![]() What makes contacting State Lawmakers with credible information so important, in my view, is that most of them aren't aware of bigger struggle that we are engaged in. Most Americans certainly are not! The NPV has deep internal flaws and it simply won't work as written! When you consider the actual history and the deep and multiple considerations that the Founders put into this federal government design, you quickly realize that, while they knew in 1787 that the federal government had to be made stronger in order for each of the States to survive, they almost universally feared that the new government they were creating would become a tyranny in and of itself. Designed to Prevent Concentrtion of Powers They considered repeatedly having Congress play a role in choosing the CEO, but resoundingly rejected that notion over and over. They were emphatic that Congress be an equal Branch but not a superior Branch. Having Congress playing any role in choosing the President, other than setting ministerial dates and rules, would result in tyranny. So, they designed that out! Read Federalist #51 by James Madison. It is also available as a one-sheet, 2-page flyer on that same Handouts Page on our website. (SCROLL DOWN on that page to find the Federalist Papers handouts.) In his, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. ..." statements, he described the need, the problem and their solution! Madison eloquently describes "the problem we have in designing a government where men will rule over other men is this --- ". (I HIGHLY recommend reading #51!) The Founders' solution is ingenious as they, "set power against power, ambition against ambition" as the underlying principle of the new U.S. government. "First, we must give the government enough power that it can control the governed; and at the same time, cause the government to control itself." They designed a system that prevents the concentration of too much power into too few places. One huge thing they did was have the STATES - which are legal "people", too - choose the CEO of the Federation. Not Congress (nor a long list of other considered election scenarios)! BOTTOM LINE The Left is rebelling against this federal separation of powers because their ideology - which is to order the affairs of everyone else by concentrating power unto themselves - is not a majority view in America. The National Popular Vote scheme is yet another big effort to dismantle the separation of powers the Founders designed into the longest living government in the world today! The NPV, if they can just get it triggered, helps to guarantee that the Left will hold power in perpetuity by changing the system that is designed to prevent that very thing from happening! Like everything else, Nationalize the Elections! They are very frustrated by the Constitution and the Electoral College because it is working as designed (the terrible 17th Amendment notwithstanding)! They are effective Checks against the concentration of too much power into too few hands. Vikram Amar, one of the original designers of the NPV idea, is actually pointing out here that instead of running 51 separate and very different election processes in a FEDERAL election as the Founders designed, they have to design a new nation entirely that will have a single NATIONAL election - which will be administered by the incumbent President of the United States! What could possibly go wrong? This is what the Left is up to in this "theater of the war" in the quest to take the United States down. Opinion by John
0 Comments
![]() The important thing to remember is that the President is the CEO of the Federation of States. He/she is NOT our School Superintendent, nor our Mayor, our Sheriff, our Drain Commissioner nor even our Governor! Domestic Governing is Supposed to Happen at the State and Local Levels, not Federal The President represents the STATES in things that are primarily external to the States - Trade Deals and Treaties with other nations, defense and fighting wars, maintaining border integrity, running the Executive Branch of the Federal government. Domestic governing is the responsibility of our States, not the Feds. The STATES elect the President of the United STATES. The population has never been assigned that responsibility - on purpose and by design. Popular Voting has NEVER Elected ANY President No popular vote has EVER been cast for any presidential candidate. On purpose. By design. Our States, over time, have confused the matter by asking us as Statewide populations, to elect the State's presidential Electors. That is who we vote for, not presidential candidates. One Person, One Vote already Exists within Each of Our States As such, ALL votes are treated equally and all votes are counted! Just because you vote for a losing candidate (or slate of presidential electors) does NOT mean that you have been disenfranchised nor that your vote was not counted! (That's actually a big part of the National Popular Vote sales pitch!) Elections are always State affairs. There has never been a national election, only a Federal election to elect - WITHIN each State - presidential Electors and the members of Congress. Each State has its own set of laws, State Constitutional provision and regulations that differ from other States, but which guarantee that every voter within the State are treated equally. The NPV is a Collusion Scheme that lieterally Destroys