Grand Junction Sentinel Features Colorado Mesa University Campus Liberty Tour Event

The Steamboat Institute hosted a Western Slope Debate Tour last week on the National Popular Vote vs. the Electoral College. It was featured in the Grand Junction Sentinel.

The Western Slope debates are in response to increasing calls to move away from the Electoral College toward a popular vote system. Earlier this year, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill to enter Colorado into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which requires member states to transfer their share of Electoral College votes in future presidential elections to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. The Steamboat Institute is hosting this debate series as a public service to educate people on both sides of this issue.

Trent England and Ted Trimpa debated this topic at The Steamboat Institute’s 11th Annual Freedom Conference and Festival this summer. Watch the video of the debate HERE.

Steamboat Institute Chairman and CEO Jennifer Schubert-Akin had an op-ed in the Colorado Gazette earlier this year discussing the implications of moving to a national popular vote. Read the op-ed HERE.

According to the Sentinel.

Whether Colorado should participate in an effort to elect U.S. presidents based on the national popular vote is a question that voters ultimately will decide when the issue comes before them during next year’s general election.

For now, the two sides are squaring off over the matter in trying to explain why, or why not, the effort to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a good idea, as was the case at a debate held at Colorado Mesa University on Wednesday.

“The national popular vote is the very worst way to elect presidents,” said Trent England, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a right-leaning think tank.

Read the full story HERE

The debates are the latest events in The Steamboat institute’s Campus LIberty Tour. Last month, the Campus Liberty Tour hosted a series of debates at the University of Maryland, University of Texas, and the University of Colorado, Denver on capitalism vs. socialism, featuring Yaron Brook, chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin Magazine. Last year, the CLT hosted a debate series on nationalism vs. globalism featuring Nigel Farage and Vicente Fox.