Evan McMullin, independent presidential candidate in 2016 who appealed to Republicans opposed to Donald Trump, formed “Stand Up Republic” after the election. It has spent $500,000 on television ads opposed to Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate next week in Alabama. The ads do not advocate a vote for the Democratic nominee, Doug Jones. But they feature Republicans who say they cannot vote for Roy Moore.
Early in 2017, various California voters, groups, and even a city, sued California alleging that because the population of California legislative districts is so great, the state is violating the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the citizens of each state a republican form of government. The lawsuit argues that because Assembly districts have almost 500,000 people, and State Senate districts almost 1,000,000, there is no ability for ordinary people to enjoy meaningful communication with their state legislators.
The case, Citizens for Fair Representation v Padilla, e.d., 2:17cv-973, had a hearing on September 8, and Judge Kimberly Mueller still hasn’t decided how the plaintiffs may amend their complaint or whether the case will get a 3-judge court.
Cyprus elects a new president on January 28, 2018. Six candidates are on the ballot. Five of them will debate each other on January 22. See this story.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder says he will call a special election to fill the vacant 13th district U.S. House seat. See this story. Michigan has more ballot-qualified parties than any other state in the midwest, and all of them will be able to nominate a candidate with no petition. Besides the two major parties, the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Natural Law, and Working Class Parties are on the ballot. The name of the Constitution Party in Michigan is the U.S. Taxpayers Party. The state won’t let the party change its name. U.S. Taxpayers Party nationally changed its name to Constitution Party in 1999, and all the other states where it was on the ballot let it change its name, if the state party wanted to change its name.
The American Interest is a bimonthly print publication, founded in 2005. Among its founders are Francis Fukuyama and Zbigniew Brzezinski. The current issue carries this analysis by Luke Phillips, about the California top-two system. He writes that it has not worked as its backers hoped. Instead of boosting centrists and moderates, it has exaggerated the dominance of the Democratic Party and transformed California into a one-party state.
The article is not perfectly accurate. Phillips seems to believe top-two wasn’t used in California until 2014, but it was in effect starting in 2011. Also Phillips doesn’t seem to realize that before top-two started, independent voters were permitted to vote in all Democratic and Republican primaries for congress and partisan state office.