that Principle The backers of the National Popular Vote scheme literally are pushing an idea that destroys the concept of One Person, One Vote, all while they claim that it is the only way to achieve it! Their claims are astonishing, actually. It has been very easy for this generation of Americans to become confused on these points. ![]() MOORE v. HARPER, Jun 2023 How could a U.S. Supreme Court decision about State Legislatures drawing Congressional District maps be relevant to the National Popular Vote scheme? One of the latest decisions handed down by the Supreme Court was on June 30, 2023 in a case titled 'Moore v. Harper'. The case involved the North Carolina Legislature drawing their new Congressional District Maps after the 2020 Census. The NC State Supreme Court ruled against the NC Legislature, citing the State Constitution. The State Court held that the Legislature had violated the State Constitution in some fashion and that the new maps drawn by the Legislature had to be redrawn. The Legislature had argued that the Legislature was totally independent in that area of governing, per the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, and that the Legislature could do whatever it decided to do. They argued that the State Court was wrong and had no jurisdiction over the Legislature. Legislatures ARE Constrained by both State and U.S. Constitutions The Legislature appealed the case to the Federal Courts, where the Supreme Court took the case - and decided against the Legislature. A reading of the decision, however, looks like it will also spell doom for the devious National Popular Vote scheme, too! Why Does the NPV Scheme Fit in to This? The mainstay of the sales pitch by the paid lobbyist teams of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact scheme is that State legislatures have a 'plenary (unchallengeable)' right to decide election law, specifically when it comes to choosing how the State's presidential Electors will be chosen. The NPV sales folks refer to Article 2 in every sales pitch in selling their NPV. The SCOTUS, however, has specifically held that, when it comes to all federal elections, every State Legislature is constrained by both their State and the U.S. Constitutions. They even added that both State and Federal Courts are correct and empowered to be asked to step in and to overturn the Legislature whenever it determines that Lawmakers have violated either document whenever they are dealing with federal elections! So, what does that have to do with the NPV scheme? So, MOST State Constitutions require that only State residents may vote in State elections. Electing presidential Electors is, by definition, a State conducting a federal election. The NPV sales pitch proudly admits every time that they pitch it that their NPV scheme does not take away the Electoral College, that "we 'PRESERVE' the Electoral College!" That means that the election of the STATE's presidential Electors REMAINS a State election to do so even after they trigger this nefarious plan!. The NPV proudly admits that. Legislatures who are enacting the NPVIC scheme are most likely violating their own State Constitutions because they are electing their Electors by having voters from across the the ENTIRE COUNTRY cast votes to elect them! We Can't Wait and Hope the Courts Will Stop the NPV There are many other Constitutional violations that seem apparent in the NPV - but none of the Courts are allowed to hear any cases against the NPV until it goes into effect. And they are already 76% of the way to activating it! We Must STOP the NPV politically in the Legislatures before it can get activated by defeating it everywhere and getting it repealed wherever it has been enacted. WE need to ask every lawmaker to consider that they are violating the Oath of Office that they took by supporting the NPV scheme, a clear violation (in most States) of the State Constitution. Waiting to have a small group of Lawyers decide its fate will be too late to avoid damage and chaos to our election systems - in my humble Opinion by John! ![]() A common response theme that we get when we talk about the National Popular Vote (NPV) scheme after some folks have heard the NPV sales pitch is that somehow the NPV is going to cure something that doesn't really exist as a problem. The NPV scheme is a Plan that Will Not Work to Fix Problems That Do Not Exist One common "problem" they claim to finally set right is that the Electoral College is designed to have only wealthy white men elect the president". This is a multi-point response. 1) The Founders intentionally did NOT specify that "only wealthy white men would vote for Electors". This myth comes from the 21st Century teaching that America invented slavery and it's government structure is designed to permeate it. Nothing could be more wrong than that. We need to know that TWO States (Massachusetts & Vermont) had already banned slavery in the decade before the Constitution was adopted. Other States took actions to curtail aspects of slavery, but it was not until the mid-1830s that a nation - Great Britain - would outlaw slavery. But, if what the Leftists who are pushing the NPV claim here was actually the TRUE intention of the Founders, they would have written it that way! What existed in the late 1780s that would have prevented them from writing their open support of slavery into the document? (Hint: Nothing.) What they