California currently has no Lieutenant Governor. The incumbent, John Garamendi, a Democrat, resigned recently to take his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has nominated Republican State Senator Abel Maldonado, author of the “top-two open primary” ballot measure to be voted on in June, 2010, to be California’s new Lieutenant Governor. However, recently California Democratic Party state chair John Burton said that he does not believe the legislature should confirm Maldonado.

If no one fills the vacancy in the Lieutenant Governorship, the next person in line to be Governor is the President Pro Tem of the California State Senate. Currently that is Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat. The annual salary of the Lieutenant Governor is $159,134. This interesting column by Professor Michael A. Moodian advocates that California ought to elect its governor and its lieutenant governor on a joint ticket, so that they would always be of the same political party. Failing that, Moodian also suggests that California might consider doing without a Lieutenant Governor.

Hawaii has two members of the U.S. House of Representatives. One of them, Neil Abercrombie, has already announced that he will run for Governor in 2010. Not only that, he is planning to resign soon, because it is impossible for him to campaign for Governor while he is so far away in Washington, D.C.

However, the Hawaii Elections Office says it can’t afford to hold a special election to fill Abercrombie’s seat, and would leave it unfilled until mid-September, when the state is holding its regularly-scheduled primary for all partisan offices. Nothing in state law requires any state official to call a special election to fill a vacancy in the U.S. House before September 2010. See this story.

On December 10, a lower state court in Ohio ordered the Ashland County Commissioners to increase their funding for the County Board of Elections, from $302,510, to $328,286. See this story. The Board of Elections had argued that its ability to carry out elections in the county was jeopardized without more funding.