Little Interest in Congress on Most Election Law Bills

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Congress has many interesting election law bills, but during the last two weeks, only one of them gained any co-sponsors. HB 1826, for public funding of congressional candidates, did gain two co-sponsors during mid-May, and now has 151.

Bills that didn’t gain any co-sponsors in the last two weeks include HR 3335, to let ex-felons register to vote for federal elections; HB 4918, to provide for transparency when state legislature redistrict U.S. House boundaries; HR 3957, for same-day voter registration in federal elections; HR 2894, on vote-counting equipment; and HR 3025, to require states to use bipartisan bodies to redraw U.S. House boundaries.

The most dramatic election law-related change that might pass this year is HR 2499, to provide for a vote on Puerto Rico’s status. See this interesting column by John Fund in the Wall Street Journal of May 13. HR 2499 already passed the House but there seems little news on what the U.S. Senate will do.

L.A. Watts Times Asks for a “No” Vote on Proposition 14

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On May 21, the L.A. Watts Times asked its readers to vote “No” on California’s Proposition 14, the top-two ballot measure on the ballot on June 8. See its statement here.

The L.A. Watts Times was founded in 1965, and is today the most widely distributed African American newspaper in Los Angeles.

In other news about the Proposition 14 campaign, on May 21 Christina Tobin was interviewed for six minutes on KGO, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s leading radio stations. She mentioned that political scientist Boris Shor has studied polarization in the state legislatures of all 50 states, over the last 15 years, and that although he finds that California has the most polarized state legislature, Washington state has the 2nd most polarized legislature. And Washington state has had either a blanket primary, or a top-two primary, in almost all of the last fifteen years. The host was quite surprised, because the California newspapers that support Proposition 14 always say that Proposition 14 would reduce polarization.