California will hold a run-off special election to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 26th district, on May 19. The district is in Los Angeles County. The three candidates on the ballot will be Democrat Curren Price, Republican Nachum Schifren, and Peace & Freedom Party member Varela Henderson.
Although there has been considerable talk about using Instant-Runoff Voting in Los Angeles city elections during the last year, there had been little discussion of using IRV in Los Angeles County, until March 31, when Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas brought up the subject at the Supervisors meeting. Los Angeles County only has five county supervisors, so the opinion of each supervisor is very significant. Ridley-Thomas asked the Board to ask the Registrar of Voters to report on how the county can use IRV.
In somewhat related news, California bill AB 308 recently passed the Assembly Elections Committee, unanimously. It makes it possible for overseas absentee voters to use IRV for any elections that normally have an old-fashioned run-off, such as many special elections for Congress and state legislature.
On March 31, the Oregon House passed HB 2414 by an overwhelming vote of 52-8. It permits two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate. On the November ballot, a candidate who had received the nomination of two political parties would have both party labels following his or her name. The first-named party would be the party of membership of that candidate.
The prospects for this bill look good in the Oregon Senate. If this bill is signed into law, Oregon would become the second state to have legalized or expanded the use of fusion in the last two years. Connecticut greatly expanded fusion in 2007.
A few Illinois Republican legislators desire to change the election law, to provide that Republican Central Committee members be elected by primary voters instead of by elected local party officials. Democrats, who control state government in Illinois, have jumped into the fray, and have attached the idea as as amendment to several election law bills. See this story from the Galesburg daily newspaper of March 30.
Ironically, as the article implies (near the bottom), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1989 that such decisions are not the business of the legislature, but of the political parties themselves. The 1989 precedent was Eu v San Francisco County Central Committee.
New York’s Governor and legislative leaders announced last week that they had agreed on a budget which includes an income tax hike on taxpayers who earn more than $300,000 per year. The New York press generally seems to have a consensus that this result would not have been reached without the influence of the Working Families Party. For example, see this essay, run March 31 by New York Magazine.
