a serious case of deja vu... After checking the Newsvine pages, I figured enough was enough, and decided to make my feelings felt...
Nice work again, Mr. Benen:
"... It's as if democracy itself no longer has any meaning to some folks. It's why, in response to public rejection, they're prepared to cheat rather than improve."
When they started going around saying "it's a republic, not a democracy," it was perfectly clear that this was what they meant.
we are a republic because we have elected official to work for us to do the business of the state and country and if they fail we should fire them
One question why do our employees get paid more than almost all of us and have such generous benefit packages?
Let's see. Usually when a Republican Politician says something is a "Bad Idea" that means it IS a bad idea but they end up voting for it because it wasn't "That bad of an idea". I await their flip flops on this.
No one has explained, because they can't, how their one vote is less important than someone else's one vote by where they live in a state. This is one of the stupidest things the Con jobbers have tried to pull (and they try a lot).
You nailed it, Fessor. Sheer stupid bullpucky.
Let's hope they realize the backlash increases the fervor for voting their @sses out? Some RW interviews have said this. Yes, I am aware of the uphill battle to amend how we elect our Presidents in this country. It can be done and if they keep trying to rig elections, they will expedite that process.
A Constitutional Amendment for popular vote will gain steam, dooming Rs to irrelevance sooner. They are so far right, we see many converting away from the "T-Pub" brand. It boggles my mind that there is still that many that actually DID vote for Rmoney and McCain, given his terrible VP.
Cheaters....
If people are concerned that their district with smaller numbers are being overwhelmed by larger districts (which makes no sense because I thought it was the whole majority thing) why don't we just go to popular vote? Am I missing something? Why is the electoral college so important? If we just elected our officials based on raw numbers would there be something so wrong? In my opinion you should need a majority of the votes to win not rig the district shapes/sizes so one party or the other can win.
To Republicans, THAT IS the problem... A Republican has the same vote as a Democrat, but they want Republican votes tp count MORE than Democratic ones... Because Democrat populations tend to center on cities, and Republicans tend to spread out (Republican theme song = "Give me land, lots of land... Don't Fence Me In"), they want the land area to count more than the amount of people on it...
I didn't know land can vote... But if corporations are people...
Then the Godly people of Tupelo would be disenfranchised by the unpatriotic hordes of California, New York, New Mexico, etc.
It is getting to be more and more popular to dump the electoral college and go with popular vote.
That is a simple notion, but hard to do. Not impossible, but Constitution states the manner which president is elected is "electors" within each state.
Now, there are think tanks at work, funded by wealthy people and corps. spending money for having people all day every day figuring out how they can gain advantage, gaming the system. That invites changing the system, which requires a Constitutional Amendment.
and to change it, we need to have this happen
http://constitutionus.com
To give you a further idea how disingenuous this argument is, VA's congressional delegation is made up of 7 Republicans and only 2 Democrats. The governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general are all Republican, as is the VA House of Delegates.
This too-coordinated drive in so many states smacks of ALEC. They had this bill written and waiting for any Democratic legislator to be out for any reason: flu, death in the family,etc. Well-timed legislative bolts from the blue seem to be an ALEC hallmark (Wisconsin, Michigan). They tilt the playing field in their favor and then cry "fait accompli!" (except they despise French).
They didn't seem to mind when Romney spoke it...
But, IOKIYAR....
Right on, KT. ALEC has changed the face of politics in this nation. It leap-frogs past the free and open participation of citizens to spring a new political order on an unsuspecting public.
Immigration reform in Alabama, decimation of unions in Wisconsin and Michigan, voter ID laws in too many states to count--these are all the work of ALEC. They realize that weakening Democrats at the state level will allow the GOP to surge into power, and they're hoping to do this before anyone notices.
Evolution is in the nature of everything; even with political ideas. You must evolve or die. Those are the two options. Yes, the people in those small rural districts feel that they are not being heard because they are the minority, but in reality they are not being heard because their ideas are tired, old, and large swaths of the country have moved forward with new ideas about governance.
In short, this plan for some Republicans to stay in power despite clinging to their worn out worldviews will not solve the critical problem they have. They are putting a band-aid over a gunshot wound. They may manage to hold on to their seats by their fingernails for a few more terms, but eventually even these small rural areas will evolve and these people with their antiquated ideas will be phased out as fresh new ideas take over the political landscape.
