House joins bid to alter formula for presidency
Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007
Arkansas’ House of Representatives is one of three chambers nationally to pass a bill aimed at forming an “interstate compact” to elect the president of the United States by popular vote.
“Basically with me it comes down to one person equals one vote and my vote counts just as much as yours,” said Rep. Monty Davenport, D-Yellville, sponsor of House Bill 1703, the measure to add Arkansas to the compact.
The nationwide effort has a long way to go.
It must be passed by states combining for more than half of the Electoral College votes nationally to take effect.
And it may not even come up for a vote in the Arkansas Senate.
Sen. Terry Smith, D-Hot Springs, the Senate sponsor of HB 1703, said he’s trying to gauge support before bringing it up before the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs.
“I would like to [present it before the committee ], but I just don’t know,” Smith said. “If we don’t have the votes, there’s no use in messing with it. We’re going to try to see about it the first of the week.”
It failed in the House 45-51 on Monday but passed Tuesday, 52-41.
Gov. Mike Beebe is neutral on the bill but will sign it if it reaches his desk, spokesman Matt DeCample has said.
State Democratic and Republican Party officials oppose it.
State Sen. Gilbert Baker, RConway, the chairman of the state GOP, and former state Sen. Bill Gwatney of Little Rock, whom Beebe has tapped to be the new state Democratic Party chairman, have questions about Arkansas losing influence if presidents are elected under popular vote.
“I support the process we have now,” Baker said. “I just want to make sure that Arkansas is considered when we elect the president. I’d be afraid if it was just a strict popular vote that candidates would spend all their time in New York or California.”
Gwatney said, “We’re such a small state, [with a popular vote ] presidential candidates wouldn’t even bother to campaign here.”
Davenport says it’s debatable whether Arkansas has gotten much attention nationally from presidential candidates under the current system. His bill mirrors the national agreement.
Electoral College votes for each state equal its number of congressmen and senators. Arkansas has six.
HB 1703 would take effect only if the number of electoral votes of the states that have enacted it in identical form surpasses 270.
That’s the number a presidential nominee needs in order to win.
No states have enacted the legislation, but one legislative chamber in both Colorado and Hawaii has approved it, according to National Popular Vote, a group that backs the compact.
According to that group, the Founding Fathers gave the states exclusive control over the manner of awarding their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time.
The current system has been used since George Washington was elected the first president. However, at that time only a handful of states allowed the state’s winner to get all that state’s electoral votes, as is the case with all states now except Maine and Nebraska, according to the group.
Under the plan, the Electoral College system wouldn’t be abandoned.
However, the states in the compact would agree to dedicate their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. So even if a majority of the people in a state voted for the loser of the popular vote, that state’s electoral votes would go toward the winner of the national popular vote.
Smith said the push for a popular vote probably has its roots in the 2000 election, when President Bush won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote to former Vice President Al Gore.
But Smith said his support doesn’t have anything to do with party politics.
“It really shouldn’t matter,” he said. “We’re out of the horseand-buggy days.”
A message left at the National Popular Vote headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., wasn’t returned Friday.
Its president is Barry Fadem, a lawyer in Lafayette, Calif., who specializes in campaign law and has consulted on voter initiatives.
Its vice president is John Koza, a Stanford University biomedical professor who coinvented the rub-off lottery ticket, according to the group’s Web site.
Art English, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said he supports the concept.
“I think it would stimulate voter turnout,” English said. “Every vote will count.”
He said it may help the growth of third parties by giving them more bargaining power.
Under the Electoral College system, third-party candidate votes don’t count unless a thirdparty candidate wins a state.
English said he doesn’t buy the argument that Arkansas wouldn’t get attention with a popular vote.
“Could you afford to ignore several hundred thousand voters in Arkansas ?” English asked.
On the other hand, English said passing a constitutional amendment is the best way to ensure a popular vote.
“An interstate compact probably wouldn’t be the best way to do it,” he said.
He said such compacts don’t always hold up. He pointed to one that would have put radioactive waste in Nebraska until the state backpedaled on the agreement.
Under the national proposal, a state could pull out of the agreement as long as it did so at least six months before a presidential election. House vote on “interstate compact” bill Here’s the 52-41 vote Tuesday by which the state House approved House Bill 1703, which would put Arkansas in an “interstate compact” to make the popular-vote winner president. Not voting or voting “present” has the effect of voting nay. YEA (52 ) Abernathy, D-Mena Allen, D-Little Rock Baker, D-Osceola Berry, R-Dover Blount, D-Marianna Bond, D-Jacksonville Bradford, D-Pine Bluff Brown, E. D-Pine Bluff Burris, D-Malvern Cash, D-Jonesboro Cheatham, D-Crossett Cook, D-Williford Cooper, D-Melbourne Cornwell, D-Benton Cowling, D-Foreman Davenport, D-Yellville Davis, D-Earle Dunn, D-Forrest City Edwards, D-Fayetteville Evans, D., D-Searcy Everett, D-Salem Flowers, D-Pine Bluff George, D-Dardanelle Hardwick, R-Bentonville Hardy, D-Camden Harrelson, D-Texarkana House, D-Fayetteville Hoyt, D-Morrilton J. Johnson, D-Bryant Kidd, D-Jonesboro Lewellen, D-Little Rock Lovell, D-Marked Tree Maloch, D-Magnolia Moore, D-Arkansas City Overbey, D-Lamar Pate, D-Bald Knob Patterson, D-Piggott Pennartz, D-Fort Smith Pickett, D-Conway Pierce, D-Sheridan Powers, D-Hope Prater, D-Jacksonville Rainey, D-Dumas Reep, D-Warren Reynolds, D-Quitman Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia Rogers, D-Walnut Ridge Shelby, D-Hot Springs Smith, D-Fayetteville Wagner, D-Manila Wells, D-Paris Wood, D-Jacksonville NAY (41 ) Anderson, R-Rogers Breedlove, D-Greenwood Brown, J., D-Wynne Burkes, R-Lowell Chesterfield, D-Little Rock Creekmore, D-Hensley Dickinson, D-Newport Evans, L., D-Lonoke Garner, R-Maumelle Gaskill, D-Paragould Glidewell, R-Fort Smith Green, R-Van Buren Greenberg, R-Little Rock Harris, R-Lowell Hutchinson, R-Bella Vista Hyde, D-North Little Rock Jeffrey, D-Camden Johnson, D., D-Little Rock Kenney, R-Siloam Springs Key, R-Mountain Home King, R-Berryville Lamoureux, R-Russellville Lowery, D-El Dorado Martin, R-Prairie Grove Maxwell, D-Monticello Medley, R-Fort Smith Norton, R-Harrison Pace, R-Siloam Springs Pyle, R-Cedarville Ragland, R-Marshall Rosenbaum, R-Little Rock Sample, R-Hot Springs Schulte, R-Cabot Stewart, D-Nashville Sullivan, D-De Queen Thyer, D-Jonesboro Walters, R-Greenwood Webb, D-Little Rock Wills, D-Conway Woods, R-Springdale Wyatt, D-Batesville NOT VOTING (7 ) Adcock, D-Little Rock Dobbins, D-North Little Rock Hall, D-Marvell Hawkins, D-Vilonia Petrus, D-Stuttgart Saunders, D-Hot Springs Sumpter, D-West Memphis
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