claim on this point is patently false and is one of the misleading selling points of the devious NPV scheme. EVEN IF IT HAD ANY TRUTH TO IT, the National Popular Vote scheme DOES NOT SOLVE their made-up problem!! What could possibly guarantee that a popular vote tally would elect ANTI-Slavery Presidents and Pro-Individual Liberty candidates only?! Answer: NOTHING. In fact, on at least four different occasions, the elected U.S. Presidents WERE winners of the so-called "national popular vote" tally - (even though there has NEVER been ANY popular vote that has factored into the election of ANY President!) What IS, in fact, the case is that the Founders said and agreed that each State shall cast State Votes using Electors to serve only that very limited role, CHOSEN IN THE MANNER THAT EACH Legislature shall decide! The NPV paid sales staff knows this extremely well, too, because it is the central core of their NPV sales pitch! In 1820, when James Monroe was re-elected, for example, there were 24 States and 9 of them did not even have a popular election! It was not until the election of 1880 that each of the States had asked their own voters to elect the State's Electors! Has anyone anywhere suggested that the Presidents elected before 1880 were illegitimately named as President because not every vote could cast a vote for their Electors? (Hint: No, no one has ever legitimately suggested that!) 2) "There are not supposed to be any political Parties." I agree that the political parties are the primary source and vehicle of the current corruption of our federal government. HOWEVER, the Founders did not ban political parties - I wish they had, but the fact is they did not. John Adams wrote that political Parties was one of his greatest fears for the new republic. Even so - the NPV scheme does absolutey NOTHING to alleviate that concern and, in practice and in fact, makes the political parties even more powerful and more dominant! NPV certainly does not solve that problem a all! 3) "The Founders said that Electors are to Vote Autonomously." This simply is false. Some critics today are probably correct that the Founders THOUGHT that each State Elector would Vote autonomously on their own, but if they really wanted that to be the case, they would have written the Constitution that way. They did not. They left all that up each State's Legislature (Article 2). What the Founderts really wanted is what they wrote, and that is that State Electors are chosen in the Manner in which each Legislature shall decide. Just a year ago, the Supreme Court clarified that means that each Legislature MAY, if it chooses to, put conditions on the Elector's Vote! They are called "Faithless Elector laws" and the Court upheld the use of them. Today, still, a majority of the States have chosen to NOT have a Faithless Elector law with any real teeth in them, so Electors ARE free to cast their Vote independently - and that is also FINE with the Founders Constitution. The Electors, however, have all been chosen by a political party since the 1880s and they are diehard partisan hacks, for the most part. This happened as the two major parties began concentrating their power across the country. Every State remains free to change all that at ANY time, and for any or for no reason - it is not a Constitutional provision making that happen. It still remains a STATE choice. 4) "The Constitution did not require the Winner-Take-All system that we have today!" Not only does the National Popular Vote compact NOT solve this non-existent 'problem', the NPV scheme itself actually DOES require a Winner Take-All law in each of its Compact States!! The NPV scheme, in reality, converts a 'Winner-Take-All' State into a LOSER-Take All State in every election where State voters disagree with national voters! This particular argument of theirs is insane. Make THAT make sense! The Founders did not provide for popular voting at all to choose Electors, so Winner-Take-All was never a consideration. Those are each State by State independent decisions. Each of those has to follow the individual State decision to have a Statewide popular vote choose Electors! 5) "The Founders established that there be one presidential Elector for every 30,000 people in a State." That Is simply false. Though we have not heard this one in a direct NPV sales pitch before, a few of their supporters claim this as a selling point. The FACT IS that the Founders took the time in 1787 to document that as the basis for electing the House of Representatives. Once again, IF THEY WANTED THAT IDENTICAL METRIC to choose the number of Electors, they would have said so and put it in the document. Instead, they very deliberately provided that "whatever is agreed to as the number of Representatives and Senators each State has in Congress, is how many Electoral Votes each State shall have." There are a number of other Misinformation selling points and beliefs of the NPV sales force and/or their followers, but I will address those in an upcoming blog post. ![]() "It's a republic, Ma'am - IF you can keep it!" - Benjamin Franklin, 9-17-1787 as he left Independence Hall on the last day of the Constitutional Convention Most people are aware that, on the final day of the 4-month-long Constitutional Convention in 1787 in Philadelphia where the U.S. Constitution was created, Pennsylvania Delgate Ben Franklin was leaving the Independence Hall when a