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.

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.

At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on July 15, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold asked Judge Sonia Sotomayor about the pending U.S. Supreme Court case Citizens United v Federal Election Commission. That case will be re-argued on September 9, and concerns the interpretation and constitutionality of part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Specifically, the case concerns the ability of a corporation to advertise on TV or radio for its own movie, if that movie mentions a candidate for federal office within 60 days of a primary or a general election in which that candidate is running.

Senator Feingold asked, “Without addressing the specifics of the Citizen United case, I’d like to ask you what the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s precedents generally provide about the rights of corporations and what the current state of the law as far as corporate participation in elections is, as you understand it.”

Sotomayor replied, “If I were confirmed for the Court, it would be the first case that I would participate in. I think it would be inappropriate for me to do anything to speak about that area of the law because it would suggest that I’m going into that process with some prejudgment about what precedent says and what it doesn’t say and how to apply it in the open question the court is considering.” Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the transcript of Sotomayor’s hearing on election law issues.