Posted on 10/14/2011 7:39:32 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The national spokesperson for group that seeking to take the selection of the president out of the hands of the Electoral College says the movement is gaining steam.
Tom Golisano of the “National Popular Vote Initiative” was in Des Moines Thursday talking about the effort.
The group needs states that have 270 — or half of the electoral college votes — to approve the change to make it happen. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm around our position now, it’s more a feeling of when and no if it’s going to happen,” Golisano. He says 10 or 11 states have signed up and they have bills in the legislatures of 35 states. He says it’s an effort that’s long overdue.
Golisano says the group had first targeted the 2016 election to get enough states to change, but says the increased momentum makes 2012 a possibility. He says one hurdle there’s a lot of misunderstanding about how the electoral college works and also about the movement to change to the popular vote.
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There are now television and newspaper ads running in Iowa touting the change to the popular vote that attack Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry. Golisano says Perry’s the only candidate that’s taken a stand to stay with the electoral college.
“It’s unfortunate Mr. Perry has taken somewhat most of the brunt of this, the fact is he has put his position in writing, and no one else has, and that’s why we’ve focused on Rick Perry,” Golisano says. Golisano says he’s more encouraged now than he has been about Iowa making the change to the popular vote, but wouldn’t say what he thought the chances were of that happening.
Seems to me those changes centralized power in D.C. and made politicians of Senators. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
If they would apportion the electoral college by % instead of winner takes all, there would never be a Democrat elected president. They want to get rid of the electoral college in the hopes of getting only populist presidents. Bad idea for a country designed specifically to avoid that kind of radicalism. Our Constitution and the balance of powers was put in place to ensure that change happens slowly.
Absolutely, sister, power was removed from the states and centralized in D.C.
It would be wrong to say that the states did not complain. It would be better to say that they were not heard. In many cases, they were complicit. In many cases, party politics was more important than the Constitution and the nation.
I am reminded of a Mark Twain quote - It is not so much what we don't know that gets us in trouble as it is those things which we do know that simply aren't true.
LOLOL!
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