On May 7, the Nevada Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee took testimony on AB 413, the National Popular Vote bill. The committee will vote later. See this article in the Nevada Appeal (Carson City’s newspaper), which describes arguments against the plan by Janine Hansen of the Constitution Party, and also testimony against the plan by a representative of the ACLU. Hansen is quoted as saying that one trouble with the plan is that eleven states would determine the outcome of presidential elections. Ironically, under the existing system, eleven states control the outcome of presidential elections. These eleven states hold 271 electoral votes, a majority: California (55), Florida (27), Georgia (15), Illinois (21), Michigan (17), New Jersey (15), New York (31), North Carolina (15), Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21), and Texas (34). All of these states except Georgia and Texas voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

On May 7, a spokesperson for President Obama said, “President Obama does not intend to make any political endorsement in the New York city mayor’s race.” See this New York Times story of May 7.

That was surprising to the likely Democratic nominee, William C. Thompson Jr. Later another Obama spokesperson said perhaps the President would endorse someone later. Mayor Bloomsberg is a registered independent, running with the likely nomination of the Republican Party and the Independence Party. If he wins in November 2009, this will be the first time that anyone who was a registered independent has won any partisan election in a large-population unit of the United States, since the days when voter registration came into existence. For this purpose, “large-population unit of the United States” means an entity with at least eleven U.S. House seats. New York city has eleven U.S. House seats entirely within the city, and another district (the 5th) that is mostly in the city, and still another district (the 17th) that is partly in the city.

Generally, when independents have been elected to the U.S. Senate or to a Governor’s chair, that has been in states with small or low-medium populations.

In 1970, when James Buckley was elected U.S. Senator from New York state as the Conservative Party nominee, he was nevertheless a registered Republican. When John Lindsay was re-elected Mayor in 1969 on the Liberal Party line, he was not a registered independent, nor was Vincent Impellitteri a registered independent when he was elected Mayor of New York in a special election in 1950. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

The Providence Journal, the biggest newspaper in Rhode Island, has this very interesting and fairly lengthy article (in the May 3 issue) about the Moderate Party and its federal lawsuit to strike down the law that makes it illegal for the party to start petitioning until next year. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the link.