On July 13, the California Senate Elections Committee passed SCA12 by a vote of 4-1. It forces counties with a population greater than 5,000,000 to have at least seven supervisors. Currently all California counties are run by Boards of Supervisors that have only five members, except that San Francisco’s Board has eleven members.

If the bill is signed into law, it then goes on the ballot, because it amends the California Constitution.

Currently each Los Angeles County supervisor has almost 2,000,000 constituents.

The bill also forces counties with at least 5,000,000 population to elect a county executive.

The American Spectator recently published this article about the federal lawsuit Citizens for Fair Representation v Padilla, the case that argues the California legislative districts have such huge populations, the state is in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Thanks to Scott Stafne for the link.

On July 7, a Virgin Islands Superior Court ruled that the Board of Elections must certify the special legislative election of April 8, 2017. Independent candidate Janelle Sarauw had won that election. But then the Board had refused to certify the election, believing that the election should never have been held because there was no vacancy. Until the election was certified, Sarauw couldn’t take her seat.

The uncertainty on whether there was a vacancy hinged on whether the winner of the same district in November met the constitutional qualifications to be in the legislature. The Virgin Islands has a three-year residency requirement for members of its legislature. The winner of the November 2016 election was later found to have claimed residence in Tennessee in a court proceeding in Tennessee. Both federal and state courts refused to settle the residency requirement, instead ruling that only the legislature could judge the qualifications of its members. Finally, on June 28, the legislature had voted that the November 2016 winner is not qualified. Yet, despite this vote in the legislature, the elections board had still refused to certify the special election results. See this story.