A post at this site on October 17 mentioned the U.S. House elections held in Louisiana while that state used “top-two”. This is a supplementary post concerning U.S. Senate elections in Louisiana. That state held ten U.S. Senate elections during the years when Louisiana used “top-two”, and in none of them was any incumbent U.S. Senator ever defeated, in either the first or second rounds.
A post at this site on October 17 mentioned the U.S. House elections held in Louisiana while that state used “top-two”. This is a supplementary post concerning U.S. Senate elections in Louisiana. That state held ten U.S. Senate elections during the years when Louisiana used “top-two”, and in none of them was any incumbent U.S. Senator ever defeated, in either the first or second rounds.
On September 17, U.S. Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) introduced S.1688, to provide that the number of seats in the U.S. House for each state should be based on how many U.S. citizens live in that state. The bill is co-sponsored both Senators Jim Bunning (R-Ky), Tom Coburn (R-Ok), James Inhofe (R-Ok), David Vitter (R-La), Mike Crapo (R-Id) and Michael Enzi (R-Wy).
The 14th Amendment, sec. 2, says, “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.”
Senator Bennett’s web page has this U-Tube, showing the Senator speaking in favor of his bill. The U-Tube is 8 minutes and 23 seconds, and Senator Bennett purports to rebut all the reasons for opposing his bill. However, he never mentions the U.S. Constitutional provision quoted above. Bennett does say that if his bill were to become law, four states would lose representation in the U.S. House, but he does not say which states those would be. He says nine other states would gain representation in the U.S. House.
On October 17, the same state court judge who had told Prescott, Arizona, not to hold the November 3, 2009 election for city council, refused to stay his own ruling. Consequently, the city will not mail out any more ballots while it prepares to appeal to the State Court of Appeals. The earlier ruling had delayed the election because the city had omitted to print the name of one candidate on the ballot. See this story.
For an explanation of why the city had not printed the name of one candidate on the ballot, see the earlier post here.
Thurston County, Washington Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks will hear the case on privacy of petition signatures on Tuesday, October 20, at 1:30 p.m. See this story.
