Dan Balz has been a politics analyst and reporter for the Washington Post since 1978. He has also written several best-selling books about U.S. politics and campaigns, and he has received an award from the American Political Science Association for his work. Here he analyzes the California top-two system.
In 2015, the Washington, D.C. city council amended election regulation 3-1600 to provide that if a qualified party doesn’t nominate anyone for a particular partisan office in its primary, that party is still free to nominate someone after the primary is over. The party must certify the candidate’s name up until 54 days before the general election.
This year, no Republican filed for any district wide partisan office in the June 2018 primary. But, because of the 2015 amendment, the Republican Party can still nominate, as long as it does so by September 13. Presumably the party will nominate for at least one district wide race, or it will lose its qualified party status after November 2018.
To see the regulation, use this link and for section 3-1600, choose the “view text” button. Thanks to Pat McConnell for this news. D.C. now joins Alabama, South Carolina, and Virginia, as places in which all qualified parties are free to use either primaries or party meetings to nominate.
On June 1, filing closed for candidates running in any Alaska primaries. Former Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Begich filed to run for Governor in the Democratic primary. As a result, incumbent Governor Bill Walker, an independent, did not file in the Democratic primary. Presumably he will petition as an independent candidate again, as he did in 2014. Here is the entire Alaska primary candidate filing list for all federal and state office.
Lynette Clark filed to run for Governor in the Alaskan Independence Party primary. No one else filed for that party’s nomination for Governor, so she will be on the November ballot as the Alaskan Independence nominee.
Billy Toien filed to run for Governor in the Libertarian primary.
Amy Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report, here makes an original point…the more election laws, including campaign finance laws and laws about primaries, are altered to reduce the influence of the Republican and Democratic Parties, the more partisanship among the electorate seems to increase.
The Arizona Daily Sun of Flagstaff assembled a panel of six informed citizens, none of them elected officials, to discuss various ideas for election reform. They were Harriet Young, Joy Staveley, Holly Taylor, Carl Taylor, Dick Monroe, and Ann Heitland. See their responses. Question four concerns top-two primaries and whether Arizona ought to have one. See here.
