Hendrik Hertzberg, writer for the New Yorker and champion of the National Popular Vote movement, takes Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri's argument against a national popular and essentially shoves it back up Carcieri's ass. It's a strong argument and a history lesson all in one.
Electing the President by popular vote wouldn’t be the first great democratizing change to have bubbled up from the state level. That’s how we got two others, the popular election of senators and woman suffrage. Oregon found a way to have its senators picked by its people in 1907; by 1913, when the 17th Amendment was finally added to the Constitution, popular election was already a reality in twenty-nine states. Wyoming enfranchised its female citizens as early as 1869; by 1912 eight other states had followed suit. The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, by which time the women of Wyoming had been voting in local, state, and federal elections for half a century. The National Popular Vote plan is in this venerable tradition.
1 Comment:
Here here. I am SO over the electoral college.
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