As the blog of the National Council of State Legislatures, The Thicket, notes: In addition to who controls the legislature, and policy-setting, for the next four years in these states, these elections are interesting for two other big reasons. They set the table for the 2010 redistricting cycle. In fact, legislators elected in Louisiana, Mississippi… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Archive
Poizner, Term Limits, and Redistricting…
Dan Walters’ latest column in the Sacramento Bee on potential 2010 gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner: Poizner headed Schwarzenegger’s unsuccessful drive in 2005 to reform legislative and congressional redistricting and says that opposing Proposition 93 stems from the same reformist bent, pointing out that legislative leaders failed to make good on their promises to overhaul redistricting… Continue Reading
California [local] Elections Data
Sacramento State put out an interesting press release yesterday in an attempt to inform people of the California Elections Data Archive at the Center for California Studies: Sacramento State’s California Election Data Archive makes it a lot easier to track voting trends in local races. Now, if only more people knew about the service. The… Continue Reading
Statewide [redistricting] Database Updates
The Statewide [redistricting] Database hosted by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley made two changes to the site last week just in time for Halloween. They added some ghosts of redistricting initiatives past (as well as the current Voter’s FIRST Act) and redesigned their redistricting court case archive. Continue Reading
Election Reform in PS: Political Science and Politics
Via the handy Docuticker, “a daily update of new reports from government agencies, NGOs, think tanks, and other public interest groups,” I was alerted to the 2008 and Beyond: The Future of Election Reform in the States symposium in the October issue of PS: Political Science and Politics. The articles are brought to you free… Continue Reading
The Flip Side of Elections
Statewide reform plans, initiatives, and political battles at the highest of levels might get all the headlines, but The Salinas Californian announces: TODAY | CITIZENS’ COMMITTEE FOR MONTEREY PENINSULA COLLEGE REDISTRICTING, Villa Del Monte, 1670 Broadway, Seaside, 3 to 5 p.m., in community room. Forum on redistricting of board. The odd thing about all the… Continue Reading
"…down to the precinct level."
Erika Pesantes of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Boynton Beach, Florida has a precinct with only one voter—who now lives in Nevada. Continue Reading
Dr. Steven Frates in The Press-Enterprise
From an article by Dan Lee in today’s Press-Enterprise: It’s not uncommon to have so few candidates running for a seat on a special district board, said Steve Frates, a senior fellow at the Rose Institute for State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College. California has about 3,000 special districts on top of the 58… Continue Reading
Online Commentary on Latest Redistricting Initiative
As noted in the previous post, the Rose Institute has advised AARP, Common Cause, and the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce on redistricting issues. The three groups proposed a new redistricting reform initiative today. Click below for a round-up of online commentary. Continue Reading
Illegal Immigration and Reapportionment
The Impact of Undocumented Populations on 2010 Congressional Reapportionment, a study from the Connecticut State Data Center (CSDC) at the University of Connecticut has, for good reason, received a wave of press recently. As Mike Swift’s fascinating Mercury News article reports: Illegal immigration is channeling political clout to California and other border states from the… Continue Reading