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Daily Brew: March 7, 2019

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March 7, 2019

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Today's Brew highlights a national Democratic group spending money in this spring’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race + results from Tuesday’s elections  
The Daily Brew

Welcome to the Thursday, March 7 Brew. Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:

  1. First satellite spending arrives in Wisconsin in state Supreme Court race
  2. Castor, Goldberg lead their races while Republicans flip fourth state legislative seat
  3. Tampa voters approve first city charter changes in 44 years

First satellite spending arrives in Wisconsin in state Supreme Court race

We’re a little less than four weeks away from a battleground election for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. While the election is nonpartisan, Brian Hagedorn and Lisa Neubauer are running in a proxy partisan battle. Although state Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin are nonpartisan, liberal and conservative groups typically coalesce around specific candidates. Conservatives, who back Hagedorn, hold a 4-3 majority on the court heading into the election. Like Shirley Abrahamson, who is retiring and leaving this seat open, Neubauer has been supported by liberals.

If conservatives win this seat, it will expand their majority on the court to 5-2. If liberals retain Abrahamson’s seat, it will set up a battle for control of the court in 2020, when Dan Kelly, who was appointed to the court in 2016 by Gov. Scott Walker (R), will stand for election for the first time.

On Monday, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee announced that it was giving $350,000 to two local organizations—Together Wisconsin Acts and Black Leaders Organizing Communities—to support Neubauer. Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (D), who founded the group, is also set to travel to Wisconsin for two days next week to promote those efforts.

Three other groups - the Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education, For Our Future, and the Center for Popular Democracy Action - have also collectively spent $229,000 on printing costs and other canvassing-related expenses to support Neubauer, according to state filings.

Hagedorn, who is running against Neubauer for the seat, has been backed by Americans for Prosperity, which thus far has spent $17,000 on canvassing costs.

The Brennan Center for Justice estimated that $1.7 million was spent by satellite groups on television advertising in the 2018 Wisconsin State Supreme Court race. In the 2017 race, incumbent Justice Annette Ziegler was unopposed. The Brennan Center estimated that almost $2.5 million was spent on television advertising by satellite groups in the 2016 race.

The election will be held on April 2, 2019.

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Castor, Goldberg lead their races while Republicans flip fourth state legislative seat

Earlier this week we previewed Tuesday’s elections. Here’s a quick summary of some of the results.

Tampa

Former police chief Jane Castor and philanthropist David Straz advanced from a field of seven candidates to an April 23 runoff election for mayor of Tampa. Castor received 48 percent of the vote, which was two percentage points shy of the threshold required to win outright. Straz took second place with 15.5 percent and Councilman Harry Cohen finished third with 12.1 percent. Voter turnout in the city was just over 20 percent.

Mayor Bob Buckhorn (D), who is term-limited and unable to run for re-election, officially endorsed Castor yesterday. Both Castor and Straz identify as Democrats, meaning partisan control of the city won't change based on the result of the runoff.

Los Angeles

Former school board member Jackie Goldberg leads the 11-candidate field in early election returns in the special election for the vacant District 5 seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Since California uses mail-in voting, election authorities acknowledge that a large number of ballots are still outstanding, and results will not be certified until March 22.

Goldberg’s current vote share is about 48 percent, with Grace Ortiz and Heather Repenning at about 13 percent each. If no one receives a majority of the vote, a runoff election will take place between the top two finishers on May 14. The board is currently split, with three members supported by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and three supported by the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). CCSA did not endorse a candidate in the general election while UTLA endorsed Goldberg.

Kentucky

Phillip Wheeler (R) defeated Darrell Pugh (D) in a special election on Tuesday for the District 31 seat in the Kentucky State Senate, flipping the seat for Republicans. The seat became vacant when state Senate minority leader Ray Jones (D) was elected Judge Executive of Pike County in November 2018. Wheeler’s victory is the fourth state legislative seat to switch parties in 2019, all of them going from Democratic to Republican control.

Jones, who had represented this district since 2001, won re-election unopposed in 2008, 2012, and 2016.

In elections between 2011 and 2018, either the Democratic Party or Republican Party saw an average net gain of four seats in state legislative special elections across the country.

Tampa voters approve first city charter changes in 44 years

Tampa voters approved all 18 charter amendments on their ballots Tuesday, in the first changes to the city’s charter since 1975.

The charter amendments were proposed by a Charter Review Commission and sent to the ballot by a vote of the city council. A number of them were technical changes or measures that brought the charter in line with current practices and state laws. Others concerned the power of the mayor and city council, city investments, anti-discrimination provisions, and residency requirements for city department heads. Two measures impacted how often voters could vote on future charter changes.

Approval rates were at 59 percent or above for all but two of the proposed amendments. Here are some highlights:

  • Amendment 3 allows city council members to hire aides without approval from the mayor and to hire additional staff with approval from five city council members rather than the mayor.
     
  • Amendment 8 allows the mayor to establish or abolish certain boards and departments with two-thirds approval from the city council, and Amendment 9 states that the duties of city officials and city employees are under the authority of the mayor rather than the city council.
     
  • Amendment 10, one of the two charter amendments approved by a margin of less than 5 percentage points, authorizes the city council—by a vote of at least five members—to waive the residency requirements for city department heads for one year and renew that one-year waiver no more than twice.
     
  • Amendment 16 prohibits discrimination by the city, city officials, and employees based on sexual orientation, pregnancy, age, marital status, familial status, disability, gender identification, genetic information, ethnicity, and any others prohibited by law, and to provide anti-discrimination training for all city employees. The charter already prohibited discrimination by the city and city officials and employees based on race, sex, religion, and national origin.
     
  • Amendment 17 establishes a charter review commission to consider and propose changes to the charter every 10 years beginning in 2027.
     
  • Amendment 18 establishes in the city charter a process for proposing charter amendments through initiative petition consistent with the state-mandated process but with the same details as the city's current initiative process for ordinances.

In California, there were 10 local measures on the ballot on Tuesday in eight jurisdictions within Los Angeles, El Dorado, Fresno, and Sonoma Counties.

Voters in West Hollywood approved Measure B, authorizing a London Arts Club development project at a location co-owned by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Measure B was put on the ballot via a veto referendum petition backed by Unite Here Local 11—a hospitality worker union opposed to the project—after the city council voted to approve the development plan. West Hollywood voters also approved a 7.5 percent tax on the gross receipts of marijuana businesses to fund general municipal services.

Other measures approved on Tuesday included a vote advising Huntington Park officials to negotiate with Costco about a store location in the city, a measure enacting a sales tax in Glendora, a hotel tax increase in Manhattan Beach, a measure consolidating city elections with the state’s general elections in November of even-numbered years in Signal Hill, and two measures concerning health district property in Fresno and Sonoma counties.


See also

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