On June 21, the California Green Party posted this appeal to the chairs of the two California legislative committees that handle election law to hold hearings on how the top-two system has worked in California.
In California and other states, legislative committees sometimes hold hearings on matters of public policy even when the legislature is not in session and even though no particular bills are the subject of those hearings.
On June 21, Fairleigh Dickinson University Polls released a poll for the November 2021 New Jersey gubernatorial race. The results: Democratic 48%, Republican 33%, “someone else” 4%; don’t know or won’t vote 14%. See this story.
The poll did not tell the respondents the identity of the other candidates on the ballot. They are the nominees of the Libertarian, Green, and Socialist Workers Parties. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the news.
Lee Drutman uses political science research to show persuasively that the current polarization in the United States is caused by our two-party system. See his FiveThirtyEight.com article here. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
On June 21, Bill King revealed that he has joined the SAM Party, and is the state chair of that party in Texas. King was a candidate for Mayor of Houston in 2015. In the December 12 run-off, he was almost elected, polling 49.04% of the vote. He was an independent at the time, but the election was non-partisan. He is an author, attorney, and businessman, and a regular contributor to the Houston daily newspaper. Thanks to Brad Moore for this news. See this link to King’s announcement in the Austin daily newspaper.
According to this story, the Ohio Senate has amended the budget bill to add a provision for party labels on the November ballot for State Supreme Court races.
Ohio elects its Supreme Court justices in candidate-versus-candidate elections. Parties nominate for that office, yet the party label is not shown in general elections. Ironically, some years ago the Ohio Democratic Party brought a federal lawsuit, demanding party labels, which lost. But in recent State Supreme Court elections, Democratic nominees have been winning, so now the Republican-majority legislature has changed its mind about party labels.
The only other state in which State Supreme Court judicial candidates are party nominees, but the party labels are omitted, is Michigan.
