On June 24, Florida held a special election for the U.S. House, District 19. The results: Republican Curt Clawson 66.95%, Democrat April Freeman 29.32%, Libertarian Ray Netherwood 3.73%. The write-ins for the declared write-in candidate, Timothy Rossano, haven’t been counted yet. Here is a link to the Secretary of State’s election returns page.
The last time this seat was up, in November 2012, the vote was: Republican 62.0%, Democratic 35.8%, independent 2.2%.
According to this article, if the Republican Party chooses Kansas City for its 2016 convention site, the convention will start on June 27. If one of the other three cities that is under consideration is chosen, it will start on July 18. The city will be chosen in August 2014.
If the convention does start on June 27, that will be the earliest major party presidential convention since 1948, when Republicans met starting on June 21 in Philadelphia. A convention that early will put pressure on states that hold presidential primaries in June to move them to an earlier month. Those states are California, New Jersey, Montana, South Dakota, New Mexico, and Utah.
On June 24, California AB 2233 passed the Senate Elections Committee unanimously. It cuts the number of signatures in lieu of the filing fee in special legislative and congressional elections. The rationale for the bill is that in special elections, the petitioning period for this type of petition is invariably shorter than the petitioning period in regular elections.
The Orange County, North Carolina, Republican Party is actively working on the petition drive of an independent candidate for Register of Deeds for the county. North Carolina has very stringent requirements for independent candidates, and independent candidates for partisan county office need 4% of the registered voters.
The independent candidate, Gayle Chaney, needs 4,300 valid signatures by noon, June 27, Friday. Although independent candidates for multi-county office are due June 12, petitions submitted to counties have an additional fifteen days. Chaney is a registered Republican, but North Carolina, like most states, does not bar individuals from being independent candidates, even if they are members of a party.
No Republican had filed to run in the Republican primary for Register of Deeds. But in the Democratic primary, held May 6, the incumbent Democratic Register of Deeds was narrowly defeated by another Democrat who promises to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. If the Republicans had known this would happen in the Democratic primary, they would have run someone. The petition drive is being handled out of the county Republican headquarters. Thanks to Jordon Greene for this link to the web page of the North Carolina Values Coalition.
On June 24, the Bipartisan Policy Center issued a report, “Governing in a Polarized America: A Bipartisan Blueprint to Strengthen Our Democracy.” One surprising recommendation is that all states hold congressional primaries on the same day in June. The Report does not discuss why June was chosen. Currently, congressional primaries are held over a six month range, from March through September.
The Report does not say whether it believes Congress should legislate a uniform primary date, or whether the states should simply be asked to agree. Bills in Congress to regulate the dates of presidential primaries have been introduced starting in the 1980’s, but none has ever come close to passing. It seems unlikely Congress would ever pass a bill to regulate the date of congressional primaries.
The Report is vague about what type of primaries are best, and simply concludes that primary turnout should be encouraged.
The Press Herald of Portland, Maine, has this editorial comparing Instant Runoff Voting and Top-Two Primaries. The editorial prefers Instant Runoff Voting. It says, about top-two systems, “Five months before the election, most voters haven’t tuned in yet and won’t have had the benefit of hearing candidates’ messages honed over long campaigns.” This is an apt criticism, and supporters of top-two generally don’t have a response to this point.
Unfortunately, the editorial writers are not aware that the term “open primary” does not mean a top-two primary. “Open primary” was the name given to the primary system Wisconsin invented in 1907, in which there is no registration by party. Every party has its own primary ballot, but any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court has issued several opinions which define the various types of primary, and the U.S. Supreme Court uses the traditional definition; so do political science textbooks. Notwithstanding that, journalists all across the country use “open primary” in wildly different ways. Pennsylvania journalists use “open primary” to mean a closed partisan primary in which the party organization hasn’t made any endorsements. Illinois journalists use “open primary” to mean a secret open primary (in which the primary voter chooses a party primary ballot in the secrecy of the voting booth). British journalists use “open primary” to mean a primary administered and paid for by a party, in which any voter may participate.