{"id":11335,"date":"2019-03-14T11:15:08","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T18:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=11335"},"modified":"2019-03-14T11:15:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T18:15:10","slug":"new-mexico-legislature-passes-national-popular-vote-and-sends-bill-to-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2019\/03\/14\/new-mexico-legislature-passes-national-popular-vote-and-sends-bill-to-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico Legislature passes National Popular Vote and sends bill to Governor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The New Mexico Senate just passed\u00a0the National Popular Vote bill by a 25-16 vote and sent the bill to\u00a0Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham<\/a>.\u00a0 The bill is also now on the desk of Colorado Governor Polis. If both bills are signed, the National Popular Vote bill will have been passed by states possessing 186 electoral votes. The bill needs to be passed by states possessing 270 electoral votes in order to take effect.\u00a0
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BACKGROUND\u00a0<\/strong>The National Popular Vote bill\u00a0would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. \u00a0It\u00a0would make\u00a0every\u00a0vote for President equal throughout the United States.\u00a0 It would guarantee that\u00a0every\u00a0voter in\u00a0every\u00a0state matters in every presidential election.\u00a0

The shortcomings of the current system of electing the President stem from “winner-take-all” laws that have been enacted at the state level. These laws award 100% of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each state.\u00a0
Because of these state winner-take-all laws, five of our 45 Presidents (including two of the last three) have come into office without having won the most popular votes nationwide.\u00a0\u00a0

Another problem occurs in\u00a0every<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0presidential election, namely that presidential candidates have no reason to campaign in, or pay attention to, voters in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 2016, almost all\u00a0(94%)\u00a0general-election\u00a0campaign events were in the 12\u00a0closely divided “battleground” states\u00a0where Trump’s support was in the narrow range of 43%-51%.\u00a0 Two-thirds of the\u00a0campaign\u00a0events (273 of 399) were in just 6 states (OH, FL, VA, NC, PA, MI).\u00a0 Almost all small and medium-sized states and almost all western, southern, and northeastern states were totally ignored.

In 2012, 100% of the general-election campaign events and virtually all expenditures were concentrated in the 12 closely divided “battleground” states where Romney’s support was 45%-51%.\u00a0 Two-thirds of the events (176 of 253) were concentrated in just 4 states (OH, FL, VA, IA).\u00a0

It does not take an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to change existing state\u00a0winner-take-all laws. \u00a0State winner-take-all laws were enacted by state legislatures under their authority under Article II of the U.S. Constitution:\u00a0“Each State shall appoint,\u00a0in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct<\/strong><\/em>, a Number of Electors….”

These state laws may be changed in the same way as they were originally enacted — namely by action of the state legislature.

The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes was not the Founding Fathers’ choice.\u00a0 It was used by only three states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (and repealed by all three by 1800).\u00a0 Winner-take-all was never debated at the Constitutional Convention or mentioned in the\u00a0Federalist Papers<\/em>.\u00a0

Under the\u00a0National Popular Vote bill,\u00a0the national popular vote winner will receive all the electoral votes from the enacting states. The bill will take effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes — enough to elect a President (270 of 538).\u00a0\u00a0When the Electoral College meets in mid-December, the national popular vote winner will become President because\u00a0the enacting states will provide him or her with at least 270 electoral votes.\u00a0 Thus, the candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC will become President.\u00a0

A national popular vote for President is an achievable political goal that can be in place in time for the 2020 election. The\u00a0bill\u00a0has already been enacted into law in\u00a012 states possessing 172 electoral votes. \u00a0It will\u00a0take effect\u00a0when enacted by additional states having 98 electoral votes. \u00a0The bill has previously passed one chamber in 11 additional states with 89 electoral votes and has been approved by unanimous bipartisan committee votes in two states with an additional 26 electoral votes.\u00a0A total of 3,265 state legislators among all 50 states have endorsed it.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New Mexico Senate just passed\u00a0the National Popular Vote bill by a 25-16 vote and sent the bill to\u00a0Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.\u00a0 The bill is also now on the desk of Colorado Governor Polis. If both bills are signed, the National Popular Vote bill will have been passed by states… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11336,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11335\/revisions\/11336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}