neighbor lady approached him and asked him a simple question: "Well, Dr. Franklin - What have you given us? Is it a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin replied to her, understanding how fragile it actual was, that "It is a republic, Ma'am - IF you can keep it!" The Founders were aware of the fragility of the new Union that they had just designed. At the time, Americans were made up predominantly of people who truly believed that 1) there is an Almighty Creator God, and that 2) no man is Him. They honestly believed that every person is gifted by their Creator with certain rights that may never be legitimately taken from them (at least not without due process). "Suitable Only for a Religious and Morally Upright People" President John Adams wrote in 1798 that, "Our Constitution is suitable only for the governance of a religious and morally upright people. It is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other." Adams was dead-on accurate. He basically said that people who don't have those qualities will find ways to crash through the Constitution "like a whale breaking through a fisherman's net". Order can only be kept by a people who are self-motivated to keep the order, OR it must be externally imposed by government force. The Unique Structure of Separated Powers James Madison from Virginia is considered to be a "Father of the Constitution" as he brought in many concepts from the Virginia Constitution to serve as a template in Philadelphia for the Convention. He and many of the Founders had studied world history in great detail. They noticed many great pitfalls in the governments and nations that had failed over thousands of years. One common denominator seemed to be the eventual corruption of the population itself. But the practical theme of these failed nations was the lack of mechanisms to prevent the concentration of Power. They had even considered in 1787 that democracy might be the ultimate safeguard, except they also realized that every true democracy in history had collapsed, usually quickly and almost always violently, being replaced every time by fairly heavy dictatorial tyranny. Today, Oaths of Office Are Hollow. God is Out; Government is In. Our population has changed since the 18th and 19th Centuries, and I am not sure it's all been for the better. I believe that has actually been the technique used by those who are intent on taking America down - flood America with people who don't share those beliefs, take over the political parties and put those people into government. Solemn Oaths of Office? Meaningless, because they are making a holy vow to an entity they don't believe exists. So, if Almighty Creator God does not really exist, what then can maintain any semblance of order? Government. In the absence of God, the government becomes God. That effort has been in overdrive since 1962. It has pretty much succeeded, it seems to me. We Have the Roadmaps! The United States still CAN be saved, its course can be corrected and it CAN be gotten back on track. We have the greatest roadmaps back to maximum self-governed individual freedoms - our Founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers, as well as the hundreds of other writings of the early leaders of the nation. The Constitution still exists and it is still built on those same principles. Many people still believe in them, but not enough, apparently. So, where we are headed, and at breakneck speed, is a society where just one principle rules: Survival of the strongest. Just remember - No matter who you are, there will always be someone much stronger. When America Will Cease to be Great I still believe in the founding principles. Those guys got it right. But those who don't believe in them, by their actions, are bringing on tyranny. Absent the goodness of the American people, and widespread belief in - well, at least "great respect for" - the Scriptures and in God Almighty, the only thing that can maintain any semblance of order is Tyranny. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1834 to his European audience that, "After years of searching for the things that make America great, I have concluded that America is great because Americans are good. When Americans cease to be good, America will cease to be great." He was so right - and we are there today. It is time to turn it around. ![]() It's a Disaster Designed to Happen The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) scheme is not even a national law! The NPV is simply a Contract between some colluding States (it will likely take only 20 or 21) that disables the third and last remaining federalism Check against the Federal government. The NPVIC scheme is attacking a well-crafted Check that has been designed into our national structure since the beginning – the STATES choosing the President of the United STATES. Voters in the States - at each State Legislature's eventual decision - vote to elect their home State’s ELECTORS. Never in U.S. history has one popular vote ever been cast for a Presidential candidate! There is a huge reason for that - Checks and Balances. Separation of Powers is the Key The STATES elect the President of the United STATES – never has the population. By power-checking design of our Constitution. The Electoral College has been an essential part of the Separation of Powers of the core structure of American government since 1789. The STATES choosing