The U.S. Supreme Court did not release its decision in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission on January 20, but it seems likely it will do so on January 21. See this SCOTUS blog post. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
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The 6th circuit will hear Kurita v The State Primary Board of the Tennessee Democratic Party on March 24, 2010. This is the fascinating case on whether a political party that chooses its nominees by primary is free to set aside the results and declare the person who lost the primary to be the party’s true nominee. The lower court had ruled that the Democratic Party can do that, if it wishes.
The primary was in 2008, and involved a race for State Senate. Rosalind Kurita, the incumbent, was running for re-election, and she won her primary. But the party certified her opponent, even though he had fewer votes. The party said that Kurita only won because some Republicans voted in the party’s open primary. Tennessee does not have registration by party.
The daily newspaper of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, has this article about the lawsuit to overturn the Colorado law that says no independent (except for president) can be on the November ballot, if that independent was a member of a qualified party at any time later than 17 months before the general election.
On January 19, the city council of San Leandro, California, voted 5-2 to use Instant Runoff Voting for the city’s own elections in 2010. San Leandro is in Alameda County. Since Oakland and Berkeley will be using it this year for their city elections, San Leandro was persuaded to try it as well. Thanks to Blair Bobier for this news.
At the point at which 94% of the vote had been counted in the special U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, the vote was: 1,148,400 for the Republican nominee; 1,029,600 for the Democratic nominee; 22,100 for the Libertarian who was running as an independent candidate. The percentages at that point were: Republican 52.2%; Democratic 46.8%; Libertarian independent 1.0%.
Here is a newspaper interview with the Libertarian candidate, Joseph Kennedy, conducted after the results were known.