UPDATE: HB 1095 passed out of the House & Governmental Affairs Committee this morning. Rep. Steven Pugh walked on the vote, while two Republicans – Taylor Barras and Johnny Berthelot – voted in favor.

Remember these two people, who apparently support subordinating Louisiana’s voters to those on the East and West Coasts, on Election Day.

It’s unimaginable that the NPV could get the support of the full House, but we’ll find out.

We mention this because two bills – HB 1095 and SB 705, are both due for committee hearings today in the House and Senate governmental affairs committees.

Both bills would establish this crazy National Popular Vote system which is making the rounds across the country.

NPV would essentially eliminate the Electoral College, but in a surreptitious way. NPV is a state-by-state initiative which would pledge the respective states to awarding their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. Thus the Electoral College would still exist, but it just wouldn’t mean anything.

But in Louisiana, NPV would mean a great deal.

For example, if NPV had been in effect in 2008, the fact that Barack Obama was blown out in Louisiana (John McCain beat him 59-41 here) wouldn’t mean a thing – our electoral votes would be pledged to Obama because he won the national popular vote. Our Electoral College votes would have had to go to Al Gore in 2000 as well – how do you think our oil and gas-driven economy would have fared if that mendacious enviro-huckster had managed to get elected over our popular objection?

And that would mean a candidate engaged in wholesale voter fraud in urban areas like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Boston (and New Orleans as well; there’s a wonderfully sordid history of stuffing the ballot box in the Crescent City) would have a huge advantage in a presidential election.\

Our Founding Fathers were perfectly well aware of the dangers a direct democracy like this plan would create, and that’s why they created a system which installed some safeguards. A candidate who wins the dead vote in Chicago by a large margin can’t get a national advantage out of such a scheme now; Chicago might get you Illinois but it won’t help you in North Dakota.

You guys know all this already, if for no other reason than you read Mike Bayham’s post from earlier.

But the committee members might want to hear it from you while they’re deciding whether to move this abortion forward, so if you feel as strongly as we do about the issue here’s a list of folks to talk to:

Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Republicans:

Neil Riser: nriser@legis.state.la.us, risern@legis.la.gov
Bob Kostelka: kostelka@legis.la.gov, bkostelka@legis.state.la.us
Jack Donahue: donahuej@legis.la.gov, jdonahue@legis.state.la.us
Mike Walsworth: mike@mikewalsworth.com, walsworthm@legis.state.la.us, mwalswor@legis.state.la.us
Jody Amedee: jamedee@legis.state.la.us, amedeej@legis.la.gov
Jonathan Perry: perryj@legis.state.la.us, jonathan@perry4louisiana.com, jperry@legis.state.la.us

HGA Republicans:
Tim Burns: tburns@legis.state.la.us, larep089@legis.la.gov,
Johnny Berthelot: jberthelot@legis.la.gov, berthelotj@legis.la.gov
Steven Pugh: spugh@legis.state.la.us, pughs@legis.la.gov
Greg Miller: gmiller@legis.state.la.us, millerg@legis.la.gov
Taylor Barras: tbarras@legis.state.la.us, barrast@legis.la.gov
Stuart Bishop: sbishop@legis.la.gov, bishops@legis.la.gov
Tony Ligi: ligit@legis.la.gov

If the Republicans hold out against these bills, they won’t go anywhere. But the word is that Perry is squishy in the Senate and Barras and Berthelot aren’t solid in the House, so those legislators might need your special attention.

The bills are being carried by Rep. Walt Leger (D-New Orleans) in the House and Sen. Rick Gallot (D-Ruston). Let’s make sure they can’t be carried beyond today.