On March 8, Illinois held a special election to fill the vacant 14th U.S. House district. Democratic nominee Bill Foster has 52.54% and Republican nominee Jim Oberweis has 47.46%.
When the 14th district last voted, in November 2006, the vote had been Republican 59.79%, Democratic 40.21%.
See here for Stephen Gordon’s account of the Tennessee Libertarian convention speeches by Bob Barr and by various presidential candidates.
Here is a story about Ralph Nader’s talk at Princeton University on March 8.
See this article about Ashley Casey, who is a strong independent candidate for U.S. House in Louisiana’s 6th district. The special election will be in either April or May, depending on whether there must be a run-off primary to follow the March 8 primary.
The special election is to fill the vacancy caused when Congressman Richard Baker, a Republican, resigned in the middle of his term. Thanks to Steve Rankin.
On March 7, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court heard challenges to the petitions of both Jennifer Mann, and Dennis Morrison-Wesley. Both are running in the Democratic primary for State Treasurer. Two other Democrats are running for the post as well. Both of them had challenged Mann, but one of the two challenges against Mann has since been dropped.
Pennsylvania requires major party members running for Treasurer to submit 1,000 signatures. Also each petition must have at least 100 signatures from each of five counties. The two challenged candidates are charged with failing to meet the county distribution requirement.
If the Commonwealth Court disqualifies either Mann or Morrison-Wesley, then whichever one of those candidates has been eliminated from the ballot is likely to then file a federal lawsuit, challenging the county distribution requirement.
