Salon has this interview with Congressmember Don Beyer about HR 4000, his bill to provide for proportional representation for U.S. House elections.
The bill was introduced on July 25, with five co-sponsors, all Democrats: Jamie Raskin (Md.); James McGovern (Mass.); Jim Cooper (Tn.); and two Californians, Scott Peters and Ro Khanna. Thanks to Rob Richie for the link.
On August 7, the Connecticut voters who are challenging the results of a 2018 Connecticut legislative election filed their reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court. See it here. The general election was very close, and several hundred voters in that legislative district had been given a ballot that did not include that race. The Connecticut Supreme Court refused to disturb the official outcome because it said the mistake was not done on purpose, and because there was no proof that if the error had not been made, the outcome would have been different.
Feehan v Marcone, 18-1470. The candidate who lost was the Republican nominee. The Court will consider whether to hear this case at its October 1, 2019 conference.
On August 9, the Texas Secretary of State filed this brief in Miller v Doe, the Texas ballot access case that had been filed on July 11. The state’s brief makes much out of the paucity of independent candidate plaintiffs in the case. However, the Eighth and Ninth Circuits have ruled that voters have standing to challenge restrictive ballot access laws, and no circuit has said voters don’t have standing to challenge them.
On August 6, Kshama Sawant polled 36.6% of the vote in the Seattle non-partisan city council election, in district three. She is running for a third term. She is a leader of Socialist Alternative.
Six candidates were on the ballot in District three. The second-place finisher, Egan Orion, received 21.5% and will be in the run-off in November.
The results are not final yet. Sawant spent $270,000 already and the run-off will probably see another large expenditure of campaign funds.
The San Jose Mercury News, the daily newspaper for northern California’s largest city, recently carried this editorial against the new California law that keeps presidential candidates off primary ballots unless they release their income tax returns.
