On Febrary 22, many of New Hampshire’s largest daily newspapers ran stories about Florida’s apparent reluctance to move its presidential primary away from mid-January. For example, see this story. If Florida sticks to mid-January, then New Hampshire’s primary will be in early January, as it was in 2008.
On February 22, the West Virginia House Rules Committee delayed HB 2378, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. That bill had passed the Judiciary Committee on February 17. See this story.
Nebraska State Senator Dave Pankonin (R-Louisville) has introduced LB 214. It says that all county office elections should be non-partisan. It also removes the choice of a city to use partisan elections if it wishes. Currently, the largest city in Nebraska that uses partisan elections is Fremont. The Fremont city council is currently considering whether to switch the city’s elections to non-partisan elections.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether or not to hear the Illinois U.S. Senate special election cases at its conference on February 18, it made no decision. The two cases will be considered again at the February 25 conference. The two cases are Burris v Judge, 10-367, and Quinn v Judge, 10-821. They concern whether the 7th circuit was right or wrong to order Illinois to hold a special U.S. Senate election on November 2, 2010, for the remaining two months of the Class III seat. Also, they concern whether it was right or wrong for the 7th circuit to limit ballot access in that special election to only the candidates whose names were already on the November ballot for the full term-election.
Former U.S. Senator Roland Burris had been appointed to that seat. The 7th Circuit decision forced him to vacate that seat in November 2010, and gave him no opportunity to run to fill the remainder of that term. Although the two-month term was short, Congress met during those two months and actually made some important decisions. The winner of the two-month term was Republican nominee Mark Kirk, who also won the 6-year term.
On February 19, Judge David R. Thompson died at the age of 80. He was a semi-retired judge on the 9th circuit. He was based in San Diego. He had been appointed to the 9th circuit in 1985. In 2000 he wrote the decision that invalidated a Washington state law that required the names and addresses of paid circulators to be made public, by their employers, on a monthly basis. That case was called WIN v Rippie. His decision said, “One circulator stated that, because of the requirement, he was reluctant to solicit signatures on initiative petitions. Another had ceased soliciting signatures altogether. Indeed, it is precisely the risk that people will refrain from advocating controversial positions that makes a disclosure scheme of this kind especially pernicious.”
Also, in 1997, he wrote the 9th circuit’s en banc decision that upheld California’s term limits for state legislators, Bates v Jones.
Judge Thompson had been scheduled to sit on a 3-judge panel of the 9th circuit on February 22, but that hearing is now canceled. Thanks to How Appealing blog for this news.