the CEO of the Federation is a major part of keeping a runaway federal government in check. The United States government was created in 1787-1789 with securing and protecting Individual Rights and Liberties, and those of the States as its primary Mission. It is the most persistent and effective government in history in that Mission. Not only is the Federal government divided into three separate and co-equal Branches, which each have many different types of checking power against the others, our STATES, who actually CREATED th Federal government, serve as the Counterbalance to the Federal government itself. The Founders were universally concerned that the government they were establishing would quickly devolve into the type of tyrannical government which they had just fought a very long and bloody war to free themselves from! They knew from World History that democracies implode, quickly and violently in most cases. So, No direct democracy for the United States! They had a real challenge to solve. Alexander Hamilton put it best in Federalist 58 when he wrote in 1788 "If Men were Angels, no government would be necessary. If Angels were to govern Men, no internal nor external controls on government would be necessary. "The great difficulty lies in this: In framing a government of Men to govern other Men, you must first grant the government enough power to control the governed, and in the next instant oblige it to control itself." They achieved that through a thoughtful and elegant system of Checks and Balances woven throughout the Federal system. Three powerful and foundational Checks against growing federal tyranny that were designed into the system included
The 17th Amendment erased the first Check in 1914. The Courts, the White House and Congress have each been eroding the second Check systematically or over 100 years. There are very few areas in 21st Century America that the Federal government believes that it has no power to rule! Only the third major Check remains, but through the "mal-education" of the American public and the current threat from the National Popular Vote movement funded by the Left, is in very real danger of being jettisoned. The NPV Scheme Makes Voters Across the U.S. Very UNEQUAL The NPV scheme actually treats voters across America extremely UNEQUALLY. Assume for a minute that Georgia does join this misguided Contract – The Contract cannot change the fact that Georgia’s 16 Votes are STILL GEORGIA’s 16 Votes. What the Contract changes is WHO chooses Georgia’s Electors! Today, 100% of the decision of WHO Georgia’s Electors are belongs to GEORGIANS! Under Mr. Anuzis’ scheme, Georgia residents will exert only 3.2% of the decision, with the residents in the other 49 States, plus DC, making 96.8% of GEORGIA’s choice! Neighboring North Carolina, which won’t join this NPV scheme, will actually make 3.5% of GEORGIA’s decision of who these Electors will be! It gets WORSE – CONVERSELY, because NC won’t be in the NPV collusion, Georgia voters will have ZERO impact on who NC chooses to be NC’s Electors! How is THAT “being treated the same”?! In Georgia's Case ... Electing GEORGIA’s Electors is a Georgia election. Because of that, Mr. Anuzis is lobbying the Georgia Legislature to have it violate the Georgia State Constitution at Article 2 – Georgia elections may only have Georgia residents cast votes. Anuzis is wrong again when he claims that the Supreme Court concluded that Legislatures “have unrestricted powers in appointing electors”. Just two weeks ago, the Supreme Court, in Moore v. Harper, clarified that State Legislatures ARE and have been restricted by both their State and Federal Constitutions, AND that both State and Federal Courts have a role to play to OVERRULE any Legislature when they violate either Constitution in legislation regarding Federal elections! NPV Violates State and the U.S. Constitutions The NPV Contract scheme also violates Article 4 of the US Constitution by denying the guarantee to a republican form of government to each of the State Legislatures who have decided to NOT join this terrible scheme. Non-NPV Legislatures are rendered moot to make any meaningful decisions that Anuzis claims they “unrestricted powers” to make, once his deeply-flawed NPV Compact is triggered. Like the NPV scheme that he is selling, Anuzis piece here is largely in error throughout, but the last point I’ll make here is that this scheme is deeply partisan, in my view. All 50 State legislatures have considered the NPV scheme at least once since 2005. The average is almost 4 times per State. The NPV contract has been rejected by 34 States a total of 158 times over the last 17 years. It Has Been Rejected by 34 States More than 150 Times - and it is Highly Partisan In the 16 States, plus DC where the NPV has been passed (including Nevada which just took Step 1 last May), a total of 1,390 Democrats (92.5%) and 115 Republicans (7.5%) have voted to pass it. Of those Republicans, 45 were in Blue Illinois in 2008 and 57 were in Blue New York in 2014. The official Republican Party Platform has stood firmly and clearly AGIANST the NPV scheme since 2016. SINCE that time, 7 of the 16 States have voted to enact NPV. In those enacting States, 451 Democrats (99.1%) and just 4 (0.9%) of Republicans voted to pass NPV. In this current legislative session, in the 13 States Anuzis has introduced NPV in, 164 Democrats (98.8%) have sponsored the