On May 4, the Iowa legislature passed HF 716, will requires all votes cast in presidential caucuses to be in-person. Caucuses are run by parties, not the government. Assuming Governor Kim Reynolds signs the bill, Iowa Democrats plan to ignore the law. The U.S. Supreme Court freedom of association cases make it clear that states cannot tell parties how to run their own caucuses.

Every vote in favor of the bill in both houses was cast by Republican legislators, and every vote against it was cast by Democrats.

On May 16, Colorado Springs elected a new Mayor. The election is non-partisan and no incumbent was running. Yemi Mobolade, a registered independent, won the election, defeating former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams. Colorado Springs has been electing its mayor for 45 years, and Mobolade is the first elected Mayor to not be a registered Republican. See this story. Thanks to several people for this news. Colorado Springs has long been a leading Republican stronghold.

Last year, the voters of Oregon passed a ballot measure, providing that if a state legislators misses as many as ten sessions of a legislative session, that legislator is barred from running for re-election.

Three Oregon State Senators have now missed ten sessions, so they apparently can’t file for re-election. They are Republicans Dennis Linthicum and Daniel Bonham, and Independent Party Senator Brian Boquist. Boquist had been re-elected as a Republican in 2020 to a four-year term. In 2021 he had switched his registration from Republican to the Independent Party.

Many Republican legislators in Oregon have been boycotting some days of the session, to protest the likelihood that certain bills with Democratic support are passing, even over the intense opposition of most Oregon Republican legislators.