Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial primary
made all sorts of national news last month. The more typical stories
equated former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe's
defeat with the end of the Clinton era. Yet, despite the abundance of
coverage, one significant detail has been left out of the generally
agreed upon "story" about Virginia's recent gubernatorial primary --
the losing candidates received more votes than the winner.
Is a constitutional convention in California's future?
With the state's fiscal woes mounting and Sacramento seemingly frozen in place, a group of California leaders has proposed a constitutional convention as a way to fix the Golden State's deeply entrenched structural problems. Perhaps the most important question about a constitutional convention is: Who would be the delegates charged with designing California 2.0, and how would they be chosen?
The spread of the swine flu contagion has yet to reach scary "I Am Legend" proportions, but things are getting pretty hairy out there. The World Health Organization has declared a pandemic, the first flu pandemic in 41 years, as infections continue to climb in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.
California faces a crater-size, $24 billion deficit - and we're about to throw away millions more on three elections we don't need. But here's the good news: If we adopt Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV, for special elections, we can save that amount and more.
With IRV, taxpayers could save nearly $2 million July 14 (fittingly, Bastille Day).
That's the question President Obama and Congress will soon face.
While many states have severe fiscal problems, the depth and unusual
persistence of California's budget problems - the state has run
deficits for most of the decade - has emptied Sacramento's till. On its
current path, California will run short of the cash it needs to pay its
bills in late July.
