scott drexel

Class post.

If this loss today means Tottenham Hotspur stay in the league, then we've done our part to preserve football heritage. Proper club and proper history. Some things are bigger than 3 points.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Everything I’ve said is verifiable fact. You’re absolutely right that the EC was intended to be a deliberative body. Some states had electors run individually! I’ve heard no credible person this century say we should elect a college that goes and chooses a president for us.

You left out the most important aspect of the EC that has been neutered, I suppose on purpose, namely that it is supposed to be a deliberative body. You’re completely missing the crux of the whole argument. Everything else you mentioned is window dressing without eliminating the binding of electors.

@zkwerrell @PollTracker2024 The problems you describe are exactly what the modern EC does not solve. Doesn’t stop demagogues, just lets them win by targeting narrow coalitions in a few swing states. Doesn’t ensure broad-based support. It allows someone to lose the popular vote & still win bc their…

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 I’m playing the rules exactly as they exist, not guessing at intent. Art. II, Sec. 1 is clearly enumerated, as the courts have held. You argue about consent being required, and I’m sure that will be challenged! But as of today, the most relevant precedent says it’s not required.

Yes, and as a lawyer the Constitution also limits state power, and the supremacy clause subordinates state law to both Federal Law and the Constitution. Also, show me the court case where the Oregon system was upheld by the federal courts. It was never tested. If you had a case upholding the Oregon system, you’d have an argument here. But you don’t, because no such case was ever brought and it was never tested… And within what, 5 years of the Oregon system first becoming law, the constitution was amended to provide for the direct election of senators. If you want a national popular vote for president, you amend the constitution to do so. The NPV is clever, but it’s obviously absurd to think that states with 50% +1 EVs can create a national popular vote when the constitution requires otherwise and popular vote was expressly rejected twice. Just amend the constitution and stop wasting your time with this silliness.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Look, you can’t say the Framers gave X power to the state, but only if they didn’t do this thing that they never expressly prohibited. That’s the exact opposite of the 10th Amendment. Also, they didn’t “reject” a popular vote! They voted on multiple proposals and NONE prevailed!

You think that that text is binding on a question of states banding together to fundamentally change how the president is elected, and in a manner that directly enacts a mechanism that was expressly rejected twice? US Steel is about compacts touching on interstate commerce, not completely changing the constitutional structure. There is, as you may or may not remember, a rich history of litigation regarding the interaction of state and federal power on the subject. And this case is clearly inexorably enmeshed in that jurisprudence. If you think that case stands for the proposition that the states can create a compact that fundamentally alters the constitutional order and circumvents the amendment process, good luck.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Maybe there are others? But you start getting really esoteric at that point.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 …4) go to a proportional system, which is way more complicated, but even if you figured out how to award someone, say, .42 of an electoral vote (and would require an amendment), it effectuates a popular vote if carried out all the way to it’s end. Those are the alternatives.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Silly argument, chock full of logical fallacies. The current system doesn’t prevent demagogues or factionalism, ensure broad-based support, or that a president do what’s right. Why don’t you apply your reasoning to Governor’s races? All 50 are conducted by popular vote.

Because I don’t want American Presidents selected in the same manner as American Idol winners. There needs to be mechanisms to prevent demagogues, ensure broad-based support and no factionalism or regionalism, and above all, to have a President do what is right and not what is popular. Direct election of the President by popular votes destroys any possibility of controlling for these (and other) things. We should fix the electoral college, not scrap it. If you think the only metric is how “democratic” the mechanism is, then we simply have totally different priors. I simply don’t think a person’s popularity is a good way to select an executive. The incentives are so perverse and the opposite of what we want for intelligent, long term decision making.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 And you’re correct- went to law school, not a lawyer. But I can promise you that I’ve forgotten more about NPV than you’ll ever know. Here’s your citation from US Steel, boss.

Your legal reasoning is pretty bad. The framers explicitly rejected a popular vote for president. Creating an interstate compact to directly contradict this and cause Presidential elections to be in function, though not form, a popular vote is obviously something not allowed under the Compact clause. Given your arguments, is it safe to assume you are not a lawyer?

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Sure, valid. But say you 2x it- even if you have 870 districts and “increase the resolution of the EC”, some will be close, others won’t. You still have some districts deciding while others watch from the sidelines. At that point, why not let the person with the most votes win?

@SDrexel @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 I think the number of representatives must be significantly increased, which would not only increase the resolution of the EC, as well as reduce the impact of/pressure to engage in gerrymandering

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Article II, Sec. 1 gives plenary authority to states to determine how those electoral votes are awarded. Federal elections are run by the states. Voila, no threat to federal supremacy, therefore, no consent required.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Not quite. Virginia v. Tennessee, US Steel v. Multistate Tax Commission. Congressional consent is required only when federal supremacy is threatened. There are lots of compacts that don’t have congressional consent, because they operate within the bounds of existing state power.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Also, a congressional district system would fracture presidential campaigns even more. Look at the House maps- the vast majority of seats are non-competitive. So, instead of 7 swing states, you’d have ~35 swing districts. Plus, you’ve brought the impact of gerrymandering into it.

@SDrexel @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Why not? It didn’t exist before, and states started adopting it in the 1800s to encourage more campaigning in their state. Mandate EV results by CD with 2 statewides. And I agree it’s never worked the way it’s supposed to, but I support doing so instead of eliminating it.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 But why a Constitutional Amendment? The Founders already gave sole power to the states to determine their method for awarding electors, and NPV is simply an exercise of that power.

@SDrexel @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 Right so we fix it, likely through constitutional amendment.

@zkwerrell @Filmantopia @PollTracker2024 You can't just "eliminate" the winner-take-all system. You have to replace it with something. That's what national popular vote is- replacing WTA with NPV. You're correct- the Electoral College was intended to be a deliberative body. Literally from 1787, it wasn't.

Eliminating winner take all allocation would fix that problem without scrapping the EC altogether. The EC is supposed to be a deliberative body, not just a set of tally marks. National popular vote all but formally eliminates the EC. The EC college system as it exists today, with all the changes including winner takes all, does not work as intended except in partial, marginal ways.

@grapefarmer14 @PollTracker2024 The Winner-Take-All system we use today isn't in the Constitution, was never debated at the convention, and wasn't used by even a majority of states for another 100 years. NPV doesn't do anything at all to the Constitution-- it simply exercises a right the states already have.

@PollTracker2024 The Electoral College is established in the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution. Leave it up to DemocRats to disregard our Constitution.

NPR: Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a bill Monday that adds the state to the National Popular Vote Compact, an agreement among states to award their presidential electoral votes to the nationwide popular vote winner. Link to article: npr.org/2026/04/14/nx-…

@zkwerrell @PollTracker2024 Your hypothetical falsely assumes that if NPV were in effect in 2024 and every vote was equal throughout the 50 states, the campaigns would have focused 94% of their general election attention on just 7 states. Your argument is flawed out of the gate.

@PollTracker2024 Nice, would have given Virginia’s electoral votes to Trump!