On June 26, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell signed SB 913. It provides that when a vacancy occurs in a U.S. Senate seat, the vacancy should be filled with a special election (unless the vacancy is quite close in time to a regularly-scheduled election). Depending on the timing of the vacancy, there might or might not be primaries. If there were no time for a primary, qualified major parties would nominate by convention.

In most states, and in Connecticut until now, vacancies in U.S. Senate seats are filled by the Governor, although the appointee only serves until the next regularly-scheduled congressional election.

Several California daily newspapers have published commentary about Assemblymember Juan Arambula, who revealed on June 23 that he had changed his registration from “Democratic” to “Independent”. See here and here.

The Dothan Eagle, a daily newspaper in Alabama, has this story about incarcerated felons being able to vote in Alabama. The Alabama Constitution, for over 100 years, has prohibited people from voting if they have been convicted of “crimes of moral turpitude”.

After years of litigation, Alabama state officials a few years ago finally clarified which crimes involve “moral turpitude” and which don’t. Felonies such as attempted burglary, battery, aiding and abetting escape, some drug possession offenses, and felony driving while intoxicated, are not “crimes of moral turpitude”. Reverend Keith Glasgow, himself a former inmate, with assistance from the NAACP, then began informing incarcerated felons that some of them can register and vote, and he also began visiting prisons to register such felons to vote.

In 2008 he sued state prison officials in federal court to force them to let him visit such prisoners. He won that lawsuit on October 20, 2008 (Glasgow v Allen, 2:08-cv-801, middle district), too late to have much effect in 2008, but he is having an impact in local elections this year. He estimates that 70,000 individuals could be affected. Thanks to Ed Still’s VoteLaw blog for the link.