{"id":62450,"date":"2019-02-12T16:02:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T23:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-democrats-push-changes-to-presidential-electors\/"},"modified":"2019-02-12T23:02:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T23:02:36","slug":"colorado-democrats-push-changes-to-presidential-electors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-democrats-push-changes-to-presidential-electors\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Democrats push changes to presidential electors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Motivated
Motivated by Democrats\u2019 lingering resentment over Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 presidential victory over an opponent who won 3 million more votes, Colorado\u2019s Democrat-controlled Legislature is rushing a bill to have the state join other in casting its electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote.<\/span>Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 After Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 victory over an opponent who won 3 million more votes, Colorado\u2019s Democrat-controlled Legislature is fast-tracking legislation to join other states in picking the president based on the national popular vote.<\/p>\n

Republicans fiercely oppose the bill, which has cleared Colorado\u2019s Senate and was being heard by a House committee Tuesday. They argue it subverts an Electoral College that the Founding Fathers created to ensure smaller states don\u2019t get trampled when it comes to choosing the president.<\/p>\n

Colorado would join 11 states and the District of Columbia in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The campaign was launched after Democrat Al Gore lost the 2000 election to Republican George W. Bush despite winning more votes.<\/p>\n

Currently, citizens voting for president are choosing electors from the political parties. The college has 538 electors, corresponding to the number of seats held by states in the U.S. Senate and House plus three votes allotted to the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

The interstate compact would go into effect once it has enough states with a collective 270 electoral votes \u2013 the number needed to elect a president. Compact members, including giants California (55 electoral votes) and New York (29), currently have 172 electors. Colorado, with nine, would give it 181.<\/p>\n

Electors from compact states would pool their votes for the national popular vote winner \u2013 whether or not that candidate won those individual states.<\/p>\n

Three other U.S. presidents were elected without winning the most votes: Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), Benjamin Harrison (1888) and John Quincy Adams (1824), who was voted into office by the U.S. House. Adams\u2019 opponent, Andrew Jackson, had more electoral votes but not enough at the time to win outright.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery vote in the national popular vote is equal. Every vote matters,\u201d Democrat Mike Foote, the bill\u2019s Senate sponsor, argued during Senate debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to diminish our constituents\u2019 voices,\u201d said Democratic Sen. Jessie Danielson. \u201cThey\u2019re frustrated with the current system that\u2019s holding their voice back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we want to cede our voting power to the national popular vote? To what California says? To what New York says?\u201d countered Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg. \u201cThe current system represents rural parts of the country well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow Republican Bob Gardner argues it\u2019s dangerous to undermine a process adopted at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 so smaller states could \u201cavoid being overwhelmed in their power and sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur state government is sovereign. We are not a political subject of the United States of America,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cThis bill is antithetical to the very notion of our Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Democrats rejected a Republican amendment to refer the issue to Colorado voters.<\/p>\n

Republicans also argue the compact would inspire candidates to bypass smaller, rural, and often Republican-leaning states during their campaigns \u2013 and add Colorado to \u201cflyover\u201d territory. Advocates say it would force red states like Texas and blue states like California into campaign play.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton won Colorado and the popular vote in 2016.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Colorado Democrats consolidated control of the Legislature and retained the governor\u2019s office. Gov. Jared Polis supports the bill.<\/p>\n

Richard Collins, professor of constitutional law at the University of Colorado Law School, said the compact would likely survive court challenges in individual states \u2014 but is also vulnerable to repeal if political winds shift in individual statehouses.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get enough states on board at the same moment is extremely difficult,\u201d Collins said. \u201cIt\u2019ll probably pass here, but what most people need to know is that it\u2019s a long shot nationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are currently 11 states will National Popular vote bills pending, with a total of 89 electoral votes. If all pass, that will bring the total of electoral votes dedicated to the popular vote winner to 261, more-or-less one state away from the 270 they need to make this real.<\/p>\n

Other compact members include Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.<\/p>\n

Herald Staff Writer Ryan Maye Handy contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Measure would make state join popular vote compact<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,28,299],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-62450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-headlines","tag-national-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62450"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=62450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}