'National Popular Vote' Bill Aimed at Undermining Electoral College Stalls in VA's Dem-Controlled Senate
A bill aimed at adding Virginia’s 13 Electoral College votes to the National Popular Vote Compact was pulled from consideration in the Dominion State’s Senate last week.
Senate Bill 1101 would have entered Virginia into the compact known as the Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote.
States which pass the legislation are required to allocate their Electoral College delegates to whichever presidential candidates garners the most votes nationwide, regardless of the outcome within their state’s borders.
It is a means to bypass the Electoral College system without passing a constitutional amendment, which requires two-thirds of the U.S. House and Senate to pass or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the states.
Then three-fourths of the states must also ratify the amendment for it to take effect.
Tyler Arnold, writing for The Center Square, reported the bill looked to be going down in defeat in the Senate, so it was pulled.
“Regrettably, when we did a headcount of votes likely to be cast on the Senate floor for the National Popular Vote bill in this year’s short session of the legislature, it appeared to be one vote short,” a statement from National Popular Vote to The Center Square read.
“Lacking the necessary votes on the floor, the bill was not taken up today by the Senate committee.”
Democratic Sen. Adam Ebbin asked the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee to strike the bill on Jan. 26.
So much for ditching the Electoral College. Senator @AdamEbbin strikes his bill entering Virginia into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Ebbin says he didn’t have the votes to pass it, so he struck it #valeg https://t.co/HafMX7gcWq pic.twitter.com/XkEfuc1Sp3
— Michael Pope (@MichaelLeePope) January 26, 2021
Democrats currently control the Virginia Senate by a 21 to 18 margin and the House of Delegates, 55 to 45.
The legislation passed the Virginia House last February by a vote of 51 to 46.
According to National Popular Vote, 15 states and the District of Columbia have passed its bill, representing a total of the 196 Electoral College votes of the 270 needed for the compact to go into effect.
The states which have signed have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate for the last several election cycles, such as California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington and Oregon.
All but 3 states under full Dem control have joined the compact, but Dems in ME, NV, & VA have all failed to pass bills joining the compact since 2019. With the GOP running key swing states & poised to gerrymander many of them, it could take many more years for NPV to reach 270 https://t.co/YbT1fR19HZ
— Stephen Wolf (@PoliticsWolf) February 1, 2021
Those in favor of compact, like Virginia state Rep. Mark Levine who sponsored the legislation in the House, argue it is a more democratic way to choose the president.
“Do we really think voters in small states should have four times the representation of voters in large states? If I relocate across the Potomac [to Washington, D.C.], do I automatically become three times wiser?” he asked in a December Op-Ed for The Washington Post.
Those opposed say that removing the Electoral College system would mean the large metropolitan areas on the coasts would in effect rule the entire country.
Tara Ross — author of “Why We Need the Electoral College“– argues that the Electoral College reflects the great compromise of the Constitutional Convention in which each state was equally represented in the Senate, while the House of Representatives is based on population.
[firefly_poll]
“So there is an element of one state one vote, in the Electoral College, but there’s also an element of one person, one vote,” she says in the documentary film “Safeguard: An Electoral College Story.”
“California still has many more electors [55], than a state like Wyoming [3] or Rhode Island [4].”
Contrary to complaints by Democrats, the Electoral College is fair, “Safeguard” contends.
“So we have democracy today, but we have 51 democratic elections, not just one. So they decentralize those votes to recognize that states are different,” says Michael C. Maibach, distinguished fellow for Save Our States.
“The Electoral College, in effect, is who wins the most states. Not just who gets the most votes in total across the nation. And those are very different systems, but no one says, ‘The World Series is undemocratic because my team got 24 runs in the series and your team got 12, but they won more games.’ It’s just each game becomes its individualized contest,” Maibach says.
The result, according to both Ross and Maibach, is a president who was able to compete in multiple regions of the country and thereby better represent the American people as a whole.
