The Working Families Party of New York has hired Judith Kaye to review its practices regarding New York campaign finance laws. Kaye is in private practice now but she was recently a justice on New York state’s highest state court, the Court of Appeals. See this story.
On November 3, the two Virginia state legislators who were running for re-election were re-elected. They are Lacey Putney in the 19th district, and Watkins M. Abbitt in the 59th district.
Putney was re-elected with 64.1% of the vote. His only opponents were a Democrat, Lewis Medlin, who got 20.6%, and a Constitution Party candidate, Will Smith, who got 15.1%.
Watkins Abbitt was unopposed.
Another independent candidate, Gordon Helsel, lost to his Republican opponent, but placed ahead of his Democratic opponent. The vote in the 91st district was: Republican Tom Gear 48.3%, independent Gordon Helsel 32.6%, Democrat Sam Eure 19.0%.
On November 6, the proponents of privacy for Washington state referendum petitions asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their appeal. Here is the brief. As noted earlier, on September 10 the U.S. District Court in Washington state had ordered the Washington Secretary of State not to release the names and addresses of people who signed the R-71 petition. But on October 15, the 9th circuit had ruled that the Secretary of State could release the information. Then, on October 19, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled 8-1 that the information should not be released, at least until the U.S. Supreme Court decided the issue of whether injunctive relief had been proper.
In the meantime, the West Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear another case on the same issue. A lower state court had ruled in favor of privacy for initiative petitions earlier this year, in a case from Jefferson County. That case is Shepherdstown Observer v Maghan, no. 09-c-169 in Jefferson County Circuit Court. This is a different case than the recent one in Ohio County, West Virginia, in which a lower state court had ruled that such petitions are public information. The Ohio case was decided November 5, 2009. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news about the cert petition in Washington state.
On November 3, ten Libertarian Party nominees (who were not simultaneously the nominees of any other parties) were elected to local office in Pennsylvania partisan elections. They were: Michael Robertson, Licking Township Supervisor; Bertie Etzel, Ashland Township Constable; Tim Russell, Emlenton Borough Mayor; Larry Boyle, Polk Borough Mayor; James Fryman, Victory Township Auditor; Paul Meddings and Chad Roberts, both elected to the Houston Borough council; Susan Haythornthwaite, Abbott Township Auditor; Cathy Beeman, Waterford Township Auditor; Randall Schwabenbauer, School Director, Oil City.
The full list of Libertarian candidates in this week’s election, with a note as to how each did, is here.
Newsweek has this story, posted on November 6. It says that independent presidential candidate Marco Enriquez-Ominami could conceivably win the Presidential election coming soon in Chile. Chile has a two-party system, in which the two major parties are the Conservative Party, and the Concertaction. The Concertaction is a coalition of the Socialist Party and the Christian Democratic Party.
Chile has a two-round presidential election. If no one gets 50% in the first round, there is a run-off. One of the factors favoring the independent candidate is that he is included in presidential debates, and so far he has done well in those debates.
