On October 30, a poll of small business owners was released, concerning election reform. See the report here. The poll shows that 78% prefer a multi-party system for the U.S. It also shows that 85% favor public funding for election campaigns, and 83% favor non-partisan commissions for drawing U.S. House and legislative district boundaries.
The respondents were: 48% Republican, 32% Democratic, 11% independent, 9% other or did not answer that question. Thanks to Rob Richie for the link.
On October 30, the South Carolina Election Commission voted to cancel the election for State House, district 114 in Charleston, and instead hold a special election for that seat later. See this story. The Democratic nominee plans to sue to overturn this decision. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Kari Chisholm, founder of BlueOregon, a leading politics blog in Oregon, has this column on how, if Oregon had had a top-two system in 2010, the general election might easily have had no one on the ballot for Governor except for two Democrats.
On October 28, John Arnold contributed yet another $1,000,000 to the campaign to pass the top-two initiative in Oregon, and former New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg contributed another $280,000. This means the two of them, together, have contributed $4,680,000. Arnold lives in Texas and of course, Bloomberg lives in New York.
Kentucky has non-partisan judicial elections. On October 29, U.S. District Court Judge Amol Thapar enjoined a Kentucky rule that forbids judicial candidates from “campaigning as a member of a political organization.” Winter v Wolnitzek, eastern district, 2:14cv-119.
Kentucky already lost an earlier case against a rule that didn’t permit judicial candidates to mention their party affiliation. After that was struck down, in 2010, the rule was amended. One of the reasons for the new ruling is that the new rule is too vague. The Judicial Conduct Commission argued that what the rule means is that a candidate can’t say he or she is the nominee of a political party, but the court did not agree with that interpretation, and asked, “How would one know that ‘I am a Republican judicial candidate’ is prohibited, but ‘I am a judicial candidate, a Republican, and endorsed by the Republican Party’ is not?…a reasonable judicial candidate would not have notice of the lines the Commission has drawn.”
