The Connecticut public funding campaign law that was declared unconstitutional on August 27 will continue to be in force, while the state files an expedited appeal to the 2nd circuit. U.S. District Court Stefan Underhill stayed his own decision for two weeks, and the stay will probably be extended. Thanks to David Donnelly for this news.
The Rhode Island House of Representatives will reconvene on October 14 and 15. It is somewhat likely that the House will pass SB 203, which eases ballot access for new parties. That bill has already passed the Senate.
Other state legislatures that are expected to be active in dealing with election law bills the remainder of this calendar year are Illinois (where the legislature must decide whether to amend HB 326, or see it vetoed); Ohio (where ballot access for new parties will be determined); California; and probably the Massachusetts legislature will soon decide whether to authorize gubernatorial appointments to fill U.S. Senate vacancies, for the interim period before a special election can be held. Also, the North Carolina legislature is meeting, and the State Board of Elections has asked it to amend the law to provide that all qualified parties be listed on the income tax check-off (so taxpayers can send a small donation to the party they choose). The current law says only qualified parties with registration membership of 1% should be on the form.
On August 29, the Connecticut Working Families Party held a meeting to hear from all the contenders from the Democratic Party for governor next year. See this story, which says that 158 WFP members attended.
The Connecticut Working Families Party has been on the ballot for some offices in Connecticut since 2002, but so far it hasn’t been on the ballot for any statewide race. But, the party expects to run a full slate for statewide office in 2010. It is free to either cross-endorse the Democratic nominees, or conceivably a Republican nominee (although that is unlikely) or to run its own members.
On July 13, the Georgia Supreme Court heard arguments in Favorito v Handel, S09A1367, the case over whether vote-counting machines that leave no audit trail violate either the Georgia Constitution or the U.S. Constitution. Here is an article by Garland Favorito, carried August 30 in OpEdNews, about the lawsuit.
On August 30, Japan held an election for all 480 seats in the lower legislative body. The winning party, the Democratic Party of Japan, has won at least 270 seats and may have won 300, ousting the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Ironically, the winning party would have won even more seats, except that it didn’t run a full slate of candidates. See this story. Thanks to Rick Kissell for the link.
