The September 20 Sacramento Bee has this op-ed, making the case against the “top-two” ballot measure that Californians will be voting on in June 2010. Thank to Jack Dean for the link. The author of the op-ed is Richard Winger.
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The September 20 Sacramento Bee has this op-ed, making the case against the “top-two” ballot measure that Californians will be voting on in June 2010. Thank to Jack Dean for the link. The author of the op-ed is Richard Winger.
Tennessee’s state Elections Commissioner, Mark Goins, has decided to list Republican nominees first on general election ballots, starting next month in a special election. See this story. In the recent past, Democratic nominees have been listed first.
It is somewhat likely that state law, giving discretion to the Elections Commissioner, is unconstitutional. The 7th circuit long ago ruled that it is unconstitutional to let county elections officials enjoy discretion as to which parties to list first on the ballot, and U.S. District Courts in Oklahoma and New Mexico made similar rulings.
The Green Party of Canada does well in elections, but has never elected anyone to the Canadian Parliament. On September 19, the party nominated its national leader, Elizabeth May, to run in the next national election from the British Columbia district known as Saanich-Gulf Islands. In the last election, May ran for Parliament from Nova Scotia. Canada, like Great Britain, does not have a tradition that members of Parliament need to have any special residential connection with the districts they seek to represent.
The Green Party national leadership evaluated all the districts in Canada, and concluded that Saanich-Gulf Islands is more likely to elect a Green than any other district. However, not every Green supported the May nomination for that district, and the decision was not unanimous. See this story.
Back on November 18, 2008, a federal jury in Scranton, Pennsylvania, had awarded Denise Carey $67,000 in her lawsuit against her home city of Wilkes-Barre. Carey in 2004 had headed up a local initiative petition. After her petition had been rejected because of a challenge to the validity of the signatures, the state court that had rejected her petition had ordered her to to pay $11,056 to the people who had challenged her initiative petition. Carey had then sued Wilkes-Barre, arguing that such an order violates her First Amendment rights. The federal jury that heard her case had awarded damages to her.
On September 18, 2009, the U.S. District Court Judge in Carey’s federal case rejected Wilkes-Barre’s attempt to set aside the jury verdict. The city says it will now appeal the ruling to the Third Circuit. Thanks to Carl Romanelli for this news. Here is a news story.