Great Britain already has an Animal Welfare Party. On July 6, a Animal Welfare Party for the United States was founded at a meeting in Lavinia, Tennessee. Seven persons participated in the convention. Thanks to Dalton Herriott for this news. The party does not yet have a website.
The Libertarian Party national committee will choose a new national chair on Sunday, July 11. The committee is meeting by zoom. A new chair is needed because Joseph Bishop-Henchman resigned last month.
The Texas legislature opened its special session on Thursday, July 8, and on Saturday, July 10, held a lengthy hearing on SB 1-E, the bill to make it more difficult for individuals to cast a ballot. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
UPDATE: according to law professor Dan Tokaji, among many new changes and restrictions to the state’s electoral process, the bill would ban 24-hour voting and drive-through voting; prohibit election officials from proactively sending out absentee ballot applications to voters who have not requested them; add new voter identification requirements for voting by mail; limit third-party ballot collection; increase the criminal penalties for election workers who run afoul of regulations; and limit what assistance can be provided to voters.
Noah Millman has this op-ed in the New York Times, advocating that California, Texas, Florida and New York be broken up into several states. The rationale is partly for better government in those states, and partly because the idea would ameliorate the inequality caused by the Constitution’s provision that each state have two U.S. Senate seats.
On July 9, the Michigan Supreme Court unanimously issued an order, telling the Board of State Canvassers to place a statewide initiative on the ballot. Unlock Michigan v Board of State Canvassers, SC162949. Here is the order. The initiative has enough valid signatures but the Democratic members of the Board had refused to certify it, because they said they want to investigate the process by which the petition was circulated.
The initiative asks voters if they wish to repeal the Emergency Powers of the Governor Act of 1945. Under a unique Michigan law, the legislature may now itself pass the initiative and can do so without input from the Governor. Probably the legislature will now repeal the law and there won’t actually be a vote of the people. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
