North Carolina HB 589, the omnibus election law bill, will receive a vote in the State Senate on Wednesday, July 24. The session starts at 1 p.m. eastern time. Among the other parts of the bill is a provision moving the presidential primary from May to February. See this commentary about that part of the bill from Frontloading HQ blog. If the bill passes, North Carolina would have a February presidential primary and a May primary for all other office, followed by a run-off primary. Having three primaries in presidential election years would greatly increase the cost of election administration.

Yet another part of the bill, not mentioned earlier, provides that the legislature should study the issue of whether to continue to have run-off primaries.

On July 23, California held a special legislative election, 52nd Assembly district, in San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties. The largest city in the district is Ontario, and Ontario’s Mayor, Paul Leon, who is a registered independent, is running first. Leon was a registered Republican until May 31, 2013, when he switched to independent and simultaneously filed to run for Assembly. He had run as a Republican in another special election earlier this year, for State Senate, and had placed second in the primary and then lost the run-off to a Democrat.

The San Bernardino County Republican Party gave $9,000 to Leon’s Assembly campaign, and yet the county party endorsed the only Republican in the race, Dorothy Pineda. Besides Leon and Pineda, the race has seven Democrats.

As this post is being written, it is too early to tell who will place second. From the preliminary returns, it will probably be Democrat Freddie Rodriguez, but it is possible the Republican, Pineda, will place second. There will be a run-off in two months. If the run-off is between Rodriguez and Leon, then Rodriguez will probably win, because the district is strongly Democratic. The registration data for the district is 47.5% Democratic and only 26.7% Republican. Here is a link to the unofficial returns on the California Secretary of State’s page. As the evening progresses, more and more votes will be tallied.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hold oral arguments in McCutcheon v Federal Election Commission, 12-536, on October 8, 2013. This is the case in which the Republican Party and Shaun McCutcheon challenge the federal law that limits how much an individual may contribute to all federal candidates in any two-year period. The lower courts had upheld the law. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.