New York State Senator James Skoufis (D-Newburgh) has introduced SB 438, which would provide that if a presidential elector “disobeys”, he or she is deemed to have resigned, and is replaced on the spot. The bill is not worded very clearly, because it talks about the presidential nominee of the party, but doesn’t specify whether it is the national party nominee or the state party nominee. Once in a while a rift in a political party results in a state party having a presidential nominee different than the national convention nominee.

The identical bill in the Assembly, AB 928, is introduced by Assemblymember Jonathan Jacobson (D-Newburgh).

On January 26, Adam Schiff announced for the U.S. Senate in 2024 in California. He is a member of the U.S. House. Another Democratic member of the U.S. House, Katie Porter, had already announced. And it is expected that two other Democratic members of the House, Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna, will announce.

This opens the possibility that in the 2024 top-two primary, if there are two fairly evenly-matched Republicans running for U.S. Senate, the two Republicans might conceivably place first and second, leaving Democrats with no candidate for U.S. Senate in November. California does not permit write-ins in the general election for congressional elections. Leaving the voters will no choice but to elect a Republican to the Senate seat would doom the top-two system in California.

On January 26, leaders of the Forward Party of California released a message to supporters, asking them to re-register into the Common Sense Party, and declaring that the Common Sense Party will be, in effect, the name of the California branch of the Forward Party.

The Common Sense Party has been trying for four years to obtain enough voter registrations to qualify as a party in California.