According to this story, the Liberal Democratic Party of Great Britain has received a bequest of 950,000 pounds, which is the equivalent of approximately $1,500,000 U.S. dollars. The donor died in 2013 and the bequest has only recently become known publicly.

If anyone left a bequest to an FEC-recognized political party in the United States, the McCain-Feingold law would require that the party could not receive the money all at once. Instead it would remain in the bank, and only about $32,000 could be placed in the party’s hands in any one calendar year.

The Chicago Reader, the largest free weekly newspaper in Chicago, has commentary that criticizes the Illinois election law that requires candidates for Chicago citywide office to obtain 12,500 valid signatures. The Mayoral election is in February 2015, which means the signatures must be collected at the time of bad weather. The author speculates that incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel may be the only name on the ballot.

Chicago holds nonpartisan elections for all city office.

In a race that could take several more weeks to resolve, challenger Patty Lopez leads incumbent Raul Bocanegra in California Assembly District 39. Both are Democrats, a result of California’s Top-Two system. Consequently, the result will not effect the partisan make-up of the state assembly.

Until last night, Lopez had been leading by 7 votes for the past week. Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan said today there is still about 113,000 votes county-wide to be counted, so there could be enough in that district to shift that race’s outcome. The next results will be announced on Tuesday, Logan says.

The closeness of the race was a surprise to politicos, since Lopez spent very little money and didn’t have significant name recognition. Bocanegra has accused Lopez of using a GOP political operative to engineer the upset, a charge Lopez has denied.

New totals expected to be released Tuesday. You can keep up with the latest count here.