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I recently re-listened to a March 2023 hearing on the National Popular Vote interstate compact (NPV) in Michigan. As NPV supporters recited their talking points, I heard something that I’ve probably heard a dozen times before and knew was wrong but didn’t have time to dig into and write up. This time, however, I found a few minutes to look at a particularly dumb falsehood peddled by NPV’s lobbyists.

At this hearing the false claim was made by Rep. Carrie Rheingans, the prime sponsor of NPV in the Michigan House. I don’t think she was trying to be deceitful, but was likely relying on NPV’s lobbyists as she made the case for the compact, and, well, that’s just not a great idea.

Here's her response to the critique that NPV would disadvantage rural voters and advantage voters in cities and metropolitan areas (at about 17:10 of this video):

“…[S]lightly more of America’s population lives in rural areas, about twenty percent, than lives in the hundred largest cities, which is under twenty percent. The remaining sixty percent of our population across our country lives in the suburbs, which is really evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.”

There are a couple of problems with this, but I’m just going to zero in on the one obviously inaccurate statement – that sixty percent of Americans live in suburbs.

The bizarre assumption is that only Americans living in the one hundred largest cities in America actually count as city dwellers and so everything else is suburban or rural.

That’s just wrong. Without getting too deep in the weeds, the defining characteristic of a suburb is that it is primarily residential and within a metropolitan area anchored by a larger city.

Just to pick one example that demonstrates how laughable NPV’s claim that sixty percent of Americans live in suburbs: what city or metropolitan area is Des Moines, Iowa a suburb of? It has a population of about 210,000 and ranks number 112 among U.S. cities, so it falls outside of NPV’s definition. Kansas City (a three-hour drive)? Minneapolis (three and a half hours)? Omaha (two hours)?

Or consider Providence, Rhode Island, with a population of about 191,000 and ranked number 134. Is it a suburb of Boston, according to NPV’s lobbyists? Ditto for Portland, Maine.

The correct answer, of course, is that Des Moines, Providence and Portland are not suburbs of any other city. They are cities (and among my favorite, for what it’s worth). Trying to define them away as suburbs is ridiculous.

I’ve heard several NPV lobbyists over the years make similar claims – America is twenty percent rural, twenty percent urban, and everything else is suburban. I get why Rep. Rheingans wouldn’t necessarily take the time to fact-check everything her allies give her – being a legislator is a busy job and you have to rely on your friends and allies (and staff) to look into such things. But NPV’s lobbyists surely know better, and it’s a mystery why they continue to feed easily-debunked claims to their legislative allies. I guess they hope nobody will take the time to look at their claims, and pushing false talking points is easier than recognizing the very real problems of NPV, including the fact that it disadvantages and marginalizes rural Americans.