On October 31, Pennsylvania State Representative Vanessa Brown (D-Philadelphia) was convicted of six counts of bribery. However, she is on the ballot unopposed as a candidate for re-election. See this News Growl story.
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Michael Feinstein, former Mayor of Santa Monica, has this Fox & Hounds opinion piece calling on the California legislature to hold hearings on the top-two system. As the column points out, the legislature passed the measure in 2009 without holding any legislative hearings on the bill.
In the last few days, Jack Gargan died at the age of 88 in Thailand, where he had been living. Gargan had formed an organization called T.H.R.O. in 1990, which encouraged voters not to re-elect their member of Congress. In 1991, after his movement had become quite well-known, he and John J. Hooker conceived of the idea that Ross Perot should run for President as an independent. Gargan organized mass meetings and roused the audience to encourage this idea, even giving anyone who wanted a sign that said “Run Ross Run” at a meeting at which Perot was speaking.
Gargan also became the second national chair of the Reform Party, which had been organized in 1995. In 1998, Jesse Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota on the Reform Party ticket. Gargan welcomed that victory, but Perot did not, and Perot’s allies helped recall Gargan as national chairman in February 2000 in a national convention in Nashville. Here is the wikipedia page about Gargan.
On October 30, a New York state trial court denied the Reform Party an injunction, in the party’s lawsuit over the order of parties on the ballot in New York city. See this story. The party will appeal. The main reason for the outcome is that it was too late to do anything about the problem.
Mississippi has two U.S. Senate elections this year. The full-term race is a partisan race, but the special election for the other seat is a non-partisan race, with no party labels and no party nominees. In the special election, there are two Republicans running and two Democrats running, with a runoff if no one gets a majority in November.
Here is the November 2018 ballot, which has the US Senate full term race listed first, followed by the special election for the other seat. The two Republicans are appointed incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and Chris McDaniel. The two Democrats are Mike Espy and Tobey Bernard Bartee.