June 17, 2019 (American Thinker) — Democrats who are still bitter about Hillary Clinton losing the 2016 presidential election want future presidential elections decided by the popular vote. They are pursuing this goal not with a constitutional amendment, but with a law passed by several states. The law is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. With this law, the electoral votes of a participating state automatically go to the winner of the national popular vote. So far, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have passed this law. This adds to 189 electoral votes. When the number gets to 270, the law takes effect — at which point this country will no longer be a republic.
Many writers have outlined the horrors of this bill. In a nutshell, 51% of us will be able to rule the other 49% with an iron fist. How close are we to this fate?
Recently, Democrat Governor Sisolak of Nevada vetoed the bill. He realized that if the law takes effect, all future presidents will be Democrats, but none of them will be grateful to Nevada. His state will not get any pork. His loyalty to money exceeds his loyalty to party.
Several other states are considering this bill. The states with either the upper house or lower house or both in Republican hands will likely vote it down. The states with both houses controlled by Democrats — Maine, New Hampshire, and Oregon — have few electoral votes and are in the same boat as Nevada. They would be wise to discard the bill.
We are safe until the next Democrat wave sweeps in a president with coattails to turn some of these legislatures around. We are not out of the woods yet.
I would like to put the bill out of its misery before the next Democrat wave by discussing its legality. Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution says, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government[.]” This means that all states get to choose those who represents them. A national popular vote would take the states' choices away from them. A state's electors would be decided by people outside of the state. The National Popular Vote law is unconstitutional.
It would be nice if we could just declare the law unconstitutional and be done with it. Unfortunately, we must wait for the misbehaving states to acquire 270 electoral votes and elect a president. People may then initiate a lawsuit. This lawsuit must survive judges who will be appointed by the new president. The judges will likely defy the Constitution and uphold the popular vote criterion. We will then have one-party rule forever.
We need to invalidate this law before the judges become tainted. Fighting such an effort are judges who are quick to say our complaint is moot because the law has not been implemented yet and that the complainants have no standing because the complainants do not live in the right states or are not running for president. Judges also like to delay hearing cases. This could allow significant damage to be done to our political system.
I suggest that we explain to people that the bill is illegal. It may sound nice to some Democrat voters to enact the new law and have the Democrats win all of the presidential elections, but breaking the law is never the right thing to do.
Ironically, every Democrat congressman and senator who supports this bill took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Many of them are lawyers and know about Article II, Section 4. They are not just public servants making an innocent mistake. They know exactly what they are doing.
Published with permission from the American Thinker.