On July 19, former California Republican Assemblymember David Hadley said he won’t run for Governor in 2018. He had said he would run just two weeks ago. He said on July 19 that if he runs, that makes it more likely that no Republican would qualify for the November ballot, because there are already two other relatively strong Republicans running for Governor and having three major Republicans in the primary threatens to have a two-Democrat general election. See this story.
The North Carolina State Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Cooper v Berger on Monday, August 28, the first day the Court is back from its summer recess. The issue is the constitutionality of SB 68, passed this year by the legislature to alter the structure of the State Election Board and county election boards. Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat elected in 2016, is suing the leaders of the Republican-majority state legislature. The Governor lost the lawsuit in the trial court. The North Carolina Supreme Court is allowing the mid-level State Court of Appeals to be bypassed.
SB 68 says that the State Board of Elections (renamed the “North Carolina Bipartisan State Board of Elections”) will consist of eight members. Four are members of the party with the most registered members, and four are members of the party with the second-greatest registration. The law also says that the party with the second-highest registration can hold the chair in years divisible by four. In North Carolina, the Democratic Party has about 700,000 more registered voters than the Republican Party, so this means that the Republican Party would hold the chair during presidential election years, which are also gubernatorial election years in North Carolina. The Democratic Party would hold the chair during the less-important midterm years.
The old law says the Board will have five members, and the Governor can always arrange the composition so that the Governor’s party has a majority of the board members. The Governor argues that the new law violates separation of powers. Here is the Governor’s brief. The Governor also argues that it works better to have an odd number of members.
On July 19, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo signed HB 5702, which provides that every adult citizen known to exist in Rhode Island will automatically be registered, unless the individual opts out.
The same idea passed the Illinois legislature in May, but the Governor of Illinois hasn’t signed it yet. He has until July 29.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Gill v Whitford, 16-1161, on Tuesday, October 3. This is the case in which the lower 3-judge U.S. District Court invalidated Wisconsin’s legislative district boundaries as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
On July 18, the city council of Santa Clara, California, gave tentative approval to using proportional representation for future city council elections. There would be two districts, each electing three city councilmembers. Choice voting (also known as Single Transferable Vote) would be used, so that someone could be elected with support from 25% of the voters within that district.
The Charter Review Commission for Santa Clara had earlier recommended this idea. Santa Clara is a charter city, so the voters would decide whether to make this change, in the June 2018 election. The next step is for the City Attorney to draft the proposed amendment.