legislation and just TWO (2) Republicans (1.2%) have! 1 Republican is in Minnesota, and HE did not even vote for the bill that NPV was enacted by! The other Republican is in Maine. The NPV Guarantees that the Courts will Choose Future Presidents The NPV Compact is deeply flawed and does not deliver what they promise to discover. It is a CONTRACT among a few States – it is not even a national law, let alone being made a part of the Constitution. Litigation is absolutely certain once the NPV Collusion Contract is triggered. If you like that the Supreme Court “selected” George W Bush in 2000 (it is what caused this NPV scheme to begin with!), then you will LOVE this flawed and unconstitutional NPV Collusion scheme, because the Courts will be choosing all U.S. Presidents from now on. This NPV scheme must be stopped wherever it is suggested, in my opinion. Click images to enlarge. ![]() In the Spring of 1787, there was no peace. No effective government outside each State. Something had to be done. The U.S. Constitution is the world's longest surviving written charter of government. To help the Senate keep things in their proper perspective, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was invited to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in October 2011, four and a half years before he passed away. Scalia gave a brilliant recap of what sets the American form of government apart. The very structure of our government is provided by the Constitution - that's what a "constitution" actually is - Structure. It is why the U.S. has been so successful at protecting Individual Liberties, and makes the U.S. unique from every other government. It is SEPARATION of POWERS! That includes placing people in the various offices they hold from different and sometimes opposing places, using different means to put them there! That patchwork of putting people into positions of Governing over us is an ESSENTIAL part of the protections that our Founders so wisely designed in to our government! In his brief opening remarks, Scalia talked about the gridlock that is designed IN to our government on purpose. He said, "In fact, this GRIDLOCK is the MAIN apparatus that is the protection of minorities in this country against the majority!" One example of an element of that, Scalia continued, is in having a bicameral legislature (Congress) where identical language must pass both chambers - comprised of members who ARE ELECTED IN A DIFFERENT FASHION! National Popular Vote sales pitch says, "We must elect everyone the SAME way!" The NPV Sales pitch repeatedly says the main "problem" they are solving for is that, "The President is the only position that we vote for where the winner does not have to get the most votes!” (This selling point of theirs contains TWO lies, er, ‘misrepresentations’ - #1) The population has never voted for the President. We vote for our State Electors, if our States have asked us to. #2) The President is elected by the Electoral College with a MAJORITY of Votes! That is always ‘the MOST votes’! A majority is a much higher thing to achieve than simply "the MOST" votes! The National Popular Vote scheme CHANGES the deal by electing Presidents with a PLURALITY. A Plurality is simply "the MOST votes". A candidate with 31% of the popular vote will easily be elected in a field of just 5 candidates - an election where 69% of the people - the new election basis - voting AGAINST the winner! On just TWO occasions, 1824 and 1876, did no candidate receive a Majority of the State's Electoral Votes. The 12th Amendment of 1803, however, provided the Contingent Election, where the States still elect the President (John Quincy Adams in 1825, and Rutherford B Hayes in 1876) but by using their House of Representatives delegations in Congress to cast their LONE Vote The entire design of the Federal government is a patchwork of government officials getting named to their jobs by different means and each job having other jobs that they are to check against and also having other offices check them! Our STATES, too, serve a major check against the Federal government itself by choosing its CEO. The NPV seeks to end that check against Federal power. Critics of the Constitution often call it "gridlock", and again Justice Scalia accurately points out that this structure of our government creates the gridlock, with the gridlock being the PRIMARY protection for most minorities in the country!! There is No Such Thing as a “National Popular Vote” in the United States. By Design. The population, by DESIGN, has never been assigned the authority nor the role to cast votes for the Office of US President. That is the CEO of the US Federation of STATES and it is the STATES that cast their Electoral Votes to name their Federation’s Chief Executive and Vice President! There has never ever been such a thing as a “national popular vote” in the United States! Our STATES have asked their voters to elect the State presidential Electors – there is a HUGE difference! The NPV sales folks are trying to create an entirely new form of government without going through ANY of the steps needed to do so! The National Popular Vote people seek to destroy a major part of that design with their scheme. Link to Video: Justice Antonin Scalia - Opening Remarks to US Senate Judiciary Committee, Oct 5, 2011. ![]() QUESTIONS have come up about the recent Electoral Count Act, and to get my reaction to