Texas Representative Kenneth Sheets (R-Texas) has introduced HB 25. It retains the straight-ticket device in general, but removes partisan judicial races from the scope of the device. The other Texas bills concerning straight-ticket devices are: (1) HB 1288, which completely eliminates it; (2) HB 1444, which removes it for judicial offices in counties with over 1,000,000 population. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
The Hill, a newspaper dedicated to news about Congress, has this commentary on California’s top-two system by Markos Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos.
On February 17, the Illinois State Court of Appeals, 5th district, ruled that a candidate’s ballot access petition is valid if it comes close to having enough valid signatures. Jackson-Hicks v East St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, 5-15-0028. The incumbent Mayor of East St. Louis, Alvin Parks, is running for re-election this month, and even though the Board determined that he needed 136 signatures and only had 123 valid signatures, it still left him on the ballot.
One of the mayor’s opponents sued the Board to have the Mayor removed from the ballot, but on January 19 the trial court kept him on the ballot, and now the State Appeals Court has agreed. The person who challenged the Mayor’s petition plans to ask the State Supreme Court to reverse the decision. Mayor Parks had said if he had been removed from the ballot, he would have been a write-in candidate. Thanks to Andy Finko for this news. Here is the opinion.
On February 24, Working Families Party nominee Ed Gomes was elected to the Connecticut State Senate, district 23, centered on Bridgeport. Gomes defeated the nominees of the Democratic and Republican Party, as well as two independent candidates. See this story, which doesn’t contain any figures.
This is the first time a party other than the Democratic or Republican Parties has elected a state legislator in Connecticut since 1938, when the Socialist Party elected four of its nominees. Those wins were also in Bridgeport. UPDATE: this newspaper story gives partial election returns, showing the race wasn’t close.
As reported earlier, the Vermont Senate has a bill pending to move the Vermont presidential primary to the same day as the New Hampshire primary. Now, there is also a House bill to do the same thing, HB 239. See FrontloadingHQ’s post for more detail.
