Eastern Group Publications publishes ten different newspapers in Los Angeles County, all of which are in both Spanish and English. The chain originated in 1945 and is the oldest and largest chain of Hispanic-Owned bilingual newpapers in the United States. Its papers appear each Thursday. The May 20 issue asks its readers to vote “No” on Proposition 14, the top-two ballot measure that is on the June 8 ballot. See here. The newspaper is delivered to 104,000 households. Thanks to Jeff Trigg for this news.

According to someone who was at the May 20 hearing in Buell v Monterey County, the 3-judge U.S. District Court will likely reject the Voting Rights Act claim and tell the county to hold its special election on June 22. The special election is to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 15th district. The seat is empty because State Senator Abel Maldonado resigned to become Lieutenant Governor. UPDATE: see this San Jose Mercury-News story.

The case was filed by persons who worry that a special election so soon after the regularly-scheduled June 8 primary will have a very low turnout. There are four candidates on the ballot, one Democrat, one Republican, one Libertarian, and one independent. If no one gets 50%, there will be a run-off among the same four candidates in August, which does seem rather silly.

The Voting Rights Act, section 5, requires Monterey County to pre-clear all election procedure changes with the U.S. Justice Department. The county is not opening all polling places and plaintiffs said that is a change that should have been pre-cleared.

On May 20, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Fuller v Bowen, which was filed by a candidate for the legislature in February 2010. The candidate, Heidi Fuller, is on the Republican primary ballot. She had been attempting to get a court ruling that the California Constitution, which bars candidates for the legislature if they have not lived in the district a year before the general election, should be enforced.

One of her opponents, who is already a state legislator, moved into the district he is running in on December 31, 2009, less than a year before the November 2, 2010 election. There is no dispute or ambiguity about that. The Attorney General and the Secretary of State do not enforce the state constitutional provision because they believe that it violates the U.S. Constitution. In the current case, the Superior Court agreed with Fuller that courts have jurisdiction to enforce the California Constitution, but he also ruled that the residency requirement in the California Constitution violates the U.S. Constitution. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld residency durational requirements, most notably in Sununu v Stark, which summarily affirmed a 3-judge U.S. District Court decision upholding a seven year residency requirement.

Fuller will ask for U.S. Supreme Court review.