On December 3, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed SB 3338, which says that the special election for U.S. House, 2nd district, will be in April, not March. The bill only relates to this one particular election and does not make a general change for dates of special elections.

The bill had been introduced on February 7, 2012, for the purpose of changing the no-politics-zone for certain sidewalks near polling places. The original bill had passed the Senate on March 29, 2012, and then had sat for months in the House Rules Committee. In November, when legislative leaders decided to change the date of the special election, they removed the original contents from the bill and amended it to include the text they needed, and passed it in a hurry.

Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Chester) says he will introduce a bill to provide that the popular vote within Pennsylvania should be used to proportionally allocate presidential electors. Thus, if the Democrats got 55% of the total popular vote within the state, they would get 11 electors instead of all 20 of the state’s electors. See this story. Republicans control both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature and hold the Governorship. Here is a criticism of the idea by Rob Richie. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the links.

On November 30, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed S2170, which makes it possible for certain government employees to run for partisan office. Under existing law, if a state or local government employee’s salary is paid in part by federal government money, that employee cannot run for partisan office, just as federal employees under civil service can’t run for partisan office.

The bill changes the rules for state and local government employees. If it is signed into law, only state and local government employees whose salary is entirely paid by the federal government will be barred from running for partisan office.

The bill also says that employees of the District of Columbia government should no longer be treated as though they were federal employees, for purposes of the prohibition in running for partisan office. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.