The Hawaii House has killed HB 1116, which would have made it possible for the state to release the birth certificates of prominent persons, if the person requesting the information paid $100. See this story.
Reply
On February 18, the U.S. Supreme Court conference considered whether to hear the case from Illinois on the special U.S. Senate election last year, to fill President Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. The 7th circuit ruled last year that the 17th Amendment required Illinois to hold a special election on November 2, 2010, to fill the last two months of that term. The special election was in addition to the election for the regular 6-year term for that same seat.
The case is really two cases. The state argues that it should not have been forced to hold that special election. And former U.S. Senator Roland Burris argues that, given that the election was being held, it was unconstitutional to limit access to the ballot in the special election, to only the candidates who were on the ballot for the 6-year term election. The cases are Burris v Judge, 10-367, and Quinn v Judge, 10-821. The state of Louisiana filed an amicus brief on the side of Illinois, and twelve other states joined the brief. That brief is neutral on the question of which candidates should have been allowed on the ballot.
Harford County, Maryland, says that only members of parties that got at least 15% of the votes in the last council election may put a member on the committee that draws new boundaries for council districts after a census. Because the Democratic Party did not contest half the races, and did not do very well in the races it did contest, it only polled 12% of the vote in the last election. Therefore only Republicans will draw the new district boundaries.
The Baltimore Sun has this letter to the editor from Brian Bittner, chair of the Maryland Green Party, expressing some thoughts about that.
Massachusetts has been holding presidential primaries since 1912, but Secretary of State William Galvin has told the legislature that the legislature should either increase the appropriation for his office, or else it should pass a bill ending the presidential primary. He suggested the state could use caucuses. See this story from Frontloading HQ, the blog that is the best source of news about the dates of presidential primaries and caucuses.
The New York Times reports that the Manhattan District Attorney now alleges that leaders of the New York Independence Party knew, or should have known, that a Republican political consultant stole over $1,000,000 from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The District Attorney wants the Independence Party to put that same amount of money in an escrow fund, even though no one alleges that the party has the money. It appears that the Mayor gave the money to the Independence Party, and asked the party to give the money to that individual, so that the individual could do campaign work for the Mayor. But, instead, apparently that individual kept the money for his own personal use. See this story. Thanks to Elizabeth Sandor for the link. Also see this story in the Wall Street Journal.