According to this story, William Fitzpatrick, District of Attorney of Onondaga County now in his sixth term, says he now favors public funding of campaigns for the New York legislature. Fitzpatrick is a Republican and describes himself as a conservative. He is one of the three members of the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. Thanks to the Center for Competitive Politics for the link.
The Virginia State Board of Elections has posted these election returns for the three statewide offices elected on November 5, 2013. The tally shows the Democratic nominee for Attorney General won by 106 votes. The returns are labeled “unofficial” and the Republican nominee is considered certain to ask for a recount after they are official.
Kshama Sawant, the Socialist Alternative Party candidate for Seattle city council, has pulled into a very narrow lead as more votes are counted in her race. The election is non-partisan. Two candidates were on the ballot, Sawant, and the incumbent councilmember. See this story. Thanks to Jim Riley and Pete Healey for this news. There are still many ballots to be counted. Generally, Oregon and Washington election returns on election night are more incomplete than the returns of any other state, because those two states use virtually all-mail ballots, and it takes a longer time to count them.
The Birmingham News has this story about James Hall’s ballot access lawsuit. Hall is an independent candidate for U.S. House, First District, in the special election being held December 17. The court hearing in U.S. District Court is at 1:30 p.m. in Montgomery, Wednesday, November 13.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Nader v Federal Election Commission, 13-556, on November 26. This is the case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals said Ralph Nader didn’t have standing to complain that the FEC didn’t require the Democratic Party to report its expenditures spent to keep Nader off many state ballots in 2004.
The Court probably won’t say what it did at its November 26 conference until December 2. The November 26 conference will also consider Judd v Libertarian Party of Virginia, in which the government of Virginia hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court will review the decision of the lower courts that struck down the ban on out-of-state circulators. Scotusblog on November 12 listed that case as its “petition of the day”, meaning Scotusblog feels there is a reasonable chance that the Court will hear that case.
