I’m going to count down the six most important elections — or “election questions” — in Massachusetts today, in some rough order that combines substantive stakes & suspense, because why not.
6. The state’s most conservative congressmember, Lynch, faces a progressive challenger. This has not drawn enough attn for an upset to be likely, but keep an eye on #MA08 still—esp. for future cycles. (I previewed via voting rights: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…)
5. #MA04: open seat could go to a progressive — but also veer right if most conservative benefits from a 7-way race to snatch primary.
4. We increasingly see talk of sheriffs matter a ton. Well, here’s a sheriff’s race that takes those powers seriously. theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
3. Progressives are trying to oust a bunch of moderate to conservative Dem lawmakers. Question: Will MA join NY, PA, NM, and more as states where they’ve pulled off multiple such wins this year? The twist: GOP governor’s PAC is helping some incumbents. (whatsontheballot.com)
2. Markey/Kennedy: A clash between 2 MA powerhouses doubles as a potential show of strength by AOC & allies
1. A wild/ugly campaign *plus* with an ideological clash *&* suspense makes me put Neal/Morse‘s #MA01 first.
I skipped the headline story here assuming you've seen it elsewhere, but if not: the Arizona supreme court just declared abortion illegal. 12news.com/article/news/p…
Katie Hobbs, a Democratic governor, would have the power to appoint replacement if the justices are not retained. (Still, note that in Arizona governors choose within a list proposed by a commission.)
A thread about a messed up situation in Mississippi.
It's on how state officials have voided direct democracy thru an absurd excuse, and how they keep refusing to yield that power back to people.
The state constitution gives people the right to ballot initiatives.
It outlines how they should do so, & how they should collect signatures in each of MS's five congressional districts.
The language was written into the constitution in 1992.
In 2000, Mississippi lost a congressional district, down to four.
No one saw a problem with that until 2021: the state supreme court effectively said that, since there were no longer 5 districts in which to collect signatures, no ballot initiative could be valid.
Tomorrow is extraordinary busy election day... and you may have missed critical battles.
So here's a thread with the 15 races I'll watch most closely, across 4 states. It has some of everything: school boards, local politics, DAs, voting rights...
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1️⃣ Let's start with the Arkansas supreme court races.
Because they're so odd. 2 seats, 4 sitting justices running for them, none of which are their current occupants, plus two outsiders. Depending on the results, the big winner may be Huckabee Sanders.
2️⃣ Moving over to the Texas court of criminal appeals:
Ken Paxton & his far-right allies are targeting 3 GOP judges (Sharon Keller, Barbara Hervey, and Michelle Slaughter) who were part of a ruling that restricted Paxton’s ability to prosecute elections. texastribune.org/2023/12/13/ken…
not all about the Santos seat and Trump/Biden: there are a ton of critical elections coming up literally in coming weeks.
here are just four you should know about.
1. the former sheriff of Los Angeles, ousted after protecting police abuse, is trying a comeback in 3 weeks: boltsmag.org/los-angeles-co…
2. Cleveland's March primary for prosecutor is one of the most interesting of the spring, with two very distinct visions of criminal justice between the incumbent & his challenger. wrote a bit about it here. boltsmag.org/ohio-prosecuto…
NEW: It was just confirmed that Dauphin County, PA, home to Harrisburg , flipped to Democratic control in last week's elections. For the first time in 100+ years.
GOP incumbent conceded this am, h/t @pennslinger.
One reason this matters? Ballot access. See next tweet.
County officials in PA have a lot of discretion to design voting procedures. For instance, many GOP-run counties (like Dauphin) haven't allowed ballot curing.
Two things he mentioned: (1) wanting to expand the number of ballot drop boxes, & (2) wanting to make sure ballot curing is allowed & that the county proactively reaches out to people to inform them of a mistake.