Know your vote. Take a look at your sample ballot now!

Daily Brew: February 26, 2019

From Ballotpedia
Jump to: navigation, search

February 26, 2019

Get your daily cup of news




%%subject%%

Today's Brew previews Tuesday’s municipal elections in Chicago and summarizes the number of state executive officials who resigned or changed office in 2018  
The Daily Brew

Welcome to the Tuesday, February 26 Brew. Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:

  1. Nation’s third-largest city votes for mayor, city council and more
  2. Twenty-one state executive officials left office early in 2018
  3. North Carolina judge invalidates constitutional amendments due to gerrymandered legislature

Hi friends,

It's been a real pleasure to deliver these interesting stories to you every morning. Going forward, I will be heading Ballotpedia's Outreach Department—working with our strategic partners and friends. I'm leaving you in the capable hands of Dave Beaudoin, our incoming News Editor, who has been with Ballotpedia in other capacities for more than two years. We’ll be partnering up to bring you the Brew this week, but next week you’ll see his name in your inbox. 

I'll still be lurking in the background, so please feel free to reach out to me. If you or your organization want to work with Ballotpedia in an official way, contact me. I'd love to connect! You can still just reply to this email to reach me this week. After that, reach me at editor@ballotpedia.org.

Sarah Rosier

Now onto the news:

Nation’s third-largest city votes for mayor, city council and more

We’re not even two months into 2019, and one of the year’s most significant elections is taking place today in Chicago.

Voters will cast ballots in nonpartisan elections for mayor, city treasurer, city clerk, and all 50 seats on the city council. Any race in which no candidate receives a majority of the vote will go to a runoff on April 2. Early voting took place from January 29 through yesterday.

Through this past weekend, 99,897 people have already voted early in this year’s elections. The total number of early votes recorded in the previous city-wide election was 90,000 in 2015. Also, over 60,000 voters applied to vote by mail this year, compared with less than 25,000 in both 2015 and 2011. The total number of registered voters in Chicago is just over 1.5 million.

The 2019 mayoral election is the city’s fourth open-seat mayoral race in 100 years after incumbent Rahm Emanuel announced that he would not seek re-election in September 2018. Fourteen candidates are running for mayor. In recent polls, no candidate received more than 25 percent support.

In the city council races, 45 incumbents are seeking re-election, and five of them are running unopposed. Additionally, three candidates are running in the open city treasurer race. Incumbent city clerk Anna Valencia is unopposed in the city clerk election.

We’ve brought you regular updates about these elections since late November in The Deep Dish, Ballotpedia's weekly Chicago elections newsletter. If you subscribe today, you’ll get our post-election results edition delivered straight to your inbox on Wednesday, as well as coverage of the runoff elections through April 2.

Learn more

Forward This blank    Tweet This blank blank    Send to Facebook
blank



Missed last week's webinar? Click here to sign up to receive our video reviewing Chicago's elections, delivered straight to your inbox.

Twenty-one state executive officials left office early in 2018

Twenty-one state executive officials left office early in 2018, the third-highest number since Ballotpedia began tracking the figure in 2012.

They included one Democrat, 13 Republicans, and seven nonpartisan officials.

Nine resignations occurred for personal reasons, seven for political reasons, and two for professional reasons. Three officials did not specify their reasons for leaving office.

Nine resignations were from the top-level offices of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state.

  • Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) resigned to accept an appointment in the Trump administration, and Kansas Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer (R) left his office to serve as his successor.
  • Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct and was replaced by Lt. Gov. Mike Parson (R).
  • Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Murray (R), Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler (R), and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) each resigned following allegations of sexual misconduct.
  • Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos (R) resigned for unspecified reasons.
  • Oklahoma Secretary of State Dave Lopez, who was not affiliated with any political party, resigned for personal reasons and was succeeded by James Williamson (R), the only office change in 2018 which also resulted in a change in partisan affiliation.

The two years since 2012 that saw the most state executive officials resign or change positions were years following a presidential election. Ballotpedia identified 36 such changes in 2013 and 23 in 2017.

Click the link below for more information on early departures among state executive officials going back to 2012.

Ballot measure aftermath—North Carolina judge rules  constitutional amendments invalid

On Friday, Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins ruled that two constitutional amendments passed by voters in North Carolina in November 2018 - the Voter ID Amendment and the Income Tax Cap Amendment - were invalid. The ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed by the North Carolina NAACP and the group Clean Air Carolina, which argued that since some lawmakers were elected from districts a federal court ruled were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, the existing legislature was a usurper legislature and could not refer constitutional amendments to the ballot.

Judge Collins, agreeing with plaintiffs, said, “… the unconstitutional racial gerrymander tainted the three-fifths majorities required by the state Constitution before an amendment proposal can be submitted to the people for a vote, breaking the requisite chain of popular sovereignty between North Carolina citizens and their representatives. … Accordingly, the constitutional amendments placed on the ballot on November 6, 2018 were approved by a General Assembly that did not represent the people of North Carolina.” Collins was elected in 2012 and state Superior Court judges serve eight-year terms.

Senate President Philip Berger (R) said he would appeal the decision. “The prospect of invalidating 18 months of laws is the definition of chaos and confusion,” he said. State legislative leaders filed notice of their intent to appeal the decision on Monday with the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

The Voter ID Amendment received 55 percent of the vote in 2018, while the Income Tax Cap Amendment received 57 percent. The Voter ID measure requires that voters present a photo ID to vote in person, while the Income Tax Cap Amendment lowers the maximum allowable state income tax rate from 10 percent to 7 percent. In the General Assembly, both measures were referred to the ballot primarily along party lines, as Republicans generally voted for the amendments and Democrats generally voted against them.

Voters in North Carolina approved two other constitutional amendments in November 2018, a measure which creates a constitutional right to hunt and fish in the state and a “Marsy's Law” measure which provides crime victims with specific rights. These were referred to the ballot by the same general assembly but were not directly affected by the ruling since they were not targeted by the lawsuit.

Ballotpedia depends on the support of our readers.

The Lucy Burns Institute, publisher of Ballotpedia, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All donations are tax deductible to the extent of the law. Donations to the Lucy Burns Institute or Ballotpedia do not support any candidates or campaigns.
Follow on Twitter   Friend on Facebook
Copyright © %%current_year_YYYY%%, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
%%account_address%%
Decide which emails you want from Ballotpedia.
Unsubscribe or update subscription preferences.


See also

Retrieved from "https://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Daily_Brew:_February_26,_2019&oldid=10439272"