On Friday evening, February 14, newly sworn-in Health & Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., rescinded layoff notices for employees of the Indian Health Services. See this story.
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Pennsylvania Representative Jared G. Solomon (D-Philadelphia) has introduced HB 280, to let independent voters vote in partisan primaries.
New York Assemblymember Robert Carroll (D-Brooklyn) has introduced A90. It establishes a top-two system for all partisan office except president. Oddly, it provides for ranked choice voting in the primary, but not the general. Of course, with only two candidates on the general election ballot, there is no need for RCV in the general election.
One wonders, if parties are no longer allowed to have nominees, and if the mechanism for using ranked choice voting is in place, what is the purpose of the primary? Why not just have a general election with ranked choice voting?
Although top-two bills have been introduced in many states in the last decade, this is the first bill in any state to combine top-two with ranked choice voting.
Ten Rhode Island legislators have introduced HB 5275, to use Ranked Choice Voting in primaries for state legislative seats, but no other offices.
Texas Representative Terry Meza (D-Irving) has introduced HB 1406, to eliminate the run-off primaries that are held when no candidate gets at least 50% in the primary. The bill instead would use ranked choice voting in primaries. However, the bill avoids the term “ranked choice voting” and instead calls it “preferential voting.”
If the bill passed, it would ease ballot access. Currently independent candidates cannot start to circulate their petition until after the run-off primary, if the independent is running for an office for which such a run-off was being held. By getting rid of run-offs, the petitioning period for such independent candidates would be lengthier.