The April 28 Los Angeles Times carries this letter from UCLA Political Scientist Thomas Schwartz, about California’s new “top-two” election system. Schwartz is a specialist in social choice theory and mathematical political science. He is the author of “The Logic of Collective Choice” and “The Art of Logical Reasoning.”

The link goes to all the letters published that day. Professor Schwartz’ letter is the second one down. The letter also chides the Los Angeles Times for telling its readers, in an editorial on April 25, that the top-two system is the same system as the non-partisan system used by all California cities and counties for elections for their own officials.

On April 28, the Minnesota House Government Operations & Elections Committee passed HF 495, the bill for the National Popular Vote Plan. The committee has a Republican majority, but only one legislator voted against the bill.

On April 28, the Tennessee Senate, which had been set to debate the ballot access bill that day, postponed that bill until May 5. The Senate bill, SB 935, has seven amendments pending, some of which lower the number of signatures needed for a new party to get on the ballot. One amendment proposes 10,000 signatures, and another amendment proposes 6,000. This is the sixth time the Senate has postponed consideration of the bill. It was originally on the consent calendar for March 21, but was removed. Since then it has been scheduled for the regular calendar on March 24, March 29, April 7, April 14, and April 28, but each time it was postponed to a future day.

The House has already passed a companion bill that leaves the number of signatures at 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote (40,042 signatures). The legislature must pass some bill on this subject this year, because the existing law was held unconstitutional last year.