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Lest We Forget: November 7, 2000 and the US Presidential Election
I’m grateful to the Ricochet member who–on another thread–drew my attention to this Public Service Announcement by a bunch of self-serving soi-disant celebrities, just eight years ago. As they say, “everything old is new again.” Thank you:
I’m still not exactly sure what they’re advocating for. And I live in a place where Alexander Hamilton’s portrait is still regularly hung upside down as a sign of contempt for his part in the Whiskey Rebellion. Lady, I don’t know your place in the video, or why you are there. Maybe you know more about monetary policy than I do. But I doubt it, especially when it comes to totting up my own monthly bills versus your own.
Still, let’s move past all that, and go back a little more than a decade before this video was cut:
On this day, almost a quarter-century ago, the US presidential election was stymied at a statistical tie with no clear winner emerging in the Electoral College. Most at issue was the outcome in the state of Florida, which went from side to side, depending on who was counting and one’s opinion of “hanging chads,” and which was complicated by the media’s (supposedly inadvertent) calling the state for Al Gore before all the polls had closed in the “panhandle,” much of which is in a different time zone than the rest of Florida, and in which some residents were still setting off to vote after being told their candidate had already lost.
Weeks of acrimony ensued, and the case was referred to the United States Supreme Court which–on December 12–ruled that the umpteenth statewide recount could not be fairly or properly completed by the deadline to certify Florida’s vote, thereby awarding the state of Florida, and its Electoral College vote, to George W. Bush. As a result, Bush prevailed for the presidency in the closest Electoral College result in history–a total of 271 Electoral College votes to 266 for Gore.
The meltdown on the Democrat side (Gore-Lieberman) was epic. “Selected, not Elected!!” they shrieked. “Not My President!!” they cried.
The case has become a benchmark for the “unfairness” of US presidential elections ever since, at the same time as the fact that the seven or so Florida recounts–each time–showed Bush as winning Florida, even by just a small margin.
The fact that Bush ended up winning the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote by a total of about 500,000 spawned something called the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” which leverages the fact that the states can determine, as they see fit, the way their Electoral College votes are assigned to a particular candidate. And since they were wont to deny the legitimacy of Bush’s election in 2000 because he lost the popular vote, several states saw it as advantageous to propose that the winner of the national popular vote—who the state legislators always assumed would be one of “them,” even if not necessarily the same person who won the Electoral College majority—should receive a state’s Electoral College votes, no matter for which presidential candidate the majority of citizens in that particular state had actually voted.
Fast forward to 2024:
Here’s the Electoral College map at some point yesterday, complete with the assignments of Electoral College votes based on the individual states:
And here’s the current (almost) status of the signatories of the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” together with a graphical depiction of those states that have already signed the compact into law (missing is only Virginia, which voted the Compact ideal into law after this image was created):
For those having difficulty getting both maps on the screen at the same time, here’s a side-by-side comparison, if it helps:
Please overlay the “blue” (Democrat–Harris win) states and the “green” (we commit to giving all our electors to the winner of the national popular vote) states as you will. Don’t forget to include Virginia, which is “blue” on the one map, but not (yet) green (although it should be) on the other. Notice anything?
The only reason the signatories of the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” were not mandated by state law, this time around, to assign their state Electoral College vote to the winner of the national popular vote (Donald Trump) is that the Electoral College total number of votes for those states who’ve approved the compact hasn’t yet reached or exceeded 270, the number required for triggering mandatory adherence. Right now, the total is at 218 or so, with more than enough states engaged in the process and in the pipeline to reach the magic number to trigger the compact requirement without too much effort; and without a constitutional amendment to overturn the Electoral College–something that most people rightly perceive as a bridge too far.
Those who do not understand that the purpose of the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” is simply to do an end-run around the Constitution–and to grant extraordinary and extra-legal rights to the adherents of one political party, the ones who live in a very small-footprint region of the country–are simply deluding themselves in much the same way as those who’ve been manipulated into believing that circumventing the filibuster will somehow improve their chances.
It’s my fervent hope that the “careful what you wish for” legacy of the 2024 election may cause them to rethink their hasty conclusion. After all, if the National Popular Vote Compact were in effect, and if the states that have already signed onto it had to do what they’d actually promised, Donald Trump would win this Electoral College tally with over 500 votes. Luckily (or unluckily) for them, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2024. So their machinations for this year wouldn’t alter the outcome either way.
But that won’t always be the case.
PS: This is the best argument I can make to my friends who–on the one hand and no matter how right-thinking they may be otherwise–say, “Well, I live in a blue (Democrat) state, so however I vote doesn’t matter, because Harris will win my state.” Trust me: The “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” people are coming for you and your state (perhaps they already have). Your state’s election results won’t matter. But your contribution to the national popular vote–one way or the other–just might tip the outcome in several other states whose voters have been–essentially–disenfranchised but for your vote.
And it’s the best argument I can make to my friends on the other side, who live in irremediably blue states like New York State, where Harris just won the state vote by eleven percentage points. What? Irrespective of your views as a New Yorker, and no matter how you voted as an individual, and no matter what your neighbors think, you’re happy to give all your state’s Electoral College votes to Donald Trump because he won so much of the vote elsewhere in the country that you’re happy to fold your vote in with theirs?
What?
Wake up, you nitwits.
Published in General
Well stated, She. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get burned. (See filibuster and judges).
Yes, this would be a great time for Trump to appoint some more justices to the Supreme Court :-)
One can only hope for the retirements of Thomas, Alito and Roberts in the first year of Trump 47. Please. Before the potential midterm loss of the Senate.
