The Los Angeles Times has this article about the decline in the number of women elected to the state legislature. The number of women elected in regular elections to the California legislature has been: 2002 32; 2004 29; 2006 28; 2008 27; 2010 26; 2012 28; 2014 24.
If Donald Trump were to leave the race for the Republican nomination and run as an independent or minor party candidate in November 2016, he would be aided by many precedents set in the past by previous presidential candidates who ran in major party presidential primaries and then ran in the general election outside the major parties. These precedents show that sore loser laws don’t apply to presidential primaries, because no one is defeated for a presidential nomination in any single state’s presidential primary.
John Anderson ran in 22 Republican presidential primaries in 1980 and still got on the ballot in all states in November as an independent or minor party candidate. After Anderson, the individual who set the most precedents is Lyndon LaRouche, who sought the Democratic nomination in 1984, 1988, and 1992, and then ran as an independent in all three elections.
In 1992 alone, LaRouche set precedents in states in which Anderson had not set such a precedent. LaRouche ran in Democratic presidential primaries, and then got on the ballot as an independent the same year, in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin. In nine of those eleven states, that set a new precedent that Anderson had not set. Anderson had not run in presidential primaries in any of those LaRouche 1992 states except Louisiana and Massachusetts.
Notwithstanding that LaRouche’s past activity now helps Trump maintain flexibility, LaRouche does not approve of Donald Trump. See this August 14, 2016 article about Trump in the LaRouche organization’s publication Executive Intelligence Review.
A 3-judge U.S. District Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday, August 25, in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v Alabama, the case that challenges the redistricting plan for both houses of the state legislature. Plaintiffs won a partial victory in the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year. They argue that the existing plan packs too many African-American voters into a limited number of legislative districts, thus reducing those voters’ ability to influence additional legislative races.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the lower court, which had voted 2-1 to uphold the plan. The U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to the same three judges with instructions that suggest the plan violates the 14th amendment. If the plaintiffs win the case, it is likely that all the legislative seats will be up in 2016. Normally all legislative elections in Alabama are only in midterm years, and all legislators in both houses have four-year terms.
The New York Times has this story about candidates being barred from the December 2015 ballot in Venezuela. The end of the article also mentions that one entire political party has also been barred from the ballot.
Doug Goodman has this interesting analysis of whether there is any conflict between the Nevada Constitution and instant runoff voting.
