California Assemblymember Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco) has introduced ACA 7, a proposed amendment to the California Constitution. It would let 17-year-olds vote in primaries, if they will have attained age 18 by the time of the general election.
On February 14, the Peace & Freedom, Libertarian and Green Parties filed this amended complaint in Superior Court in Alameda County, California, in Rubin v Bowen. This is the case in which the parties argue that the top-two system, as it works in the real world, unconstitutionally injures voters who desire to vote for minor party and independent candidates. The judge in this case had asked that the plaintiffs file an amended complaint.
A complaint does not set forth precedents or evidence that a law is unconstitutional. A complaint merely sets forth the problem that the plaintiffs have with the existing law. Evidence, and precedents, will be mentioned in future documents.
In 2010, a lawsuit was filed in federal court against a Colorado law that says an individual may give twice as much money to the campaign of a candidate for state office who is running in a partisan primary, than to a candidate who gets on the November ballot by either petition or nominating convention. In practice, the Colorado law (which relates only to state and local office, not federal office) means individuals can donate twice as much to a Republican or a Democrat as to any other candidate.
The lawsuit has been delayed, and is now two and one-half years old. However, on February 5, U.S. District Court Judge Philip A. Brimmer cancelled the trial, and will rule on the briefs. There are no contested facts so there didn’t seem any need for a trial. Therefore, the decision is probably only a month or so away. The case is Riddle v Ritter, 1:10cv-1857. The lead plaintiff is Joelle Riddle, who wanted to give a donation to an independent candidate, Kathleen Curry. The Colorado Libertarian Party is also in the case, on the side of the independent candidate and her donor.
The reason the case is so old is because it had been sent by the federal court to the Colorado Supreme Court to construe the law. But the State Supreme Court pondered that for a year and then decided not to make any ruling, and sent the case back to federal court.
Dan Walters, the Sacramento Bee’s veteran political columnist, has this story about the 2013 Los Angeles Mayoral election. He says that the two front-runners are ducking the hard issues and concentrating on negative campaigning. This suggests that if the city had Ranked-Choice Voting, the campaign would be more useful to the voters. There is also a hint that if Los Angeles had partisan city elections, in which candidates were nominees of political parties that actually took stands on the tough issues and placed these stands in the party platforms, that the campaign might also be better.
Los Angeles elects its mayor with a non-partisan two-round system.
On February 13, Oklahoma SB 668 passed the Senate Rules Committee. It changes the number of signatures needed for a newly-qualifying party for midterm years from 66,744 signatures to 51,739 signatures. It has no effect on the number of signatures needed in presidential election years.
It also provides that if there is a dispute on who has authority to act for a newly-qualifying party, the Secretary of the State Election Board has the authority to make a decision, although the amendment gives very little guidance as to how the Secretary is to decide. It says he or she should, “if possible, consult with the party’s national chair or executive committee”. This amendment seems to be a reaction to last year’s experience with Americans Elect, when state election officials arbitrarily ignored the wishes of the party’s state officers and instead deferred to the wishes of the national party leaders, even though under Oklahoma law, presidential elector candidates are chosen by state party meetings.
