SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Oregon legislators are considering a proposal to elect the president of the United States by popular vote for the fourth time in the last eight years.
Oregon is among several states including Connecticut and Colorado currently attempting to join the so-called National Popular Vote compact, which has gained momentum after Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory in November.
The interstate agreement would require Electoral College delegates to cast ballots for the national winner of the popular vote. It’s triggered when enacted by states with at least 270 combined electoral votes, the magic number needed to clinch the presidency. The compact is already 61 percent of the way toward meeting its goal, with 165 electoral votes from the 11 states that have signed on so far.
Although Oregon has just seven electors, it’s one of a dozen states where the compact has been approved by one of their two statehouse chambers. Oregon’s previous bipartisan efforts in 2009, 2013 and 2015 were successful in the House but ultimately failed in the Senate.
The bipartisan process is starting again in the House through House Bill 2731, which drew divided testimonies from more than 220 people at its first public hearing Tuesday in Salem.
“To willfully attempt to nullify the voice and vote of rural America is un-American and discriminatory at best,” Joseph Rice, chair of the Oregon GOP second congressional district committee, wrote to the committee. “Eugene, Salem and Portland may live in their urban utopia, but they only do so with the products manufactured and produced by rural Oregon and America. To silence their voice is an insult to democracy.”
Supporters said the proposal would help ensure that all votes are weighted equally.
“There is no bigger deterrent to participating in the democratic process than feeling disenfranchised by that process. When your vote counts for less than votes in other states or when your state isn’t considered a swing state … it’s hard to be motivated to participate,” Amy Kessler, speaking on behalf of Portland’s Bus Project nonprofit, told lawmakers.
Trump lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million, but he clinched more than enough electoral votes, 304, to win the presidency. The Pew Research Center says Trump had the seventh-smallest winning percentage of the popular vote across all presidential elections since 1828.
John Koza, chair of the National Popular Vote, noted several Supreme Court rulings that such interstate agreements don’t threaten federal supremacy and the electoral vote structure is a state-level decision.
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