by Jay Whig
Colorado, having cast its electoral votes for a loser in the 2016 presidential election, may not be content merely to be a one-time loser.
The Colorado State Senate voted Tuesday – along party lines – to adopt Senate Bill 19-042, a bill to require that Colorado’s electors vote in presidential elections according to the national popular vote.
The remarkable lesson Colorado Democrats have taken from their 2016 loss: best to forego a say in presidential elections altogether.
It is hard to keep up with this sort of political genius. Had a law like SB 19-042 been in effect in 2016, it would have made not an iota of difference. Colorado’s electors cast their ballots for the candidate who won the national popular vote, because that is how the people of Colorado chose to vote.
But if the bill clears the Colorado State House – sources say it is assured to win the governor’s signature – that exercise of political choice will be a thing of the past. Coloradans’ votes in the only national elections in America will be like – well, you know – to a gelding, just a memory.
It can’t be lost on Colorado Democrats that there is no guarantee that the national popular vote will invariably align with the will of Coloradans. It’s a nearly inexplicable political sacrifice that can only benefit people outside of the state of Colorado. It’s virtue signaling for a political movement that is one part humanist piety and two parts insanity.
Perhaps Colorado Democrats, concerned about the nefarious effect of money in politics, consider this excision of free choice a way to reduce the cost of presidential elections. No need for a whistle stop in Denver, or to consider the interests of Colorado in forming a majority. Colorado, population 5 million, won’t be worth it. Candidates will spend their time developing a vote harvesting game in Los Angeles, and promising population centers – sorry, a one-horse town like Denver is not one – policies designed for the unique corruptions of the big city.
Colorado is on the leading edge of Americans who want to surrender their right to govern themselves to other people. Give me the deep state and the national majority; I reserve my most serious judgment to what dope to buy at the dispensary.
“Go west, young man!” Horace Greeley purportedly said.
Democrats of the new west, having banded their intellectual and political vitality, have a new cry: “Go with the flow!”
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J. Whig is an attorney practicing in New York and a resident of Connecticut specializing in insolvency and restructuring.
