Here are the unofficial election returns for Louisiana’s special congressional election of October 19. The two candidates with “O” after their names are both independents. Thanks to Michael for the link.
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Television station WDBJ has informed the Virginia Republican and Democratic gubernatorial nominees that it would prefer to invite all three candidates. See this story. Thanks to Eric Garris for the link.
On October 18, Congressman Bill Young, of Florida’s 13th district, died. He was the longest-serving Republican member of Congress. He had first been elected to Congress in 1970. See this story. On October 16, 2013, he had been the only Republican member of the U.S. House who did not cast a vote on HR 2775, the bill that re-opened the federal government. He was hospitalized at the time.
Now there will be a special election. The 13th district includes most of Pinellas County, the county that contains St. Petersburg.
In his 42 years of being elected to Congress, no independent or minor party candidate ever ran against him, except in 2000, when the Natural Law Party ran Josette Green and an independent, Randy Heime, ran. The vote was: Young 146,799; Green 26,908; Heine 20,296. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
Professor John Sides, a political scientist at George Washington University, has this column in the Washington Post’s political science blog. He summarizes the evidence that primary systems do not determine the degree of partisanship or polarization among elected officials.
The Atlantic has this interesting interview with Wallace Jefferson, who is newly retired from the Texas Supreme Court. Jefferson explains why Texas partisan judicial elections are a bad idea. He focuses on the fact that populous counties elect dozens of judges, at all levels. Then he notes the existence of the straight-ticket device, which operates to sweep judges out of office even when the voters aren’t paying any attention to the particular judicial races at all. Thanks to How Appealing for the link.