July 23, 2007
To paraphrase a group of popular TV commercials, getting rid of Democrats at all levels of North Carolina government really is “so easy a caveman can do it!”
Very simply, at the next election for offices for State Senate, N.C. Representatives, Governor and all Council of State offices, any citizen of western North Carolina who wants a better break from state government should check a straight “R” ticket.
Forget the “D;” just check “R.” A caveman can do it.
On a statewide basis, it’s difficult to find corruption or other government craziness in Raleigh that doesn’t trace directly to the fact that there are too many Democrats there. Ever wonder why most of the state’s new highways are not in the west? How about Jim Black?
I can give you more examples than you have time to digest right now, but let’s just look at two.
About six months ago, the N.C. Environmental Management Commission—whose members are appointed by Democrat Gov. Mike Easley—voted 12-1 to allow Concord and Kannapolis to take another 10 million gallons of water per day from the Catawba River. It looks like they wanted it for a water park.
The Democrats on that commission were in the large number on the left of that vote, and 10 of the 13 members live east of Greensboro. In other words, it all adds up to a giant reaming for us westerners in the foothills and mountains.
Our economic future is put into jeopardy simply because the governor has the almost inexhaustible power to appoint members to boards and commissions. Guess what! Republicans who might favor interests of western counties just don’t get appointed!
The appointive power of the majority political party in North Carolina keeps those of us in a very large minority party under their thumb. And political parties aren’t even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution!
Another piece of Democrat subterfuge is a thinly veiled effort in the General Assembly to make an end run around that Constitution. They’re trying to change state law to allow the popular vote winner of the national presidential election to take all 15 Electoral College votes—regardless of who actually wins in North Carolina.
The N.C. Senate passed this Democrat boondoggle, Senate Bill 760, in May, and the N.C. House is about to begin consideration of a companion measure, House Bill 1645. If passed, it would have the effect of erasing our state border in presidential elections.
The Founders of this nation had many reasons for wanting to use the Electoral College mechanism to choose a president—the primary reason being that they did not want a president having to be dependent upon Congress for his election and his powers of office.
Besides insulating the presidency from direct popular control, the Electoral College spreads the responsibility for presidential elections across all states, no matter how sparsely or densely populated. Under the National Popular Vote movement, only a few states and a half dozen major cities will always choose the president.
Wisely, the Founders adopted something in 1787 in Philadelphia called “the Great Compromise.” It was a negotiated merger of ideas from New Jersey delegates and representatives from Virginia—resulting in a bicameral national legislature.
The upper chamber, the Senate, would represent all states equally—including those with small populations—while the lower, the House of Representatives, would be apportioned strictly according to state populations.
For 230 years, it’s been said that the Senate represents “the elite” in national legislative matters, while the House represents “the common people.” Like it or not, it’s how we’ve gotten where we are as a country.
Still, four presidents have been elected who did not win the popular vote of the nation. A fifth, Bill Clinton, had only a plurality of popular votes but won in the Electoral College in 1992—as did Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
Essentially, 15 states are trying to form a national alliance to elect the president in this National Popular Vote (NPV) manner. However, Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits individual states from agreeing to “any treaty, alliance or confederation.”
Several “blue states,” or those leaning to the political left, have considered the NPV legislation in recent years, although only Maryland has actually enacted it into law. This legislation has failed most recently in Hawaii, North Dakota, Montana and even California.
In North Carolina, this is an idea backed by Democratic politicians, primarily from the central and eastern parts of the state—which, ironically, are very much rural. What are the benefits of NPV to their rural constituents?
Other parts of the U.S. Constitution direct the states to enact the “manner” in which all elections are held, and in North Carolina, the state legislature has put that responsibility in a State Board of Elections—again controlled in every county by the Governor’s appointments.
You must understand that there is no such thing as a “national popular vote;” no mechanism for such a phenomenon has ever existed anywhere in our laws. Instead, the Constitution calls on each state to conduct an election for presidential electors.
Results in the 50 states, then, are certified on a national basis from each state capital after the presidential election. Fifty state elections for president, instead of one national election….
It’s really not such a difficult concept to understand. It’s no different than how we elect all of our other state and national legislators—based on boundaries of counties, districts or states.
The reason this NPV baloney is coming to us in North Carolina now was the election of George W. Bush in 2000, resulting from all of Florida’s electoral votes going to Bush, giving him an Electoral College majority, even when Al Gore had more popular votes on a national basis.
Some people, you see, still cannot accept that George Bush actually won the popular vote within the borders of Florida, even if only by a few hundred votes. So, of course, the Democrats want to change the rules they lost under in 2000. It’s called rigging the game.
During the 20th Century, many efforts in many states similar to the current NPV craze have been beaten back in favor of keeping the tradition of the Electoral College.
While Democrats want to argue about Bush being “the worst president ever,” they overlook simple history. Any system of electing presidents could theoretically elect both good presidents and bad, even if based only on national popular vote.
Thomas Jefferson, who doubled the size of the nation with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, was one of those who did not win the popular vote nationally. His election resulted from a “deal” in the House of Representatives instead, and Alexander Hamilton was later killed in a dual by Aaron Burr, who lost to Jefferson.
Another who won by a single vote in the U.S. House, Rutherford B. Hayes, withdrew federal troops from the South in 1877 after 12 years of “reconstruction” in which national taxes plundered the economies of the former Confederate states.
Where’s the guarantee in the legislation to be considered (HB 1645) that the NPV election of presidents would always produce a popular one? Whatever the system, the only guarantee is that somebody will have a large number of people think he or she is garbage.
Still, the Democrats in charge of state government in Raleigh have quietly nursed this NPV nonsense through for passage in the N.C. Senate and brought it up for serious consideration in the House.
Regardless your opinion of the Iraq war, can you imagine having Al Gore in charge back on Sept. 11, 2001? His response to worldwide radical Islamic terrorism probably might have been to allow global warming to kill the Al Qaeda bad guys!
You know, the rising seas from melting glaciers would have drowned them, etc., etc.
If you want to end this ridiculous exercise in our legislature, get in touch with all state senators or representatives you know and tell them that next time there’s an election for their seats, you plan to vote for Republican control of every aspect of state government.
It’s so easy….
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