OPINION: Don’t hold your breath waiting for Oregon to uphold election compact

Published 2:15 pm Monday, December 9, 2024

When Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill into law for Oregon to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in 2019, there was assumption that it would only benefit Democrats.

Republicans haven’t won the popular vote more than once in 25 years, so this was a reasonable bet.

Fast forward to this November when on election night, former President Trump was up more than 5 million popular votes.

My phone began blowing-up with colleagues from around the country with questions like, “Are Oregon electors voting for Trump? We are a rule of law state, didn’t the Legislature pass a bill to devote our electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote?”

Not so fast.

There was a trigger built in where other states had to adopt this for an actual constitutional change, conceptually similar to the compact nearly half the states have signed to abandon daylight savings time, as well as the Greater Idaho Movement.

Frankly, the current system has held up for 248 years, so why change? Great question for our Democrat friends who voted for it.

Maybe Kotek, to demonstrate her objectivity in supporting the law, should allow the Trump electors to go down to Salem on Dec. 11, and cast Oregon’s electoral college votes for Donald Trump, as would happen under the compact she agreed to.

This would show that the majority party Democrats want to operate under the rule of law they supported before a Republican won the popular vote.

Maybe half our state may even cool off the idea of wanting to be part of Idaho with this new approach?

If Kotek won’t take this uniting and objective approach, this law needs to be scrapped. I would encourage all legislators in January when the Legislative body meets, to take this up, restore the constitutional process intended by the founders, and acknowledge this is the best choice for our future.

As one of eight electors for Donald Trump, I am ready to go to Salem and cast a vote for the [national] popular vote winner: 47th president of the United States Donald J. Trump. But I won’t hold my breath for that call to action.

Dan Mason of Hillsboro was part of the Oregon delegation to the Republican National Convention. He also is an RNC Committeeman for Oregon, one of the eight electors for president-elect Donald Trump. He also serves on the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.