AJR6 proposes to amend the Nevada Constitution to adopt the National Popular Vote Compact.
The Assembly passed AJR6 on April 17, 2023, by a vote of 27 to 14. We have assigned pluses to the nays because the National Popular Vote (NVP) movement is an attack on the Electoral College—the constitutional, federal, and republican process whereby the States choose the President and Vice President of the United States, rather than Congress or the people directly. Designed by the American Founders, the Electoral College is a key component of our “checks and balances” system that protects the various interests but co-equal sovereignty among the several States, ensuring each has fair representation and an influential role in deciding one of the most important decisions the country makes. Given that the States created a limited national government, the Electoral College functions as a decentralizing safeguard for individual rights and liberty from the “dangers of democracy” (e.g., the modern popular vote or winner-takes-all system), which threaten to result in a “tyranny of the majority” or an “elective despotism.” Nevertheless, the NVP Compact legislation to change our presidential elections should be rejected as fraudulent. Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution prohibits interstate compacts from being formed “without the consent of Congress.” In addition, Article V provides that only Congress may propose or call a convention for proposing amendments that “shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of [the] Constitution.”