The current bill in the U.S. Senate to require states to use ranked choice voting for congressional elections now has a bill number, S.3425. It has two sponsors, Peter Welch of Vermont and Andy Kim of New Jersey.
This is the first time a U.S. Senate bill on this subject has had more than a single sponsor. In the previous congress, the bill, known as S.5048, only had Welch as a sponsor.
On December 18, a Texas trial court ordered the Republican Party to list David Rogers on its primary ballot. He is running for State Supreme Court, place 8. Texas elects its State Supreme Court justices in partisan elections.
Statewide judicial candidates in primaries need 50 signatures from each of the fifteen state court of appeals districts. The party had originally denied Rogers a place on the ballot because one of the petition sheets had a blank for the circulator to print her name, but she accidentally filled in that blank with the county name instead. But Texas precedent is clear that such minor problems do not invalidate petitions, if the petition was signed by the necessary number of validly registered voters. Rogers v Hooper, Travis County, 98th judicial district court, D-1-GN-25-10912.
Rogers is running in the primary against an incumbent, Brett Busby. UPDATE: in a further legal development, David Rogers is off the ballot.
On December 19, U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock ordered Mississippi to hold elections for some State Supreme Court seats in 2026. The same judge had earlier ruled that the three districts for State Supreme Court elections violate the federal Voting Rights Act. The legislature is expected to draw new boundaries in early 2026. The state did not want to hold any elections for that office until 2028. Here is the ruling. White v State Board of Election Commissioners, n.d., 4:22cv-62.
Even though Mississippi holds elections for statewide executive posts and legislature in odd years before presidential years, the state’s State Supreme Court elections are always in even years. The terms are eight years. Judicial elections are nonpartisan.
On December 18, Civic Lens Research released a California gubernatorial poll. The three leading contenders are: Steve Hilton 17.8%, Chad Bianco 13.9%, and Eric Swalwell 12.2%. See here.
Hilton and Bianco are Republicans.
A Sacramento Bee news story about this poll that is behind a pay wall says that Democratic Party leaders anticipate spending a large amount of money to simultaneously boost one of the two leading Republicans, and tear down the other one. That would presumably lessen the chances that both Republicans would place first and second. The story doesn’t say which of the two Republicans would get the boost and which one would be attacked.
One of the congressional bills to mandate use of ranked choice voting in all congressional elections now has a bill number, HR 6589. It has 16 sponsors. The text of the bill is still not up on the congressional website.
The lead sponsor is Jaime Raskin of Maryland. It is co-sponsored by representatives from California (Scott Peters and Eric Swalwell), Florida (Summer Lee), Illinois (Delia Ramirez), Maine (Chellie Pingree), Massachusetts (Seth Moulton and Ayanna Pressley), Michigan (Shri Thanedar), Minnesota (Kelly Morrison, Ilhan Omar, and Angie Craig), New Mexico (Teresa Leger Fernandez), Tennessee (Steve Cohen), Virginia (Donald Beyer), and Washington (Pramila Jayapal).
All the sponsors are Democrats. It is somewhat disappointing that there are no co-sponsors from New York, given that New York City uses ranked choice voting for citywide office primaries.
The identical U.S. Senate bill sponsored by Peter Welch of Vermont still doesn’t have a bill number.
The bills would outlaw using top-two in congressional elections, although states could still use top-four systems.