One wonders what will become of the Compact when they lose congressional representation (and thus electors) when the next Census is taken, because at least three of them (California, Illinois, and New York) are hemorrhaging citizens.
Thanks @she – very interesting. Apparently people don’t understand democracy vs a democratic republic – mob rules don’t apply.
And now I have to go bathe after watching those pompous, condescending, smug asses in the video……………
What? Democrats trying to do an end-run around the constitution? Nah, no way would they ever do that! C,mon, man!
You think it never occurred to them that they might have to give their electoral votes to a Republican? The 2004 election where Bush won the popular vote didn’t seem to scare them off.
The only constitutional arguments against the compact I can think of:
1. The 14th amendment says that any states that infringe their citizens rights to vote for electors lose proportional representation in Congress. The defense to that argument is that they aren’t prohibiting anyone from voting.
2. Article 1 says no state shall enter into any agreement or compact with another state without consent of congress. It’s so brazen that they actually call their agreement a compact, choosing the exact word that the constitution forbids. Still, even if the compact were ruled illegal, that wouldn’t stop any individual state from doing as it wishes with its electoral votes including what it would have done under the compact.
“You get to vote, your vote just doesn’t mean anything.”
If there is no remedy, that’s true. The remedy would appear to be that any state that doesn’t follow the Constitution gets excluded from the process.
I don’t know. The modern Democrat party seems to come up a bit short on both historical reflection and long-range planning. They seem very much stuck in the “now,” and an awful lot of them seem to inhabit a fantasy world in which their belief in their cause is so strong that the thought of losing just doesn’t occur to them. Apparently Bill Clinton told the Harris campaign that the Trump ad showing her braggadocious remarks about, and support of, transgender surgeries for prison inmates was hurting the ticket and she should speak up and back away from them. The Harris campaign ignored his advice and said that the ads weren’t important and weren’t having an impact. I suspect there are any number of similar instances that will be revealed in the coming weeks.
When they are momentarily mugged by reality, as happened on Tuesday night, they convince themselves that it wasn’t their cause, or their ideas, or their beliefs that did them in; it’s just that they’re misunderstood, or they didn’t do enough of whatever it was they were doing, or that they’re the victims of one or another “ism.” So they double down, and just do more of whatever it was that got them into trouble in the first place. I’ll be shocked if the Democrats learn anything from the events of Tuesday night, and I expect they’ll grandiosely continue to virtue-signal their own moral excellence, and move further to the Left as a result.
A lot of leftist (Democrat) ideas seem premised on an assumption that leftists like them will always be in charge. From the frequency with which I see this phenomenon, I usually conclude that no, it doesn’t occur to them that at some point a conservative (Republican) would use or benefit from the scheme leftists (Democrats) propose.
Democrats are in minority – they will praise the filibuster and accuse the GOP of trying to kill it
Then there’s this to consider: Sotomayor retiring in November. It would seem to be only fair tit-for-tat for the way Trump got his third Justice, Justice Barrett, confirmed. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dems-at-war-over-secret-scotus-plot-to-oust-sotomayor/ar-AA1tKrj4
My compliments, @She, for an excellent post. The side-by-side comparison of the current Electoral College map and the “NPVIC” is perhaps the most powerful argument against such an unconstitutional scheme.
I do have a minor quibble with @WBob regarding the “no compacts” comment above (#7). The whole of the relevant portion of the Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 10 (3) reads as follows:
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.”
Reading this portion (Clause 3) within the context of the balance of Art. I, Sec. 10, it appears to me that its purpose is not to prohibit any of the several States from forming an agreement or compact other than for the purpose of conducting foreign policy and/or the prosecution of war (authorities expressly reserved to the proposed Federal government).
It seems to me that the stronger Constitutional argument against the “NPVIC” is found in Article IV, Section 2(1) which reads: “The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” If one or more of the several States’ legislatures were to direct their respective Electors to vote a certain way based upon the election results in another state (or, states), the citizens of the former State have been disenfranchised by their own legislatures, and denied the equal protections enjoyed by those in the latter.
Either way, “NPVIC” is an unconstitutional mess, and the sooner it is relegated to the dustbin of history, the better.
Yes, I’m glad @she put this together. I had noticed that correlation earlier, but didn’t have the energy or technical skills to compile a commentary.
there is no guarantee that Manchin & Sinema would go for such a, rushed, scenario.
Ginsburg died in mid September- not mid November, so the timeline is much shorter. Barrett was confirmed before the election (Oct 26 2020), about 6 weeks after Ginzburg’s death (Sept 18 2020) and 4 weeks after her nomination. The new senate is sworn in Jan 3rd- only 8 weeks away & not only hasn’t the wise Latina resigned, no replacement has been named. The calendar is further compressed by the holidays….
A note- the Dems craven use & abuse of their judges is, almost, unbelievable. As soon as a judge is not a perfect tool to be used, they try to throw them out. They wanted to dump Ginzburg (after making her a celebrity- Notorious RBG!) and now want to dump the wise Latina b/c she is the oldest liberal judge….
Sure looks like ‘interferring with an official proceeding’ to me. Maybe the Trump appointed AGneeds to do a Garland Like look into this – our very Democracy is at stake!
Actually, come to think of it, they probably figure that if a Republican wins the popular vote, they’ve already won the electoral college anyway. Republicans have a statistical advantage over the Dems in the EC. It enables them to win while losing the popular vote (2000, 2016). The purpose of the compact is simply to erase that advantage.
Don’t forget to scrub with steel wool.