Gingrich Appears to Reverse on 2014 National Popular Vote Stance

SAYS ABOLITION OF ELECTORAL COLLEGE WOULD LEAD TO “TOTALLY CORRUPT NATIONWIDE SYSTEM”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Apr. 3, 2019) — Contrary to a 2014 letter he reportedly wrote to the chairman of the “National Popular Vote” initiative, American historian, author and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning that a constitutional amendment introduced in the U.S. Senate to abolish the Electoral College would concentrate the power to elect the president in “New York and California” and render presidential elections “totally corrupt.”

The brief segment was introduced by co-hosts Ainsley Ehrhardt and Steve Doocey, who asked Gingrich for comment on Democrats’ growing calls to render obsolete the system written in to the U.S. Constitution during the 1787 Constitutional Convention whereby the presidency is won state-by-state by indirect popular election.

Presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand is one of four senators co-sponsoring the legislation, introduced Tuesday by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI).  A majority of the declared Democratic presidential contenders have expressed an interest in, if not clear support for, eliminated the Electoral College in favor of a “one person, one vote” method.

The official National Popular Vote initiative has endorsed and “interstate compact” currently consisting of 13 states and the District of Columbia, all of which have pledged their states’ electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of to whom the presidential electors’ votes would have been bound.  Proponents of the effort contend that “It would make every voter in every state equally important in every presidential election” and negate presidential candidates’ concentration on “battleground states.”

In his draft amendment, Schatz termed the Electoral College “outdated and undemocratic,” according to The Hill.  In the same publication, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia was quoted as having said of the proposal, “I understand people’s thought process on that, but I also understand the Founding Fathers. You could naturally believe that a small state like mine would not have any representation at all, we wouldn’t matter at all. So I would not be for it.”

In an exclusive interview with The Post & Email last week, Attorney Mario Apuzzo termed the creation of the Electoral College one of many compromises made between large and small states at the Constitutional Convention in order to create the union of states and federal government.

In response, Gingrich said he sees the effort as an attempt for the “Democrats to steal the election” and “have illegal immigrants voting,” and, in tongue-in-cheek fashion, as “a terrific idea.”  “I think anybody who believes in having a totally corrupt nationwide system ought to be in favor of it,” he told the three co-hosts.

He described the current Electoral system as “decentralized.”

He asked why newly-declared Democratic presidential candidates have already visited Iowa and New Hampshire, and explain why “they think in the future no presidential candidate should worry about anyplace except New York and California.”

Doocy concluded the segment by stating that some object to Trump’s presidency because “he didn’t win the popular vote; he only won the Electoral College.”