On January 16, the Third Circuit upheld a Pennsylvania law that bars anyone other than voters and polling place officials from being inside a polling place. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had sued to overturn the law, arguing that it desired to place reporters and photographers inside polling places on election day to observe the voter sign-in process. The case is PG Publishing Company v Aichele, 12-3863. The decision is 52 pages.
The most powerful backers of the top-two system in California consistently argued that if California passed the top-two voter measure in June 2010, the type of Republicans elected would change, from “extremists” to “moderates.” These backers included the Chamber of Commerce, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and almost all of the state’s largest newspapers.
On the evening of January 15, the U.S. House voted on whether to increase the Hurricane Sandy relief fund from $17 billion to $50 billion. The Senate had already passed the $50 billion figure, which included $20 billion to repair bridges and roads, $4 for the Army Corps of Engineers, and $6.5 billion for the disaster relief fund. The roll call vote on increasing the bill to $50 billion passed narrowly, with virtual unanimous Democratic support, and the votes of some Republicans. Among the Republicans in the House, the vote on this amendment, the Freylinghuysen amendment, was 38 “yes”; 190 “no”; and 4 not voting.
Among the 24 Republicans in the House from top-two states, the vote was 4 “yes”; 19 “no”; and one not voting. For the entire roll call, see here. The ratio of “yes” votes to “no” votes for Republicans from the top-two states was virtually identical to the ratio of “yes” and “no” votes for all Republicans in the House.
Nothing in this blog post should be taken as expressing any opinion on whether the Freylinghuysen is good public policy or bad public policy. Nor should anything in this blog post be taken to indicate agreement with the terms “extremist” or “moderate” as applied to members of Congress. The purpose of this post is to rebut the idea, pushed by so many influential Californians in 2010, that the top-two system was a magic device to change the behavior of California’s politicians. Only one of the fifteen California Republican U.S. House members, Jeff Denham, voted for the Freylinghuysen amendment.
On January 16, the Montana House State Administration Committee heard testimony on HB 120, the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill. The Committee won’t vote on the bill for several days. The bill contains several ballot access improvements: (1) it moves the non-presidential independent candidate deadline from March to May; (2) it lets all qualified parties hold a primary if more than a single candidate files for any office in that party’s primary; (3) it eases the requirements on who can be an independent candidate for President and Vice-President. No one testified against any part of the bill, and no legislator objected to any of these changes. The deadline change is required because the old deadline was held unconstitutional last year.
Niki Zupanic (the ACLU lobbyist), and activist Steve Kelly both testified that the deadline portion of the bill should be amended to set the non-presidential independent candidate deadline later than May. The Secretary of State and her top policy assistants were at the hearing and indicated willingness to have the bill amended, so that the deadline would be in mid-July. The bill’s sponsor said she is willing to make any changes to the bill on this point that the Secretary of State requests.
On January 15, a New Hampshire House Committee heard testimony for and against a bill to restore straight-ticket voting. See this account of the hearing. The story does not mention any witness who raise the point that if enacted, the bill would only give a straight-ticket device to parties that had polled 4% for Governor or U.S. Senator in the last election, and would not give a straight-ticket device to groups that had completed the party petition.
On January 15, the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly defeated a proposed constitutional amendment to shrink the number of state legislators. See this story.
