Legislation to implement the National Popular Vote plan, a multi-state
agreement to establish a national popular vote for President, was
adopted handily today by the California Assembly - by an initial margin
of 17 votes, 42-25. Sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D), AB 2948
would enact the "Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by
National Popular Vote."
Identical legislation has passed the Colorado
state senate, passed a Louisiana committee, been the subject of a
hearing in Missouri, won bipartisan support in Illinois and last week
was introduced into the New York Assembly by five Republicans - all in
just the three months since the proposal was unveiled in February at a
Washington, D.C. news conference that included former Members of
Congress Birch Bayh (D-IN), John Anderson (R-IL and independent
candidate for president) and John Buchanan (R-AL).
"We're
pleased to see California legislators acting on the widely-acknowledged
fact that presidential elections ignore far too many voters. We need a
president of the United States, not the United Swing States," commented
National Popular Vote president Barry Fadem. "We look forward to
working with Republicans, Democrats and independents in every state in
the nation to make this plan a reality, and give all Americans an equal
say in presidential elections."
"California legislators were
right to support this bill," commented Rob Richie, executive director
of FairVote, a nonpartisan reform organization and an ally in the
National Popular Vote coalition. "The Constitution assigns the task of
improving presidential elections to states. It's clear that
Californians now get absolutely zero attention in presidential
campaigns unless being asked for a check. Indeed Californians have
experienced one of the nation's four largest declines in youth turnout,
down fully 18% since 1972 - hardly surprising given the rising voter
turnout gap between battleground and spectator states."
States
have applied many different rules for allocating electors. Under AB
2948, states would award their presidential electors based on the
national popular vote winner rather than on the statewide vote winner.
These laws would not take effect anywhere until identical laws had been
enacted in enough states to assure that the nationwide popular vote
winner will get enough electoral votes to be guaranteed the Presidency.
Co-authors
of the book Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan For Electing The
President By National Popular Vote, include Stanford consulting
professor John Koza, FairVote's Rob Richie and National Popular Vote
president Barry Fadem. FairVote also produced the groundbreaking report
Presidential Election Inequality. For more information,
see www.fairvote.org/presidential and www.nationalpopularvote.com .
FairVote
is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that studies the impact of
electoral rules and systems on turnout, representation and electoral
competition. It can help arrange interviews with National Popular
Vote's Barry Fadem and John Koza, National Popular Vote plan backers
such as FairVote's Rob Richie, former Congressmen John Anderson and
John Buchanan and New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg. For more
information, contact Ryan O'Donnell at (301) 270-4616 or
[email protected].