The Buffalo News ran a feature story on January 20 that consists of an interview with Barbara Nelson, who now lives in Kenmore, New York, near Buffalo. She lived in Honolulu in 1961 and remembers hearing about Barack Obama’s birth in the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women and Children. She was friends with a retired obstetrician who relayed the story that a woman whose first name was Stanley had just given birth to a child with a wonderfully musical name. Here is the story. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link. In another interview after the story was published, Nelson said the Buffalo News had misquoted her when it said she said that her friend the obstetrician had himself delivered baby Obama. He was aware of the birth but he was not the doctor who delivered the baby.

A U.S. District Court in Sacramento heard arguments in Warnken v Schwarzenegger, 2:08cv-2891, on January 21. The case is very unusual. It argues that the U.S. Constitution guarantees that U.S. citizens have a right to have a meaningful opportunity to communicate with their state legislators. Then, it argues that because California has an average of 424,135 residents in each Assembly district, it is impossible for an ordinary person to have that communication with his or her legislator. No other state has an average population greater than 139,360 in a lower house state legislative chamber. See www.californiacommonwealth.com for more about the lawsuit.

The judge did not dismiss the case, and said he would study Warnken’s brief before ruling on the state’s motion to dismiss. The state argues that Warnken doesn’t have standing.

Besides the 8 states already listed in a blog post yesterday, Vermont also has a bill to establish the National Popular Vote Plan. It is S 34.