Tag Archives: ethics

A National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

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The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact wants to put together a coalition of States whose Electoral College votes aggregate to 270—the minimum majority required to elect the President and Vice President—and which coalition then would allocate their Electoral College votes to the national popular vote winner, instead of to the popular vote winner of the particular State.

This is a naked attempt to defeat the purpose of the Electoral College as it is constituted in our Constitution.

This is what Art II, Section 1, says about the Electoral College:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress….

This is what the 12th Amendment of our Constitution says about the duties of those Electors:

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President….
…
…if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote….

Notice that. The intent of the Electors of the Electoral College is to give each State its own, individual, voice in the election of our President, to place each State on an entirely equal footing with each of the other States.

The Compact, however, argues that

The compact points out that in the 2012 presidential race all 253 general-election campaign events were in just 12 states, and two-thirds were in just four states.
“Thirty-eight states were completely ignored,” the compact concludes.

The Compact wants to subsume those individual State voices into the tumult of a collective. This not only deprecates each State, it’s plainly unconstitutional. Worse, what this Compact wants to do is have its collection of States whose Electoral College votes total 270 to be the sole determiner of our President and Vice President—to explicitly ignore every one of the other States. Their votes simply wouldn’t count at all.

The Compact argues further that each State’s legislature can decide who the State’s College Electors are in any way the legislature wants to do. That’s true; see the Art II quote above. However, the legislature may not dictate to its Electors what their duties are—for whom they must vote. The 12th Amendment’s stricture has already determined that, and in this venue our Constitution supersedes the State’s wishes. The Electors must cast their own votes, not the national population’s votes.

The Compact complains that it’s somehow unfair for a Presidential candidate to get all of a State’s Electoral College votes when the candidate “won” the State with only a bare plurality instead of an outright majority in those States that have winner-take-all allocations. No Compact is needed to address this perceived unfairness. The State(s) in question can amend its allocation, if the citizens of that State wish it.

The Compact is doubly unconstitutional; even the name gives the game away. Here’s what Art I, Sect 10, of our Constitution says about interstate compacts:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress…enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State….

The States involved in this Compact think they’re getting around this minor Constitutional impediment by not strictly formally entering into an agreement. But the intent is clear, from the Compact’s title through its statement that

The National Popular Vote interstate compact will go into effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538).

No wink and nod and fingers crossed nonsense can cancel the fact of their intent to form this Agreement or Compact among the States.

The Compact’s pushers know this full well. But what else would be expected from the Left? After all, as Ezra Klein, then of The Washington Post, put it during reign of the Progressive-Democrat Barack Obama in a canonical example of the Left’s contempt for law,

[Y]ou can say two things about it [the Constitution]. One, is that it has no binding power on anything. And two, the issue of the Constitution is not that people don’t read the text and think they’re following. The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done.

Our Constitution, our laws—who cares? Us average Americans do.

One More Reason…

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…to disband—not merely defund—the Federal Bureau of Investigation, relocate the bureau’s [sic] databases and forensics labs to small towns in the Midwest, reassign the line agents to the Marshals Service and Secret Service, and to return all other FBI personnel from field office agent in charge on up through Director to the private sector—not to any other assignment in the Federal government—and reallocate the FBI’s putative budget dollars to other uses, including payroll funds to the Marshals Service and the Secret Service to cover those added agents.

Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX), during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, quizzed FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate regarding an FD-1023, alleged recordings between a Burisma executive and Hunter Biden and between that executive and then-Vice President Joe Biden (D), and FBI supposed investigations of the allegations therein. Abbate’s repeated answer was nothing but FBI stonewalling:

I’m not going to comment on that, Senator.

And

I’m just not going to comment on information we’ve received [regarding] investigations or other matters.

And

This is an area that I’m not going to get into with you, Senator.

In the course of all of this, Abbate uttered the FBI’s Stonewall of Stonewalls:

I’m going to answer within the parameters that we operate in.

Those are FBI parameters, and for the most part, they’re useful. But the overarching, the controlling, parameter within which the FBI operates is the requirement to be responsive to Congressional oversight questions—in the present case, to be responsive to Senate Judiciary Committee oversight questions.