this legislation. Should this be a law that we need to be concerned about? Is this another example of Congress growing out of its Cage that is the Constitution? In general, I support this Electoral Count Act. I was very worried about it at first, but it does keep Congress and the federal government purely in the ministerial role that they are supposed to have. I am one of the few on our side to believe that Mike Pence (and Congress, generally) really was fairly powerless on January 6th, although I do leave room for Congress being allowed to make sure that the State Votes (Electoral Votes) they are receiving are the genuine certified Votes from each State. Otherwise, the purpose of January 6 to assemble Congress is to have all Members of Congress see with their own eyes that the President being elected really IS the President CHOSEN BY THE STATES. By Design, Congress Plays No Role in Choosing the President When you study in some detail the history of 1775 - 1800 and the formation of the U.S., you come to the realization that the need for some type of a national government to do some things effectively was (and remains) a huge need! HOWEVER, the universally-held fear in that era is that the creation of such a government for the new Federation would evolve into the very tyranny that they fought a long, bloody war to be free from. (We have today the government that they feared back then, in my opinion!) Madison put it Eloquently James Madison, in Federalist 51, put it most eloquently - "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." Madison further explained that they did that by "setting power against power, ambition against ambition" in the design. They set the President to be completely equal to Congress, neither above nor below in power hierarchy. They proposed and repeatedly rejected having Congress having any say in who the CEO would be. (Similarly, the President is powerless to decide who members of Congress should be.) The Founders were strongly AGAINST Congress or any part of the federal government playing a role in the choice of President - though Congress is given the power to fire the president for cause. Impeachment and removal is part of the ingenious Checks and Balances they designed in! It has ALWAYS been the STATES that Elect the President of the United STATES I glanced through this Electoral Count Act one time 6 months ago and was relieved that Congress is staying in its ministerial role. The Act will give the States more time to decide exactly who their Electors shall be and for whom the Electors shall cast the STATE's Votes. When you study a LOT of the writings from that era, including the MINUTES of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, it becomes very clear that the Founders - and subsequently ALL 50 of our States - intentionally made sure that neither the U.S. population would choose the "Chief Magistrate" (it was Washington who later said to use the term "{resident" for the Office), NOR the CONGRESS that would elect the President! By a Federal Law, Congress meets in a Joint Session on January 6 following the Electoral College Vote Castin in December, presided over by the incumbent Vice President who is serving in the role of President of the Senate. The intent of this joint session is to have all members of Congress be present to be able see first hand the actual Votes cast by the STATES for President and Vice President so that they can each see for themselves that this really IS who the STATES have elected as President and VP. That January meeting is to lay the foundation for the Legislative Branch accepting the incoming Chief Executive and Vice President. It is NOT part of the Presidential selection process - Congress has no role, by design, in that. Always remember - it is the STATES that have always elected the President of the United STATES, and never the U.S. population! It appears the new Electoral Count Act preserves that sacred responsibility and will help the States continue to do that. Electing the President is a Matter of ASSIGNMENT, NOT of selecting a Better Style of Democracy3/23/2023 ![]() by John Crawford The Electoral College is nothing more than our STATES casting their Votes to elect the President - of the United STATES. Importantly, it is also nothing LESS. In this endless assault against our States electing the President of the United STATES, I still think that the point that trumps all others is that the election of the President is one of ASSIGNMENT and not one of the best handicapping system for a democracy. The Founders were crystal clear that they were NOT going to have a democracy in place for the U.S. Federation of States. If any STATE wished to practice democracy, they remained free to do so, as long as the State did not violate any of the principles that they bound themselves to in the confines of the U.S. Constitution. But, just exactly how "Romneycare" escaped from the State of Massachusetts in 2010 to become "Obamacare", which was forced upon the rest of the States, so, too, has "DEMOCRACY" escaped out of a handful of States and is being forced upon the other States and the Federation itself. The Leftists back the NPV because they are wanting to install democracy where it does not exist so that they will be able to permanently control everyone else in the country. As the Founders themselves profusely told us - that will end the United States and in short order.
