Popular-vote plan nears crucial period

A three-year-old effort aimed at electing U.S. presidents through a popular vote is entering a critical phase in the coming weeks, with two big states set to possibly endorse the concept.

The National Popular Vote (NPV) plan passed the New Jersey state Assembly last week and is set for a vote in the state Senate in early January. Around the same time, Illinois is expected to finish work on the bill, which has already passed both chambers there.

{mosads}Those backing the measure hope to get states with a majority of the country’s 538 electoral votes to support the plan, which would create a compact between states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote. If enough states agreed, the plan would kick in and create a de facto popular election for president.

Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland, which approved the plan in April, comprise less than 10 percent of the nation’s electoral votes but are crucial to getting the effort off to a good start in 2008, when the Electoral College will be in focus because of the presidential contest.

Organizers hope the plan will be implemented by the 2012 election but recognize the magnitude of what they are undertaking. The vote in the New Jersey Senate, which is slated for the first week in January, will provide a big clue as to whether they can be successful, said NPV President Barry Fadem.

“If we don’t get it done there, that will be a bad signal,” he said.

In the past two years, the measure has passed in 12 state legislative chambers. Ten states or more could be on the agenda for 2008.

In addition to New Jersey and Illinois, organizers hope to pass measures in Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and West Virginia, among others.

The measure has been vetoed after passing both houses in California and Hawaii. In the latter, a veto-proof majority in the House has yet to complete an override.

Progress has also been made in Arkansas and Montana, but those states won’t be in session again until 2009.

Tim Storey, an election analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said the NPV hasn’t made tremendous tangible progress so far but that the lessons learned during their work could be valuable going forward.

“The fact that they did get Maryland and a few other chambers to sign on is important, but it’s a big mountain to climb,” Storey said.

John Samples, the director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Representative Government, opposes the effort. As it progresses, he said, the proponents’ task becomes tougher.

While it was relatively easy for Maryland legislators to vote for the bill, he said, those in other states won’t have that luxury if the NPV plan becomes close to a reality — especially when they might be casting electoral votes for a candidate who loses his or her state badly.

Samples also sees a possible alliance forming against the plan between swing states that are currently very important and small states that don’t stand to gain from the change. He says he’s convinced any compact would need the approval of Congress, and such an alliance would only need the senators from 20 states to block the measure through a filibuster.

He also sees the potential for the issue to become partisan, with liberals supporting it and conservatives opposing, further complicating matters.

“It’s not as clean an ideological debate or difference as one might expect, but I think this is another step down a path conservatives have generally opposed in other areas and may well do so again,” said Samples, who plans to publish a paper on the NPV plan early next year.

Fadem acknowledged liberals and Democrats have been out front on the idea but insisted that it’s not an inherently partisan idea.

“The Republicans think, ‘If the Democrats like it, it must be bad for us,’ ” Fadem said. “And the Democrats think the same thing when Republicans co-sponsor the bill.”

He said the biggest challenge the plan faces is educating legislators and voters, because it is complicated and changes the effect of the Constitution in a roundabout way.

“Whenever you make a change in the system, it’s viewed very cautiously,” he said.

Fadem heads the effort along with John Koza, a professor at Stanford University. It is also supported by former Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) and former Rep. John Anderson (R-Ill.), who ran for president as an Independent in 1980.