According to this story, a city initiative has just been filed in Burlington, Vermont, to ask the voters if they wish to repeal Instant Runoff Voting. Earlier this year, the Progressive Party had won the Mayor’s race (Burlington has partisan city elections), even though the Democratic Party nominee had been expected to win. That caused some Burlington voters to dislike IRV.
A proposed California initiative, which is only in the beginning stages of petition-gathering, would repeal the 2008 initiative that sets up a Citizens Redistricting Commission. See this story. The purpose of the Citizens Redistricting Commission is to draw to boundaries for state legislative districts. If this new proposed initiative were to qualify for the November 2010 ballot, and if it passed, then the Commission would be eliminated before it had ever carried out its function. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
The U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit, will soon be holding oral arguments in Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield, the case over Connecticut’s public funding law. The Green Party had won the case in U.S. District Court and the state is appealing.
On December 29, three Arizona elected officials filed this amicus brief on the side of the Green Party. It is 24 pages. The amicus attacks the “trigger provision” in the Connecticut law. The Connecticut law says that if a candidate who doesn’t qualify for public funding still manages to raise private funds that exceed the expenditure limit for an opponent who is receiving public funds, that the publicly-financed candidate then gets substantial additional public funding. The three Arizona elected officials are Arizona State Treasurer Dean Martin, State Senator Robert Burns, and State House member Rick Murphy. They are also plaintiffs in an Arizona lawsuit against the Arizona public funding’s “trigger provision.”
On December 28, Colorado State House of Representatives member Kathleen Curry changed her registration from “Democratic” to “Independent.” See this story. She would like to run for re-election in 2010 as an independent. Under existing Colorado law, she switched too late. She is about to introduce a bill that would ease the prior affiliation restriction for independent candidates, and also there is a lawsuit pending against that law in federal court. Curry also mentioned the possibility that if neither of those plans works, she could be a write-in candidate in November 2010. Thanks to Gene Berkman for the link.
Curry is the first Colorado legislator to be neither a Republican or a Democrat since the legislative session of 1901-1902, when there were 13 Peoples Party members in the House, 8 Silver Republicans in the House, 7 Peoples Party State Senators, 6 Silver Republican Senators, and one Single Tax Party Senator.
Bill Scheuer is a member of the Illinois Green Party who is seeking his party’s nomination for the U.S. House, 8th district. A Democratic Party official challenged his petition to be on the Green Party primary ballot, but the State Board of Elections recently deadlocked, 4-4, on whether to remove him from the Green Party primary ballot. On a tie vote, the candidate remains on the ballot. See this story.
The 8th district was not close in 2008, when only the Democratic and Republican Party had nominees on the November ballot. The 2008 vote was: Melissa Bean, Democrat, 179,444 votes; Steve Greenberg, Republican, 116,081 votes.
According to this news story, the Rhode Island Republican Party’s state executive committee will meet during the first week in January, and will consider the idea of excluding independent voters from the party’s primaries.
Rhode Island didn’t even have registration by party until about ten years ago. Thus, the state has a tradition of open primaries, and the idea, if implemented, would be a sharp break from the past. Because registration by party is relatively new in Rhode Island, only 10.95% of the state’s voters are registered Republicans, as of the November 2008 tally, which is the last available tally. If the Republican committee does close the party’s primary, this would probably cause a big increase in support for the Moderate Party, which is the only ballot-qualified party in the state other than the Democratic and Republican Parties. The Moderate Party became a qualified party in 2009 with a petition drive.