After joining movement to elect president by popular vote, Maine poised to undo decision
A voter walks by a ballot box outside Portland City Hall on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Lauren McCauley/ Maine Morning Star)
The Maine Legislature is poised to undo a decision it made last year to join a pact that presents an eventual path to do away with the Electoral College.
The Maine House of Representatives passed legislation, LD 252, on Tuesday that would repeal the decision, but did so after some Democratic members first attempted to buck a committee recommendation and reject it.
While the bill is sponsored solely by Republicans, it has been backed by some Democrats in committee and floor votes. The bill now heads to the Senate.
In 2024, the Legislature adopted something called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which Gov. Janet Mills allowed to become law without her signature.
States that are part of the compact pledge their Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate with the most overall votes across the country, but it would only take effect once states with a total of 270 Electoral College votes have joined. Including Maine, 17 states and the District of Columbia have ratified the agreement, giving the compact a total of 209 electoral votes.
During floor speeches, lawmakers disagreed on which system would give more of a voice to Mainers.
'We were the first state in the nation to split our Electoral College votes by congressional district — a system that reflects our political diversity and values every voice, whether rural or urban,' said Rep. Barbara Bagshaw (R-Windham), the bill sponsor.
Maine and Nebraska are the only states that split their electoral votes across candidates. Other states use a winner-take-all system where the candidate with the majority of the state's popular vote gets all of the state's electoral votes.
'By joining the National Popular Vote Compact,' Bagshaw said, 'we have undermined that.'
However, Rep. Arthur Bell (D-Yarmouth), who sponsored the legislation to enter the pact last year, argued the Electoral College system results in candidates only paying attention to voters in swing states, which Maine is not.
'To me, it's as simple as every vote should be equal,' Bell said.
Rep. Sean Faircloth (D-Bangor) said he is sympathetic to people who he hears say, 'My vote doesn't matter,' given that twice in this century a candidate who has lost the popular vote has become president.
Others pointed to the founding intent behind the Electoral College when explaining their opposition.
Rep. Adam Lee (D-Auburn), an attorney, pointed to Federalist Paper 68 when making the point that the Electoral College is based on the idea that regular citizens can't be trusted to elect the president.
When the Electoral College was conceived, its design was intended to advance the political power of slave states, said Rep. Ambureen Rana (D-Bangor). Enslaved people were counted toward the electoral population of the states in which they were enslaved despite not having the right to vote.
Subject matter aside, several Republicans took issue with procedure. Rep. Laura Supica (D-Bangor) made a motion to accept the minority report of the Veteran and Legal Affairs Committee, which would have preserved the agreement, though that motion failed 71-76 and was preceded by a half hour of floor debate.
'This is just poking the eye [of] the committee,' said Rep. Shelley Rudnicki (R-Fairfield).
In April, the majority of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee voted in favor of LD 252, with eight legislators in support of the measure and five opposed, a breakdown that did not fall along party lines.
While five of those in favor were Republicans — Reps. David Boyer, Quentin Chapman, Ann Fredericks, Benjamin Hymes and Sen. Jeff Timberlake — two are Democrats — Sens. Jill Duson and Craig Hickman — and one is unenrolled — Rep. Sharon Frost. However, the committee members who voted against its passage were all Democrats: Reps. Sean Faircloth, Anne Graham, Marc Malon, Parnell Terry, and Supica.
The committee voted against legislation, LD 1356 sponsored by Lee, that seeks to change Maine's method of allocating electoral votes from the current district split to a winner-take-all system — but only if Nebraska also adopts winner-take-all. Lee's bill has yet to be heard on the floor.
In April, the Nebraska Legislature killed a bill that sought to make this switch, after Republicans failed to secure enough votes to overcome a four-hour filibuster.
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