Cindy Sheehan, who is a registered member of the Peace & Freedom Party, will run for Governor of California next year. Thanks to Scott Lay for this information. Sheehan was the party’s vice-presidential nominee last year.
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The U.S. Census Bureau has placed a very useful research tool on the internet. “My congressional district” lets anyone choose any particular U.S. House district. Then, one can see a small map of that district, and click on links to know population characteristics for that district. That includes sex, age categories, race and ethnicity, ancestry, percentage of veterans in the district’s population, percentage of disabled individuals, how many moved into the district in the last year and where they moved from, data on employment, housing, income, and education. Thanks to Doug Hess for the link.
As already reported, Mike Duggan is a declared write-in candidate for Mayor of Detroit. He has a large campaign and has already mailed literature to all Detroit voters, asking for a write-in vote and showing how to cast a write-in. Now another write-in candidate for Mayor has filed a declaration of candidacy. His name is Mike Dugeon. See this story. Dugeon says a reporter suggested to him that he file. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
On the afternoon of July 25 (Thursday) the North Carolina Senate passed HB 589, the omnibus election law bill. Now it goes to the House.
On July 25, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that he will seek to use Section 3 of the federal Voting Rights Act against Texas. Section 3 says that, notwithstanding the coverage formula for pre-clearance, any state that has recently showed a pattern of passing or enforcing discriminatory voting practices must obtain approval from the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department before changing any election laws or practices. See this story. This action is a reminder that just because Section 4, the formula for determining which areas of the country are subject to pre-clearance, is no longer part of the law (because of last month’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion Shelby County, Alabama v Holder), the more obscure section 3 is still in the law. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
UPDATE: also on July 25, the Department of Justice, which is intervening in one of the Texas redistricting cases (Perez v State of Texas, western district of Texas, 5:11cv-360), asked that Court to apply section 3. See this brief filed by the Justice Department.