Louisiana has a mandatory retirement age for state judges; they can’t serve after they attain age 70. Voters defeated a measure to repeal that law on November 4. At the same time, voters in Orleans Parish re-elected Criminal Court Judge Frank Marullo, who is age 74. See this story.
State measure five, which would have repealed the retirement age, lost 42%-58%.
Doug McIntyre hosts “McIntyre in the Morning” on Los Angeles talk radio station KABC, and has a twice-weekly column in the Los Angeles Daily News, which appears in other California newspapers as well. His November 8 column advocates that California repeal the top-two system. See here for more about McIntyre.
The Los Angeles Times has this op-ed by Matt Parker, who is originally from Australia and who is now a stand-up comedian in London, and a lecturer at the University of London on mathematics, and author of “Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension.” Here is his web page. Thanks to Rob Richie for the link.
Although California still has many uncounted ballots, it appears likely that only 8,000,000 persons voted in the November 4, 2014 election. If so, that would mean only 44.9% of the registered voters participated. California has never before had a gubernatorial general election with fewer than 50% of the registered voters voting.
Although it is true turnout was down in the November 2014 election in most states, California’s turnout appears to be the 12th worst of the 50 states. See this November 7 chart prepared by Political Science Professor Michael P. McDonald, giving his estimate of the number of voters in each state, divided by the number of persons who could have voted if they had registered or were registered.
As of November 8, fewer than 6,000,000 votes have been counted for California Governor, according to the Secretary of State’s web page.
On Wednesday, November 12, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v State, 13-895. Here is a New York Times story explaining the issue in the case.
The Alabama Legislative Black Caucus filed the lawsuit to overturn the 2011 legislative districting plan. They argue that the plan packs as many black voters as possible into a limited number of districts, so that the overall influence of black voters is reduced. The 3-judge U.S. District Court had upheld the plan by a 2-1 vote.
