Rob Richie has this piece in the Washington Post, advocating an end to single member districts for U.S. House. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. The article also reveals that a bill will be introduced in Congress next year to implement the idea.
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On September 23, 2016, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced the dates and cities for the general election presidential debates. At that time it said, “The CPD will announce candidate selection criteria in the near future.” See the CPD site here; click on the September 23 link to read that promise.
So far, the criteria haven’t been announced.
Former U.S. House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor was recently interviewed about his 2014 primary loss in Virginia. He says he won a majority of the votes cast by Republicans, but says he lost because Democrats chose to vote in the Republican primary, and they voted against him. Virginia has an open primary. See the story here.
New Jersey is holding elections for state legislature and county and local office on November 3, 2015. Only on October 22 did a state court determine which candidates will be on the ballot for Fairfield Township Committee, a partisan office. See this story. The ballot will have one Democrat, and one independent. Voters vote for two candidates, so unless any write-in candidate wins, the two candidates listed on the ballot will both win.
On October 21, WMNF radio in Tampa, Florida, held a debate on the Florida top-two initiative measure. Speaking in support was Dr. Omar H. Ali of North Carolina, who is a prominent spokesperson for IndependentVoting. IndependentVoting, headquartered in New York city, promotes top-two measures around the nation.
Speaking in opposition was Dan Meek of Oregon. During the 47-minute debate, Ali said that a top-four system would be just as good. This comes at approximately the 32-minute mark. Listen to the debate using this link. WMNF is a member-sponsored non-commercial FM radio station, in existence since 1979. The debate itself lasted 24 minutes, and the remainder of the time involved both debaters responding to phoned-in questions.
Ali’s acceptance of top-four parallels the August 19, 2015 statement by former California State Senator Steve Peace, who said to a public meeting on that day that he now favors top-four over top-two. Peace wrote the California top-two law.
If you listen to the debate, clicking on the link first lets you hear approximately five minutes of music and non-related talk, but then the debate starts.