On October 22, initiative proponents filed this reply brief in the Ninth Circuit in Pierce v Stapleton, 21-35173. This is the case over Montana’s ban on out-of-state petitioners for initiatives. There are similar cases pending in Maine and Arkansas.
On October 22, the California Secretary of State released the final results for the September 14, 2021 special gubernatorial election.
Proponents of a Mississippi initiative are collecting signatures, even though currently Mississippi has no initiative procedure. The proponents have faith that in 2022 the legislature will pass a bill that restores the initiative process.
The subject of the initiative is to allow ten days of early voting. See this story.
Bills are pending in both houses of congress to award grants to states and local governments, to help them afford the transition to ranked choice voting. In the Senate, the bill is S2939, sponsored by Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) and co-sponsored by Senator Angus King (I-Maine). In the house it is HR 5500, sponsored by Representative Dean Phillips (D-Minnesota). Both bills were introduced on October 5, 2021.
This article in Puck says that backers of top-five systems hope to raise $100,000,000 soon to promote top-five systems. These systems deprive political parties of their ability to nominate candidates. No other country in the world has an election system in which party labels are on the ballot, but parties can’t nominate candidates. The article mentions these wealthy individuals and families as supporters: Reid Hoffman and the John Sobrato family, the billionaire real estate dynasty; Charles Munger, who backed top-two in California; Sol Lieberman; Katherine Gehl; Aaron Menenberg; Raj Kapoor; the Arillaga family; Kathryn Murdoch; and Andrew Yang.
The article quotes political scientist Jack Santucci as saying that the plan won’t achieve its objectives. In order to read the article, which is free, the reader must submit an e-mail address. Thanks to Fairvote for the link.
