On December 9 the Democratic Party’s Unity Reform Commission released some recommendations for changing future Democratic presidential selection procedures. The number of superdelegates would be reduced by 60%. Furthermore, most of the remaining superdelegates would be required to vote for the candidate who had won the popular vote in that superdelegate’s jurisdiction. Only Democratic members of Congress, Governors, former Presidents, and a handful of others would retain the power to vote for any candidate.

The Commission also made recommendations about caucuses: the number of votes received by each presidential candidate must be tallied; and absentee voters must be allowed.

Finally, the Commission recommended that the Democratic Party work to persuade all presidential primary states with partisan registration to let voters change their party affiliation as late as primary election day. However, the Commission did not recommend letting independent voters vote in Democratic presidential primaries. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news that the recommendations have been released. The Commission’s web page doesn’t yet have the text of the recommendations; the information in this post was gathered from various news stories.

This Mother Jones article on the current Pennsylvania partisan gerrymandering lawsuit says that the State Supreme Court has ordered the lower state court to issue a decision by December 31, 2017. The issue is whether the Pennsylvania Constitution prohibits extreme partisan gerrymandering.

On December 8, Arizona Congressmember Trent Franks said he is resigning from the House effective immediately. He represents the 8th district, centered on the suburbs west of Phoenix.

When the special election is called, it will be interesting to see if any reduction in the number of signatures will be ordered. Independent candidates in the typical U.S. House district in Arizona need approximately 5,000 signatures, but in a regular election an independent may take as long as desired to get those signatures. But in special election the petitioning period will be short.