According to this Village Voice blog item, Mayor Mike Bloomberg donated $250,000 to the New York County branch of the Independence Party, in May 2009. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
Reply
On July 14, Alabama held a special election to fill the vacant State House seat, 6th district. The results: Republican Phil Williams 60.5%, Democrat Jenny Askins 39.6%.
This seat had been in Democratic hands ever since the redistricting of 2001. It is in Madison County, the county that includes Huntsville. Alabama elects all its state legislators in mid-term years, for 4-year terms. The Republican share of the vote in 2006 had been 35.5%; in 2002, 42.3%. The seat was empty this year because the incumbent had resigned in February after being convicted of fraud.
Alabama is one of four states in which the same party has held a plurality, or a majority, in both houses of the legislature since the 1880’s. The others are Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The new line-up in the Alabama House is now 59 Democrats, 44 Republicans, and two vacancies.
California AB 1396, to delete from the election law some provisions that tell the Democratic Party how to structure itself, has already passed the Assembly and the Senate Elections Committee. However, it has been put on the inactive file in the Senate at the author’s request. The state Democratic Party wants some amendments, and hasn’t yet supplied the exact language of those amendments.
On July 16, U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land, a Bush, Jr. appointee in the Middle District of Georgia, dismissed one of the “birth certificate” cases on presidential qualifications. The plaintiff, a soldier, had said he had standing because Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama had ordered him to Afghanistan. However, his deployment order was cancelled earlier this month, so the judge ruled that the plaintiff lacks standing. See this article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The case is Stefan Cook v Wanda Good, 4:2009cv-00082. It had been filed on July 9, 2009.
On July 16, U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land, a Bush, Jr. appointee in the Middle District of Georgia, dismissed one of the “birth certificate” cases on presidential qualifications. The plaintiff, a soldier, had said he had standing because Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama had ordered him to Afghanistan. However, his deployment order was cancelled earlier this month, so the judge ruled that the plaintiff lacks standing. See this article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The case is Stefan Cook v Wanda Good, 4:2009cv-00082. It had been filed on July 9, 2009.