The Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee hears HB 5072 on Wednesday, March 13, at 4:30 p.m., in room 313 of the State House. This is the bill to repeal the straight-ticket device. Thanks to Ken Block for this news.
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The Texas Redistricting blog has this fascinating account of how unpredictable Texas U.S. House and legislative district boundaries are, for the 2014 election. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On March 9, the South Carolina Green Party nominated Eugene Platt for the upcoming U.S. House election, 1st district, centered on Charleston. He will be the only alternative to the Democratic and Republican Party nominees. See this report at Green Party Watch.
The New York Times has this story about the low turnout in the Los Angeles city election of March 5. One of the two mayoral candidates in the run-off, Wendy Greuel, says she favors moving Los Angeles elections for city office to November of presidential election years. She doesn’t say whether she favors ranked-choice voting; the only alternative would seem to be a run-off in December of presidential years, or January of the following year.
This article, despite its unfortunate title, rebuts the conventional wisdom that independent or minor party candidates are “spoilers”. The article discusses the possible Bill Bolling independent candidacy for Governor of Virginia, and makes it clear that just because Bolling was elected as the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor in 2009, that does not necessarily mean his entry into the race would damage the Republican nominee.