On January 9, Tom Condit died at the age of 72. See this blog post from the Peace & Freedom Party’s blog. Condict lived in Berkeley. He had run for partisan office eight times on the Peace and Freedom ticket, in 1978, 1980, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1996, 2004, and 2006. In 2006, he had been one of the two PFP statewide candidates who polled over 2% of the vote, keeping the party on the ballot. Thanks to John Crockford for the link.

His best showing had been in 2004, when he polled 5.40% for State Senate, in a race that also included a Republican and a Democrat.

In the last 30 days, only two election law bills in the U.S. House of Representatives have gained any additional co-sponsors. HR1826, to provide non-discriminatory public funding for candidates for Congress, now has 124 co-sponsors, up six compared to a month ago. HR3957, to require the states to permit election-day registration in federal elections, now has 16 co-sponsors, up two in the last month.

Bills to hold a plebescite on the future status of Puerto Rico, to let ex-felons in all states vote in federal elections, to outlaw certain kinds of vote-counting machines in federal elections, and to require the states to use bipartisan commissions for drawing U.S. House boundaries, have not gained any co-sponsors in the last 30 days.

This Associated Press story in the Los Angeles Times says that Hawaii is expected to have a vacancy in one of its two U.S. House seats soon, but that the Elections Department only has $5,000 and the special election, at best, will cost almost $1,000,000, even if the state uses all mail ballots.