As of the close of business on Friday, June 17, the California June primary vote for second-place in the Insurance Commissioner election is almost tied. The results: Robert Howell, Republican, 1,124,820; Marc Levine, Democrat, 1,123,348.
The incumbent, Ricardo Lara, is far in the lead for first place.
CATO has this criticism of California’s top-two system, written by Andy Craig. Thanks to Eric Wong for the link.
The majority party has been deprived of ballot access four times under the California top-two system. Craig mentions the 2012 incident, but he does not mention that the same thing happened in 2018 in the 76th Assembly district, and in 2020 in the 38th Assembly district.
On June 17, Louisiana asked the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a stay in the redistricting case. The Fifth Circuit had asked the legislature to redraw the U.S. House boundaries, to provide for two districts, not just one, with an African-American majority. Here is the request for a stay. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news. The case is Ardoin v Robinson, 21A814.
The U.S. Supreme Court wants the other side to respond by Thursday, June 23.
Supporters of the Missouri top-four initiative have released a statement, expressing concern they their initiative may not have enough valid signatures. See this story. Statewide initiatives need a certain share of the last vote cast in a certain number of U.S. House districts, and the distribution requirement may cause the initiative to fail to qualify. Thanks to Fairvote for the link.
The Michigan Advance, an on-line news source for Michigan government and politics, has this story, pointing out that any Republican who tried and failed to get on the party’s primary ballot to run for Governor still has time to submit 12,000 valid signatures as an independent candidate. It also says they are free to seek the nomination of one of Michigan’s ballot-qualified minor parties. The Natural Law Party, which is still qualified in Michigan but no other state, has a history of placing any candidate on the general election ballot who seeks its nomination, regardless of ideology.
