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Comment by beaner | Hacker News Reader

Open minded question: Maybe yes?

If states don't have an ability to have a voice for themselves as states, what's the point of them at all? They gain this small but important nudge towards autonomy from the electoral college.

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I think states already get that enough through the senate.

I really think the president should be by popular vote, but don't see any way this would ever get changed.

The senate is one mechanism, but its mere existence is not reason enough to consider it sufficient.

The NPVIC[0] is actually inching closer and closer to being in force. It will still take a long time, but I see it actually possibly working eventually.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...

IMO, states choosing to enter an agreement like this of their own free will, is the appropriate way to get a popular vote, if that's what the people want, while still retaining the right of the electoral college.

I personally disagree with a state choosing to sacrifice its voice in such a way, but it's its right to do so, to award its votes how it sees fit.

I think this agreement won't work. When it matters, it would be ignored by some state and any enforcement can be challenged as circumventing the constitution

Yeah, I can see there being difficulty. It's the type of thing that sounds good to a lot of people before they find themselves in a situation where it actually makes a difference. When it suddenly kicks in and people say, "wait, what?", I can see there being legal action or something. But I think it would also be too late, if it's already been accepted as law. It might prompt people to want to start undoing it, but there may be an instance of it applying first.

In case you're not aware of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...), take a look. It's doable.

The remaining point of having states would be that local state law can still vary.

This is true even if we got rid of the senate, the EC, and every federal body had purely population-proportional representation (which I am in favor of).

Federal law overrules local law, so they are intertwined. A vote at the federal level is in many ways a vote on local laws, too.

While technically true, this isn't always the case in practice. After all, marijuana is still illegal in the eyes of the Federal Government but this has done very little to deter state-sanctioned dispensaries in more than a handful of states.

That means it sometimes is the case in practice.

I wasn't disputing that. I was pointing out that there are notable exceptions.

Okay. I guess I'm saying that's irrelevant. For local & federal law to be intertwined doesn't require there to be a lack of exceptions.

Not fully. It's already pointed out that federal law overrules state law, but it's important to remember that congress is only supposed to be able to make federal law on a small set of enumerated issues. IMO the issue is when you have an expansion of what congress is able to make laws on which limits what states can do.

In most countries states (or provinces or departments or whatever they like to call their subdivisions) exist in order to have some degree of internal autonomy. They can have their own laws and institutions based on their historical culture. That's enough. They don't have to have any special treatment at the Federal level.

How do you feel about the fact that this kind of thinking basically rules out the possibility of Puerto Rico from ever becoming a state? Or California splitting into two states?

You can still have states and also have a national popular vote.

States are not people, why should states have a voice? What voice would that be, if not the one of the people who live there?

States having a voice is the whole point of a state. If states shouldn't have a voice, they should be phased out.

But they do have a voice, they are an entire level of gov't. They shouldn't necessarily have any particular say in the election of the president.

States "have a voice" in the local justice system and laws, as well as senators.

Making the president of the whole country be elected directly by the whole country would not make states redundant, far from it.

Because the constitution says the states elect the president. That's how it works. In modern times this means the people of each state decide, by popular vote, how their state votes.

You're saying it should be like this because it is like this. That doesn't take us very far.

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