Utah’s Constitution says that when there is a vacancy in the legislature, the Governor fills the vacancy from a list submitted by the committee of the political party that had last held the seat. The Republican committee that represents the 57th State House is voting on January 29 on whom to recommend to fill the vacancy.

The reason the 57th district seat is vacant is that the Republican elected on November 2, 2010, Craig A. Frank, was later determined not to live in that district. A mapping error had caused elections officials to assume that Cedar Hills is part of the 57th district, but it isn’t. Because Frank lived in that area, he was forced to resign his seat.

Residents of that enclave who are Republican delegates to the party committee were told that they cannot participate in the meeting to determine a new representative. They sued in state court, arguing that they must be permitted to participate, because they were all mistakenly barred from participating in the other district’s election in November 2010, because of the error. They said that they will have been barred from participating in both districts if they cannot get any relief. But, a court denied them relief. See this story.

Josh Putnam of Frontloading HQ has this post about a bill introduced in Kansas to abolish the presidential primary. The bill, HB 2126, was introduced at the request of the Secretary of State, in order to save money. Kansas has only actually held presidential primaries twice, in 1980 and 1992. Since then, generally the legislature passes a bill before each presidential election year, suspending the presidential primary for the upcoming election only. But the new bill seems to do away with the presidential primary completely.

Medill Reports is an on-line publication, prepared by graduate journalism students at Northwestern University. This article in Medill Reports describes the habit of WTTW-TV to host debates, but to exclude some ballot-listed candidates. On January 17, the TV station, which receives substantial funding from the government, hosted a TV debate for four of the candidates for Mayor of Chicago, although six candidates are on the ballot. The article also mentions that WTTW is being sued for a similar discriminatory policy last year, when it hosted a general election gubernatorial debate and invited only the two major party nominees. Thanks to Christina Tobin for the link.