California and the Laws that Divide

Part 5 - The Maine Problem

An inscription on the Temple of Apollo in Ancient Greece exhorted each person to “Know Thyself.”

Shakespeare’s Polonius went one step further, advising, “To thine own self be true.”

Sadly, a large percentage of today’s Americans do not understand

what it means to be American, or what America itself is.

The most basic right of American citizens in a Constitutional Republic based on citizen self-governance is to select their governmental representatives through fair, honest, transparent and valid elections.

It is the right of citizens in each individual State to have their electoral voice heard in the election of the President of the United States.

With Maine’s entering into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, the topic of the Electoral College is very much back in national focus.

According to the Compact, once the electoral college vote total of the combined member States exceeds a majority of the total Electoral College votes (270/538), member States agree to cast all of their Electoral College votes for the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of how their own citizens voted.

Under the Constitution, if the majority of a State’s voters favor Candidate A, the State has two choices:

1. The State may award the full complement of its Electoral College votes to Candidate A. (48 States have chosen this option.)

2. The State may apportion its Electoral College votes between Candidates A and B. (Maine and Nebraska appoint individual electors based on the winner of the popular vote within each Congressional district within the State and then 2 "at-large" electors based on the winner of the overall state-wide popular vote.)

Members of the Compact have agreed to

 add a third choice.

In doing so, it is highly probable that compact States would be required to betray the electoral preference of their voters by ignoring their votes in order to amplify those of the citizens of other States.

The frustration and dissention permeating our society today on this and many other topics is due to a fundamental misunderstanding about how the federal government was formed, who has the authority to do what, and why it matters.

First and foremost, the U.S.A. is not a “typical” country.

The U.S. is a cooperative agreement among 50 sovereign States.

Each State, as a condition of its admission to this “co-op,” has ratified and committed to submit to certain Constitutional precepts while retaining most of their sovereignty.

The U.S. Constitution is carefully and meticulously designed to

• severely limit the powers of the federal government

• retain maximum power for each individual State

• ensure that the People retain the most amount of power

• through their ability to select their representatives at both the state and federal level,

• with an option to change them every election through the ballot box.

The autonomy of each American State is unparalleled

anywhere else in the world.

Other countries may be divided into states, but none of them are States, making them subject to the absolute power of their federal government.

Not so in this country.

Each State in the U.S. is required by the Constitution, which it made a binding agreement to accept when becoming a member of the co-op, to be a representative Republic, NOT a Democracy.

And certainly, the co-op as a whole is not a Democracy, which would subject those in the minority to the tyranny of the majority. We are a representative Republic, where minority rights are protected. This explains the genius and necessity of the Electoral College to protect the rights of the minority States.

In electing a President of the United States,

the results of the national popular vote are irrelevant.

Each State holds its own election, and the collective decision of the people of the State is converted to its share of the electoral votes assigned on the basis of the State’s percentage of the national population.

This system retains the power of the collective voice

of the people of each State.

To subvert their voice by ignoring the results of the State electoral vote and assigning their electoral votes to the winner of the “national popular vote” is patently unconstitutional.  

• It converts a cooperative agreement among 50 sovereign States to a collective Democracy.

• It tips national power to the urban, metropolitan areas of the country

• It completely tramples the structure of a Republic, which protects the rights and voice of the citizens of each individual State.

Doing away with, or successfully subverting the Electoral College would give a few, highly-industrialized and metropolitan population hubs permanent control of the White House.

Presidential candidates would have no need to moderate their campaign rhetoric or their governance, no need to reach out and serve vast geographical areas of rural population to earn their favor.

This absolute power would without doubt corrupt absolutely.

More or less half of the American population would be swept under the rug, their rights trampled and their voices silenced.

To do away with the Electoral College would be to doom the continuation of the Great American Experiment that created and has sustained for over 200 years the most successful, prosperous and generous nation the world has ever known or will know.

The People of the United States, through their collective States’ ratification of a Constitutional Amendment, could choose to eliminate the Electoral College and become a Democracy.

Such a decision would remove the sovereignty of the States. It would risk the loss of everything the Founders wrote into the Constitution to ensure that everyone, rich or poor, urban or rural, large State or small, would have a fair say in the choice of Commander in Chief.

Surely a better plan is to educate one another as to the

Founders’ great wisdom in creating the Electoral College.

We must come to better know who we are as Americans and why, and then resolve to be true to what made and always will make this county exceptional.

Maine is the newest state to join the Compact.

California has been a member since August, 2011.

• Thus, our State has long been prepared to betray the desires of its voters and follow the requirements of the Compact once the member states add up to the required number.

Let that sink in!

Our State is willing to unconstitutionally deny the individual who earns our majority vote the representation earned, and cast 54 electoral votes for a candidate our majority vote did not select!

Fortunately, future Legislatures can reverse that decision. If we can exert enough pressure on our representatives, they can, at our direction, vote to withdraw from the Compact.

Since California represents such a large number of electoral votes, our withdrawal would likely be the death knell to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact movement and preserve our Republic.

Perhaps that’s a good place for Californians to begin

pushing back against the California oligarchy.

Just a thought.

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Part 5 - The Maine Problem    
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