The Arkansas House passed HB 1339 to abolish the Electoral
College and it could be voted on by the Senate as early as Tuesday.See the well written column below for details
and explanation.
If our legislators do not understand the importance and
necessity of the Founder’s Electoral College, then they do not understand the
difference between a democracy (majority rule tyranny) and a Republic
(individual rights & freedoms), what can we expect from the voting public?Hopefully a whole lot more than that!
Supposedly, our elected representatives are schooled in the
principles and details of our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution,
the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law.Obviously not.Self-inflicted,
abysmal Ignorance could be used as an excuse for some, but that can’t be the
full story.
There are those intent on the destruction of our once
self-reliant Republic in favor of the forced redistribution of “Democracy”/Communism/Fascism.There are many who are complicit in the giant
Protection Racket (see www.arkansasfreedom.com)
, skimming off what they can for themselves & buddies…after all, the
taxpaying, hard working citizens are bumpkins deserving of whatever the elite decides
is best.Outsource or insource (steal)
their jobs, stick them with every tax possible, spit on their Constitutional
protections by dismantling them piece by piece and this is just one more
insult/injury to rule with impunity.
Since Gov. Beebe has stated that he will sign the Bill if it
passes…that tells us EXACTLY what his values are and where he stands.
~Barbara McCutchen
Fort Smith
Cc: Citizens
Arkansas Needs Electoral College
Sunday, March 1, 2009 11:18 AM CST
The Electoral College is one of our U.S. Constitution’s masterful constructs.
Not only does it ensure a series of state-by-state contests every four years to
elect the president of our republic, but in large part, it ensures that the
nation’s chief executive pursues policies based on a broad national consensus.
But with a 54 to 43 vote this week, the state House of Representative attempted
to make Arkansas part of a national compact, which does away with the Electoral
College and would also undermine the votes cast by Arkansans in presidential
contests.
Under the
bill, which now goes to the state Senate for consideration, Arkansas would
allocate its six electoral votes based on the outcome of the national popular
vote.
Those pushing this movement nationwide — aptly named National Popular Vote —
claim their “bill would guarantee the Presidency to the presidential candidate
who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of
Columbia).”
Upon the first reading, this may sound appealing to some, but understanding how
the compact would be applied and the potential consequences of its application,
the House’s action becomes all the more troubling.
Had this national vote compact been in place for the 2000 and 2008 presidential
elections, Arkansans’ votes would have been rendered null and void.
In 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush won the Natural State, which allowed him to
win the presidency by capturing enough states to give him a majority in the
Electoral College. Of course his opponent, then-Vice President Al Gore, won a
majority of votes nationwide. Under the national popular vote model, Arkansas
would have been forced to allocate its six electors to vote for Gore.
Even though Arkansas handed Sen. John McCain a lopsided 60 percent to 40
percent victory over Sen. Barack Obama last year, under the national popular
vote model, those votes would have been wiped away and Arkansas’ six electoral
votes would have been awarded to the candidate Arkansas voters repudiated at
the ballot box.
The genius of our system is that it demands that winning presidential candidates
assemble a broad national coalition. They must appeal to the entire country;
not just a particular region.
If the Electoral College is replaced with this proposed system, then candidates
would forsake smaller states like Arkansas, which as recently as 2000 and 2004
served as a battleground state, for populous states and urban areas.
But this isn’t just about where our presidential candidates campaign every four
years; there are far greater consequences of moving to an electoral system in
which the nation’s chief executive need only be concerned with the interests of
the majority. Our founding fathers feared the potential domination of the
national government over the states and larger states domination over the
national government.
Realizing that such an imbalance would not serve the republic’s long-term
interests, the founders developed a system that balanced the states’ interests
with those of the national government. They also balanced the interest of both
large and small states by putting in place protections — the Electoral College,
for example — to help prevent national policy from serving only the interests
of larger states.
The 17th Amendment of the Constitution, which mandated the direct election of
U.S. senators, was the first step in undoing founders’ work and opened the door
for national government’s dominance over the states. Undoing the Electoral
College and replacing it with a national popular vote would place the interests
of larger states over our own.
The state Senate would be wise to halt this attempt to undo what our founders
so rightly devised.
David sanders is a special columnist for Stephens media’s Arkansas news bureau
in little rock.
