Litigation Likely Over Whether West Virginia Will Hold Special Gubernatorial Election in 2011

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According to this story, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin has no plans to call an early special session of the legislature to consider gubernatorial succession.  West Virginia elects its governors during presidential election years.  Governor Manchin will be resigning as Governor very soon, to take his seat in the U.S. Senate.  Democratic Party legislators and the Governor seem to feel that the Senate President, Ray Tomblin, will automatically become Governor and will hold office until November 2012.

Not everyone agrees with that.  The West Virginia Constitution says when a governor leaves office with more than a year remaining in the term, an election will be called to fill the vacancy.  The problem is that the Constitution doesn’t say when that special election should be.

Ray Tomblin has been a Democratic legislator in West Virginia continuously since 1974.  He is in the middle of his 4-year State Senate term.  The article seems to suggest that he plans to become Governor and also remain a State Senator, although this is not explicit.

Michael Moore Interviewed by Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now" About 2010 and 2012 Elections

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Amy Goodman and associates interviewed film-maker Michael Moore on the evening of November 3, about the 2010 and 2012 elections, and other related topics.  Listen at this link.  The segment is 20 minutes long.  Thanks to Nancy Hankster for the link.  Moore thinks there is a fair chance that there will be four strong presidential candidates in the 2012 election.  Also, he talks about the almost complete lack of public discussion about U.S. involvement in foreign wars, during the recent political campaign.  That is in the last eight minutes of the segment.

Michael Moore Interviewed by Amy Goodman on “Democracy Now” About 2010 and 2012 Elections

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Amy Goodman and associates interviewed film-maker Michael Moore on the evening of November 3, about the 2010 and 2012 elections, and other related topics.  Listen at this link.  The segment is 20 minutes long.  Thanks to Nancy Hankster for the link.  Moore thinks there is a fair chance that there will be four strong presidential candidates in the 2012 election.  Also, he talks about the almost complete lack of public discussion about U.S. involvement in foreign wars, during the recent political campaign.  That is in the last eight minutes of the segment.

Libertarian Party Nominees for U.S. House Again Receive Over 1,000,000 Votes

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Greg Kaza has made an early compilation of the minor party vote for U.S. House in this week’s election.  He finds that the Libertarian Party nominees for U.S. House have polled, together, more than 1,000,000 votes.  Other years in which the party has broken the 1,000,000 mark have been 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2008.  The only other non-major party that has ever done that was the Progressive Party of 1912-1916.

Of course, as the nation’s population grows, the significance of that benchmark becomes less meaningful.  A more meaningful measure is percentage of the vote for U.S. House going to any particular party.  In 2010, the Libertarian share of the vote for U.S. House is in excess of 1% of the total vote for that office, a benchmark that no other minor party since World War II has achieved, except for the Progressive Party formed by Henry Wallace in 1948, which polled 1.9% of the U.S. House vote in 1948.