Dan Walters, political columnist for the Sacramento Bee, has this column. He points out that California legislative and congressional elections, to a surprising degree, boost relatives of other elected or previously elected politicians into office.
A U.S. District Court in Wichita, Kansas, is currently hearing oral arguments in Kobach v U.S. Election Assistance Commission, 5:13cv-4095. This is the case in which the Secretaries of State of Kansas and Arizona argue that the court should force the federal government to alter the federal voter registration forms that are used within those two states. If the two states lose this case, they expect to set up dual voter registration records. There would be a list of voters who had used the federal form, who could only vote for federal office, not state or local office.
The controversy all began when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Article One of the U.S. Constitution does permit the federal government to set up its own voter registration form. Kansas and Arizona Secretaries of State don’t like the federal form, because it does not require applicants to prove they are citizens; applicants sign under penalty of perjury that they are citizens, but those two states want more evidence. The U.S. Supreme Court decision implied that states that don’t like the federal form may have the right to force the federal government to alter the federal form to the states’ liking. See this story.
On December 12, the Florida Libertarian Party issued this press release, which says that the party expects to nominate Bill Wohlsifer for Attorney General in its 2014 primary. Assuming he gets on the ballot, which is very likely, he will be the first minor party candidate for Attorney General to appear on the Florida ballot since 1916, when the Socialist Party ran A. D. Miller for that post. Miller received 7.96% of the vote.
Florida had such restrictive ballot access laws for minor parties between 1931 and 1999, there were almost no minor party candidates in Florida during those years for any office except President (the old Florida laws were easier for President than for other offices). The laws were hugely liberalized in 1999, but since then the only minor party candidates for statewide state office in Florida have been Max Linn, Reform Party gubernatorial candidate in 2006, and Ira Chester, Tea Party nominee for Agriculture Commissioner in 2010. In 2006, John Wayne Smith, who is a member of the Libertarian Party, got on the ballot for Governor as an independent candidate, but he was not the party nominee. For 2014, the Libertarians will also have a gubernatorial nominee; two individuals have announced their attention of winning the party’s 2014 primary for Governor.
See this four-minute televised conversation between Fox Business Network host Neil Cavuto and former U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, on whether an independent or new party candidate could win the presidency in 2016. Lieberman raises the possibility that even if such a candidate would not win, he or she would influence public policy.
On December 12, the U.S. House passed the Ryan-Budget compromise budget resolution, HJR 59. The measure passed easily, by a vote of 332-94. Seven members did not vote and there are two vacancies. Among the members of the House who voted, only 22.1% voted “No.” Some of the “no” votes were cast by Democrats who believe the bill stifles worthy spending, and some of the “no” votes were cast by Republicans who believe the bill spends too much. The media tends to support the idea that both types of opposition are “extreme”; no such opinion should be inferred from this blog post.
Among members of Congress from open primary states, 23.0% voted “No.” Among members from closed primary states, 19.6% voted “No.” Among members from semi-closed primary states, 28.9% voted “No.” Among members from top-two states, 17.4% voted “No.”
Opponents of closed primaries constantly express a belief that closed primaries yield more extreme politicians, yet in this vote, as in recent similar roll-call votes, open primaries seem more like to produce “extreme” politicians. Here is the roll-call vote.
All six of Washington state’s Democrats voted for the bill, which lowered the percentage of “no” votes from top-two states. Chances are not all of the Washington Democrats would have voted for the bill, except for the fact that U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, put her prestige on the line as the Democrat who negotiated the compromise, and her fellow Democrats from her home state wanted to support her.
