Maine Democrats Propose Law to Have U.S. President Elected Solely by the Major Democrat-Controlled Cities in the United States
By: David Deschesne
Fort Fairfield Journal, February 13, 2019
Several Maine Legislators are proposing bills for the new legislative cycle that would allow the U.S. President to be elected by the National Popular Vote. By having the U.S. President elected by the popular vote, instead of the Constitutionally-mandated electoral college, the major population centers of the New York City area, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles will have enough population combined to outvote the rest of the entire country. Since those geographical areas are controlled historically by the Democrat Party, the likelihood of a conservative president ever being elected to the office of U.S. president would essentially be nil under this plan.
The proposals come in the form of Legislative Requests (LR), which are the precursor to becoming accepted as a bill that would be voted on by the Maine Legislature. The following legislators have submitted proposals for Maine to adopt a National Popular Vote for U.S. President:
LR 951 Rep. Nicole Grohoski (D-Ellsworth)
LR 1583 Rep. Troy Jackson (D-Caribou)
LR 611 Sen. Dave Merimant (D-Knox Cty)
LR 188 Rep. Deane Rykerson (D-Kittery)
LR 302 Rep. Stanley Zeigler (D-Montville)
The bills being proposed by these Maine legislators are in direct opposition to the U.S. Constitution’s mandate of electing the President via an electoral college, which consists of electors numbering the total number of U.S. Representatives and Senators from each State (Article II, Sec. 1, Clause 2). It is unlikely, however, that these legislators have even bothered to read the U.S. Constitution, or take it seriously.
The purpose of the Electoral College is to give a weighted balance to the smaller, less populated states against the larger, more populated states. It was designed to prohibit highly populated geographical areas from dominating the smaller ones and shutting out their ability to cast a meaningful vote for President.
The legislators seek a sly and covert work-around to the Constitution by joining an already formed “Multi-State Compact” where States arbitrarily agree to assign all their electors based solely on the National popular vote numbers nationwide. While there would still be an “electoral college” of electors from each state, they would be essentially turned into rubber stamps for the national popular vote final popular vote numbers for President nationwide. What this would effectively do is set up the major cities previously mentioned as the large population centers that would ultimately cast the controlling votes for President over the votes in the rest of the country, thus setting up a system where Presidential campaigns would only have to focus on the half a dozen or so most populous States and completely ignore the rest since their voters would be irrelevant. This sleight of hand would on the surface appear to comply with the wording of the U.S. Constitution, since there would still be an electoral college, but it would violate the spirit and intent by forcing those electors to vote according to the popular vote, nationally, instead of their own state's vote numbers. This in effect would render the electoral college’s function as moot since at the end of the day, the popular vote would be what ultimately counts.
Since the major population centers in those States have historically voted for left-wing Democrats, this move would secure the Democrats power over the Presidency forever—or until they destroy the U.S. and it disintegrates into a bankrupted collection of fractured colonies. Not coincidentally, all of the legislators in Maine calling for National Popular Vote are Democrats.
In the same way that the population of Southern Maine basically controls the entire State’s legislative process due to its vastly superior number of Representatives in Augusta, the National Popular Vote would by default allow that area to negate the votes of the rest of the State north of Lewiston and Augusta and control all of Maine’s Presidential electors.
(This story has been edited and corrected from the print version to add clarity to the electoral college relationship to the national popular vote.)