They ARE being heard. Obviously. Trouble is, like a toddler, they can't understand how it is that we can hear them and not do as they want us to.
It's certainly ironic that folks of the Republican stripe are all about market forces and letting things come to their own natural level--EXCEPT when it comes to being in the minority at election time. Maybe they just want it both ways, eh?
Steve, you just noticed that the Repubs don't support democracy?
I am a 67 year old white female from a rural area in Virginia. I live in a district in VA that was caught in the gerrymandering that went on before the last election. We had no idea that Eric Cantor was our Rep and not Bobby Scott until the signs for the election started going up. We had no voice in this and I will always feel cheated. I am deeply concerned about the GOP spending time trying to rig elections and not bothering to deal with the many issues that we face today.
Remember 2010?
Vote ALL the Goopers out in 2014
If they were truly doing it to make individual votes matter, they would pass a law joining their state with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Then, if and only if the number of states joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact have collectively more than 270 votes, the state would assign all EC votes to the winner of the popular vote. This means whoever won the popular vote would win the election.
This isn't about making elections better or making individual votes count, though. This is about Republicans deciding to cheat and disenfranchise minority and urban voters rather than being willing to change their position to appeal to those minority and urban voters.
Republican Party: evolve or die.
District alignment should be 100% unanimous, non-partisan, and generally aimed at providing functional representation from/for each district. Can we please just use some basic reasoning here?
California redistricting by a non-partisan commission has worked out really well. But it was truly non-partisan and included both those with expertise in politics and ordinary citizens whose goal was electoral fairness.
The GOP is against the concept of fairness altogether.
But this scheme, like all their others, will come back to bite them, the way voter suppression efforts did.
For one thing, if Democrats started organizing in the rural-red districts and making persuasive arguments regarding how the GOP only pretends to be on their side and how it is the policies of the Democrats that these people actually favor, we could be on the way to seeing the GOP permanently turned out of office.
GOP beware of the rural worm turning.
I agree, my brother and sister in law were involved in their district. California had the great timing of a referendum and census lining up.
This Virginia Red Map is purely political power grabbing. I have to wonder if it would hold up if they did pass it. Diluting minority votes in VA would be violating Voting RIghts Act.
I hope whatever happens in this, the voters in every state will take notice. The Rs want to take power for themselves and corporations, regardless of "We the People".
The really ironic thing about California is the GOP thought the districts were skewed to Democrats, and conservatives and the GOP were the main impetus behind the new plan. But when we actually went to non-partisan districts, it favored Democrats so much that we now have a 2/3rds majority in both state houses, and 5 more Democrats (I think 5) in Congress. So as it turned out the partisan districts they worked so hard to void were in reality skewed GOP. Big surprise right, the GOP was unaware of reality. HA!
Yeah, this just supports the RW "bubble" charge. Their propaganda has marinated into their brains, they are not aware of real reality.
I always come back to the thought: is there any kind of legal action regarding attempting a coup by manipulation to gain power by taking power away from the people?
Of course it has meaning to them -- it means that they don't always get things their way. And that's a problem that they have to fix.
I said it in the earlier post on this and I'll say it again. I think what we're seeing here is some politicians who really got into the system because they want to do the public good and sincerely believe conservative principles are the way to go (I disagree but I can respect that). These unique few in a chorus or hardcore conservatives are genuinely uncomfortable with these vote rigging schemes and are refusing to vote for them out of principle. I think we as liberals need to stop thinking of the conservatives as a lock step group of crazies and realize that there are actual humans in the GOP with actual human principles that are capable of disagreeing with their party. I think this is some decent evidence of the loss of influence by the tea party and other extremists and maybe, just maybe we can get some responsible governance if the party takes notice of these few level headed conservatives and realizes it's not impossible to break from the extreme wing of the party.
The Republicans must think Americans are truly stupid. They don't believe they lost the election and they can't undermine Obama because the public really wants things to change. So, they underhandedly change the rules in mid stream hoping no one will notice. How sad!
Carrico's logic is sound, his district voted but had no electoral votes to show for it, but his method is flawed and unfair in the opposite direction. Electoral votes should be given based on the popular vote, that way if enough votes from his district and others are cast, some of the electoral votes would go to their candidate.