The judge in the case called Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield said on December 11 that the decision will be out in late March or early April. This is the case over discriminatory aspects of the Connecticut public funding law.
1
The District of Columbia city council is elected on a partisan basis. When Congress passed the home rule law for D.C., it provided that two city council-at-large members should be elected in every even-numbered year. To guard against a City Council that consisted only of Democrats, the law also said that no party could run more than one candidate for City Council-at-Large. Traditionally, that made it possible for either a D.C. Statehood Party member, or a Republican, to be elected.
This year, Michael Brown (son of former Clinton cabinet member Ron Brown) won the non-Democratic Party seat. He had switched his voter registration to “independent” in May 2008, and qualified as an independent. But the Republican Party is suing the board, arguing that Brown has always been “affiliated” with the Democratic Party. Here is the Republican Party’s brief, filed December 12.
The U.S. Supreme Court held a conference on the morning of December 12, and in the afternoon announced it had accepted two new cases. Both of them are disputes about commercial matters. The Court said nothing about any further pending cases concerning Barack Obama’s eligibility, but on Monday when the “refused” list is released to the public, any such cases will probably be on the list.
The outgoing members of the Illinois legislature will be in session again starting December 15. It is very likely that a bill will be introduced to provide for a special election to fill U.S. Senate vacancies. If such a bill passes, the most likely date for such a special election will be in April 2009.
Official returns in the 11 states that held Gubernatorial elections last month reveal these national totals:
| Democratic |
8,380,276
|
| Republican |
7,892,923
|
| Libertarian |
260,350
|
| Green |
31,317
|
| Constitution |
28,941
|
| Liberty Union (VT) |
1,710
|
| Blue Enigma (DE) |
1,596
|
| independent candidates |
83,495
|