On January 31, Congressman John Delaney of Maryland withdrew from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Delaney had introduced a bill to impose a top-two system for the entire nation, for congressional races. He might have had a personal interest in promoting a top-two system. In November 2014, there were three candidates on the ballot in his Sixth District race. The results were: Delaney 94,704; the Republican nominee 91,930; Green Party nominee George Gluck 3,762. In a top-two system, Gluck would not have been on the ballot.

I wrote him several times about a top-two system, but he never answered my letters.

On January 28, the Brennan Center, which was formed by former law clerks to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan to advance his goals, filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Carney v Adams, 19-309. The Brennan Center brief is in support of the Delaware law that does not permit anyone to be appointed to most state courts in the state, unless they are members of a party that has registration of at least 5% of the total registration.

The case was filed by an independent attorney who would like to be appointed to a judicial office. It is supremely ironic that the Brennan Center has sided against the independent applicant, because Justice Brennan authored Elrod v Burns in 1976, striking down the patronage system for most government hiring decisions.

On January 27, the Wisconsin Election Commission ruled that Brent Fennessey, a Superior, Wisconsin city council member, should be on the ballot in the upcoming April 2020 election. In Wisconsin, candidates for local office are supposed to certify their petitions before they start to circulate them. Fennessey accidentally showed on his paperwork that he had not certified his petitions until after he had circulated them. So, someone challenged his ballot position at 4:25 pm on the deadline date.

Even though the city clerk’s office closes at 4:30 pm, the city clerk’s office allowed Fennessey into the office at 4:59 pm so he could correct the error. The challenger then complained to the Wisconsin Election Commission that he should not have been allowed to do that. But the Commission sided with the candidate. See this story.