Congressional oversight requirements supersede FBI internal procedures, as Congressional oversight requirements do all Executive Branch agency internal procedures.

The FBI has long since outlived its legitimacy.

Pro-Green Hysteria, or…?

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The Biden White House recently has canceled or delayed some projects that are critical to American economic prosperity and to American economic independence from our enemies.

On Tuesday [6 Jun] the US Army Corps of Engineers revoked a Clean Water Act permit granted by the Trump Administration for the NewRange copper and nickel mine in Minnesota’s Duluth Complex.

That copper and nickel is critical to the Biden administration’s push for a green transition to battery cars (and to a host of legitimate electric and other projects). Green aficionados objected, despite the fact that the region already is well-mined for iron ore, and in entirely environmentally sound ways. No more mining.

And:

[Biden’s] Interior Department last month delayed a decision on whether to let Alaska build a 211-mile road to a critical minerals mining area.

The Trump administration had approved this one, but green aficionados objected. Hence the delay.

And:

[L]ast Friday [2 Jun] Interior removed from oil and gas development hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in New Mexico within 10 miles of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

The folks affected by that development project, the Navajo Nation, badly wanted and whole heartedly approved it for the tens of millions of dollars in oil and gas royalties it would have produced for these Native Americans (whom the Left and the Progressive-Democrats in Congress and the White House pretend to favor). But green aficionados objected. No oil or gas development here, and no prosperity for Navajos.

These project cancelations and delay mean that, in the words of The Wall Street Journal‘s Editors, [t]he US will have to import the minerals from arsenals of autocracy like Russia and China.

Are these moves motivated by Biden’s pro-green hysteria or by Biden’s softness toward the People’s Republic of China? Or maybe both?

“Understand Their Identities”

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In a Fox News article centered on the decision by Georgia’s Professional Standards Commission to remove terms like “equity” and “inclusion” from the State’s teacher preparation standards, Aireane Montgomery, President and CEO of Georgia Educators for Equity & Justice was quoted as objecting.

I cannot imagine thinking that teachers should go into a classroom not having an understanding of how important their students’ identities are[.]

That’s not at risk from the removal of artificial criteria from the State’s teacher professional standards. Regardless, the question of students’ identities is easily resolved.

Have the students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the first class of each day. Teach them American history, American civics, Western history and civilization.

Teach the students their identity as American children and American citizens. That’s the truly important student identity.

Nor is it really all that hard. It needs only for school boards to enforce standards, teachers to teach to them, and above all, parents to be involved in their kids’ education, beginning with the setting of those standards.

Disgusting Disrespect

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In celebration of Pride Month, President Joe Biden (D) hung two American flags and a Pride flag from the balcony of the White House.

Biden actually is proud of this disgusting display. My disgust does not concern the Pride flag, it’s over the deliberate disrespect for our national flag that Biden is demonstrating with this display.

Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch President, has the right of it:

To advance revolutionary transgender agenda targeting children, Biden violates basic tenet of US Flag Code and disrespects every American service member buried under its colors[.]

He then cited cite US Flag Code §7(e):

The flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs.

Biden had only two things he needed to get right with this display, and he chose to ignore both of them. Our American flag is not at the center of that display, nor is it displayed higher than the pride [sic] flag.

For all that, Fitton is being generous. Biden didn’t choose only to disrespect every American service member buried under our flag; Biden has chosen with this display to insult every colonial, every militiaman, every service member who, for generations, have fought to defend our flag and the things for which it stands, who were maimed in that defense, and those who died in that defense, and Biden has chosen to denigrate every Gold Star mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter who has lost a member of that Gold Star family defending our national flag and everything our flag symbolizes. Including Biden’s right to be cavalierly insulting.

But that contempt for Americans and America is par for the course that the Left, the Progressive-Democratic Party, and Party Leader President Joe Biden have been setting for our nation.

Will there ever be an American Pride Month for our nation? Not as long as this gang of miscreants remain in power.