![]() At Least We Are Not Supposed To Be! We have all watched with astonished amazement the heavy-handed and quick response of the Canadian federal government as it squashed the "Freedom Convoy" protest in Ottawa and across Canada this month. I offer this perspective to alert Americans about how WE should make OUR arguments against our government as they issue their edicts against freedom and our Constitutional rights. We Are NOT Canada Most Americans believe that America's protected individual rights are common around the world - "well, most certainly in other Western countries, Right?!" And of course, our closest neighbor, ally and trading partner is Canada, a nation of similar cultures that peacefully shares the longest international border on Earth. American and Canadian citizens also share in the same basic, God-given rights - Right??! Not necessarily. For one thing, the Canadian Constitution does not lay as its foundational premise that "all men (and women) are created by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, ...", as the U.S. Declaration of Independence does. The term "unalienable" simply means that no one - not even the government - may separate an individual from these basic God-given rights - at least not without legal Due Process. Although Canadians do have a "Charter of Rights" that the government first created in 1960, and replaced in 1982, it is most likely true there that What the Government giveth, the Government may taketh away. In Canada, the base concept is that all rights are grants from the Government, not from God Almighty. That is basically the case in every other nation on Earth, other than in the United States. Americans need to be aware of that. One thing that seems to be missing, among a number of others, in Canada's Charter of Rights is an acknowledgement that individuals are inherently entitled to be safe and secure in their possessions and papers - a concept that is carved out as an assignment that the U.S. government is charged with protecting in our Fourth (4th) Amendment. The U.S. has the 4th Amendment So, in Canada, it is not an unconstitutional stretch for the Prime Minister to unilaterally declare an emergency and then order the bank accounts of many thousands of Canadian citizens to be frozen. The Prime Minister there is also allowed to interfere in private Insurance policies and CANCEL insurance policies on the vehicles that were seen at the Freedom Convoy protest in their nation's capitol this month! Those are actions that an American government may not legitimately take. Not without due process. The 4th Amendment is part of the American 'Bill of Rights', the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, adopted at almost the same moment as the Constitution itself was. It reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon a probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - U.S. Constitution, Fourth Amendment "That's Not a Good Idea" vs. "That's Not ALLOWED!" Watching the debates in Parliament in Ottawa via TV this past week, the Conservative Party Members of the House of Commons have been making very eloquent and correct arguments against Prime Minister Trudeau's draconian actions. But I noticed that they are required to argue that, "What the Prime Minister is doing is not justified and is a bad idea!" They are not arguing that he is barred from taking these actions. Their American counterparts in the U.S. Congress, had that been happening here in the States, would and SHOULD be shouting, "What the President is doing IS NOT ALLOWED!!" The United States Constitution exists to establish a federal government with enough authority to do its job in the limited list of areas that it is charged with governing, but the bulk of the Constitution actually forms a cage around that same federal government to prevent it from taking a number of other actions. What the U.S. government is charged with doing as its most fundamental task is protecting individual liberties. We are not Canada. Our Founders Were Geniuses What the American Founders did, in the design of these United States, is far more profound in my view - they built in substantial Checks and Balances throughout the Federal Government with listed areas that it may govern in. And they created a Constitution that the States must also adhere to, but otherwise allowing the States to govern as the people of the State deem correct. "In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the Governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself." - James Madison, March 1788 Canada's Founders were Loyalists WHY DO I WRITE THIS? Because millions of Americans and probably half of the people elected to our U.S. Federal government today believe that we ARE just like Canada, that we should WANT to be just like Canada and that the U.S. Constitution is a bunch of 18th Century suggestions. As citizens, WE MUST BE AWARE and must be prepared to challenge our own government whenever orders like these come out of DC. The Founders in the U.S. were quite successful in creating that type of government that protects individual liberties. And it has taken 200 to 240 years to finally begin to erode a bunch of the built-in self-control. Canada was not so designed - it is a nation that was founded by North American Loyalists who preferred living under the control of the Crown of England. Many Loyalists in the U.S. moved north to Canada after the Revolutionary War to find a stronger 'cradle-to-grave' type of government. By studying history, we can predict fairly well how current events will unfold in our own day. Without that, the People who care will be constantly shocked, surprised and disappointed at what their government does. We need to also realize that the United States of America really is a rather unique place to live. |
AuthorJohn Crawford has been a lifelong Constitutional Conservative. He graduated from Michigan State University in Business Administration and worked on his MBA at Western Michigan University. He has been very active in grassroots politics and in volunteer community service organizations his entire career. Archives
January 2024
|