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(Crossposted from Save Our States: protecting Federalism and the Electoral College)

Today I had the pleasure of talking with two great legislators in Pennsylvania’s state capitol. The Commonwealth Foundation had suggested I speak with Senator Mike Folmer because of his understanding of and dedication to America’s founding principles. It turns out that Senator Folmer is one of the founders of COOL: the Constitutional Organization Of Liberty, an organization that is doing in Pennsylvania what the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Citizen Action Network is doing in Washington State.

The first-term Senator walks the walk in other ways as well, paying back to the state treasury the amount of the cost of living increase in his legislator salary because he believes the automatic pay raises violate the Pennsylvania Constitution. You can find him on Facebook.

State capitols are great places to get lost, which can turn out to be a real blessing. When someone offered to show me the way back to the main capitol building, it was only natural for me to ask him what he did there. He turned out to be Representative Joseph Preston, Jr., a long-time legislator from Pittsburgh. All I had to do was mention my concern about the effort to undermine the Electoral College and Representative Preston remarked that people just don’t read The Federalist Papers anymore. He explained to me that he requires his staff to read them.

What a day, and a great reminder that there are dedicated, thoughtful elected officials who care enough for Liberty to study the institutions that preserve it.

The first thing you notice outside Vermont’s Capitol Building is that it’s beautiful, set back on a hill, built in the classical style, and topped with a golden dome. And the first thing you notice inside is that it’s small. Walk around and it only gets smaller.

The members have no personal offices and no personal staff. Neither do the party caucuses. Each committee has a room with a table in it. Legislators work either from their slice of that table or from their desk in the House or Senate chamber (or in the cafeteria or the hall). And everything is as open as could be, so long as you’re not claustrophobic.

It was a beautiful thing, in my opinion, to see legislators really working, working themselves rather than relying on personal or caucus staff. In truth, the reliance on professional staff is a threat to representative government. It has also undermined limited government as legislatures hire staff to do what they would not otherwise have the time to do.

Now if we can only figure out how to bring some of the spirit of Montpelier back to Olympia….

And remember, there’s more about my trip over at Save Our States: Protecting Federalism and the Electoral College.

After wandering in at least two circumnavigations of part of downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, I ended up in Hooksett for the night. I remembered along the way that exactly ten years ago I was in Manchester in the final days of the all-important New Hampshire presidential primary. And that got me thinking about the debate over the Granite State’s special place in the  process.

As part of the Claremont McKenna College Washington, DC, Semester Program, they took us to Manchester for those final few days. We met with editorial staff at the Manchester Union Leader and attended a comedy show emceed by Tony Snow, but spent most of our time volunteering for the candidate of our choice.

I jumped around on-stage at a rally, participated in a literature drop, helped organize get-out-the-vote teams, and went without sleep for about 40 hours. It was great–and eye opening.

List many people, I had harbored doubts about New Hampshire’s preeminent role in the presidential candidate selection process. Watching it first hand convinced me that, as arbitrary as it may be to let the Granite State go first, the nation wins more than it loses.

New Hampshire is a low population state, with about 1.3 million people total. While this is nearly the same as Maine and twice as many as Vermont, New Hampshire has a much higher population density than either of those states (New Hampshire has 137.8 persons per square mile, also higher than the national population density of 79.6 persons per square mile). And it isn’t dominated by an outside media market (though Boston media does bleed in).

New Hampshire is a good state for campaigning, especially the “retail” variety–that hand shaking and chit chatting found almost nowhere else along the presidential campaign trail. According to the New Hampshirites I talked with a decade ago, most voters in a presidential primary have met not just one but several of the candidates. All this makes New Hampshire the most personal stop along that presidential trail, a unique testing ground or “gut check” or “dose of reality” for people all-too-prone to believe their own press and fawning supporters.

So can a political process that owes its existence to arbitrary causes, that wasn’t designed with anything like the national interest in mind, really be “the right” process? That question divides the men from the boys, the statesmen from the reformers, those who accept the limitations inherent in human nature from the French Revolution’s bitter enders. If it works, it it produces beneficial effects, then it’s the right process until someone can show, not that they have better intentions, but that their reform will produce better results in the hard-edged world of politics and–that bane of all reformers–people.

There’s more on my trip and my day in Augusta at SaveOurStates.com.

Turns out it’s cold in Maine this time of year. My hop from Newark into Boston was almost canceled because of snow in the latter, which made the drive north take a little longer.

One thing I did notice: lots of signs for Scott Brown as I wound my way from Boston through Salem and finally to Interstate 95 (given the time, I’d never use the interstates, but that’s another story). I only saw one sign for his opponent, and it was half buried in a snowbank. And standing in the Thrifty office, I think every radio commercial I heard was about the Senate race.

Maine so far has been another inspiration: a great interest and willingness to help Save Our States from my friends at Eagle Forum and the Maine Heritage Policy Center.

So tomorrow I fly to Newark, then up to Boston. And it all has nothing to do with the excitement brewing over Tuesday’s special election for the Senate seat formerly held, and held, and held … by Ted Kennedy. I’m actually driving north from Boston to Augusta, Maine. There I begin a series of visits to state capitals to expose the risks of the National Popular Vote proposal and, unfortunately, the ulterior motives of some of its supporters. NPV would side step the Electoral College, fundamentally changing presidential elections and altering our national politics. It’s all part of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Save Our States Project, an effort to defend our unique American system of states.

I plan to visit about seven state capitals along the way, meeting with legislators, activists, media–just about anyone willing to listen to me talk about Federalism and the Electoral College. I’ll post updates and photos as I go.