A Roanoke College Poll for the November 2013 Virginia gubernatorial race shows: Republican Ken Cuccinelli 37%; Democrat Terry McAuliffe 31%; Libertarian Rob Sarvis 5%; undecided 27%. See here. The poll was released almost two weeks ago. The poll shows that Sarvis draws equally from voters who would vote for Cuccinelli if Sarvis weren’t running, and voters who would vote for McAuliffe if Sarvis weren’t running.
On May 1, 2013, five political scientists released a research paper, “A Primary Cause of Partisanship? Nominating systems and legislators.” The 26-page paper can be read here. After clicking on the link, click on the “Download this Paper” button. The paper describes the authors’ opinions about their findings. In other words, they speculate on why the theory that open primaries elect more moderate legislators turns out not to be true. The authors are Nolan McCarty, Eric McGhee, Seth Masket, Steven Rogers, and Boris Shor.
This news clip, prepared by RT USA, covers the Green Party national meeting held in Iowa City July 26-28. It is 3 minutes and 48 seconds. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for the link.
On July 30, a federal lawsuit was filed against Nebraska’s law that makes it illegal to pay circulators on a per-signature basis. Bernbeck v Gale, case number not assigned yet. The restriction applies to all kinds of petitions and was passed in 2008 over the Governor’s veto. Another part of the 2008 law, which made it illegal for out-of-state residents to circulate in Nebraska, has already been declared unconstitutional.
The new lawsuit also challenges the Nebraska law that requires initiatives to obtain the signatures of at least 5% of the voters in at least two-fifths of Nebraska’s counties. Nebraska has 93 counties and the overwhelming majority are in the center and western part of the state and have very low populations. Generally, county distribution requirements for all types of petitions have been held unconstitutional when they have been challenged.
On July 30, Harry F. Byrd, Jr., died at the age of 98. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Virginia in 1970 and again in 1976 as an independent. Until Angus King’s victory in Maine in 2012, he had been the only independent ever elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote who got a majority of the vote, even though both major parties had a nominee against him. See this story.
Before 1970, he had previously been elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat. He ran as an independent in 1970 because the Virginia Democratic Party was requiring its nominees to take an oath to support the Democratic 1972 presidential nominee. Byrd was not willing to take an oath to support someone when that person had not even yet been chosen.
