Resolution In Support of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Exposed

The Resolution in Support of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact was considered by ALEC's Public Safety and Elections Task Force at the 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit on December 2, 2011. This bill was part of the ALEC task force agenda between 2010 and 2012, but due to incomplete information, it is not known if the bill passed in a vote by legislators and lobbyists at ALEC task force meetings, if ALEC sought to distance itself from the bill as the public increased scrutiny of its pay-to-play activities, or if key operative language from the bill has been introduced by an ALEC legislator in a state legislature in the ensuing period or became binding law.

ALEC Draft Bill Text

Summary

This resolution calls on the State of [insert state] to support the interstate compact known as National Popular Vote Compact (the Compact). The Compact utilizes the authority granted to state legislatures under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution to appoint Presidential electors "in such manner as the [State] Legislature...may direct..." and the power of states granted by the Supreme Court to enter into interstate compacts to direct state granted authority in concert with other states, to award Presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Compact reaffirms the Electoral College, and the values of the Electoral College, by keeping control of elections in the purview of State Legislatures, and confirms the policy recognized by the majority of this country throughout most of its modern history, that every vote, in every state, should count equally in the election of the President of the United States.

Model Resolution

WHEREAS, the interstate compact known as the National Popular Vote Compact recognizes the importance of the Electoral College, and state control of elections, without Congressional interference; and

WHEREAS, the National Popular Vote Compact contains 880 words, and simply provides that a state will award the number of electors granted to that state by the Constitution of the United States to the winner of the popular vote in all 50 states, rather than winner of the vote in the member state, as the Presidential electors in the member state, preserving the state's control over its own elections in all respects, including voting powers, conditions of voting, recounts, registration, and verification; and

WHEREAS, the National Popular Vote Compact insures that Presidential candidates will compete for the votes in every state throughout the United States, and not just the votes of the so-called "battleground" or "swing" states, so that the issues that affect the 35 "spectator states" are addressed as comprehensively by the Presidential candidates as the issues that affect the "swing states," and additionally insures that a Presidential candidates time, attention, and resources are devoted to capturing the votes in all 50 states, and not just the "swing states"; and

WHEREAS, the National Popular Vote Compact brings the expectation of the voters that the Presidential candidate the obtains the most votes in a Presidential election (as is the case in every other election held in the United State), and does so by a means and a method allowed by the Constitution, without eliminating the Electoral College; and

WHEREAS, the National Popular Vote Compact is an interstate compact rather than a constitutional amendment, it preserves the values of the Electoral College, and the plenary and exclusive power of the state legislatures to determine how the President of the United States should be elected, as clearly contemplated by James Madison in the Federalist number 45, and Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist number 68; and

WHEREAS, the current system of awarding electors was not mandated by the Constitution, and in fact, not used by many states until years after the Constitution was adopted, and that a Constitutional Amendment to eliminate the Electoral College would necessarily undermine a key power delegated to the State Legislatures by the Constitution; and

WHEREAS, the National Popular Vote Compact allows a state to withdraw from the Compact any time up to 6 months before a presidential election if that state should ever decide that awarding its electors on the basis of the winner of the popular vote in all 50 states is not in that member state's best interest; and

WHEREAS, the National Popular Vote Compact combines the values of preserving the public's expectation that the winner of the most votes in any election should be the winner of that election with a strong commitment to the rights and powers of the various states, as contemplated by the Constitution;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the State of [insert state] supports the National Popular Vote Compact, and calls upon the various states to join with it by adopting the Compact.