On February 3, the Kansas House Elections Committee passed HB 2108. This is the bill to reinstate the straight-ticket device. Kansas repealed it in 1923. See this editorial from the Kansas City Star, criticizing the bill. …read more
On February 4, at the beginning of the Oklahoma House Elections & Ethics Committee hearing, the chair of the committee announced that Speaker Jeffrey Hickman is unable to appear at the hearing today, so Hickman’s ballot access bill, HB 2181, won’t be brought up in committee today. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news. …read more
Grand Rapids, Michigan – Two Kent County corrections officers testified in court last month that medical marijuana radically changed their lives for the better.
The two officers stand accused of illegally possessing marijuana butter. They were arrested with two other officers who received distribution charges. Todd VanDoorne and Mike Frederick both have medical marijuana cards, but the state’s medical marijuana laws explicitly forbid concentrated extracts such as the marijuana butter.
VanDoorne testified that he has neck pain and had to get a surgery in 2010 where vertebrae were fused together. Since the operation, he was prescribed pharmaceutical pain killers, but like many …read more
Hummelstown, PA– Authorities have released very little information about a traffic stop early Monday evening that left 59-year-old David Kassick dead.
Witnesses, on the other hand, have not remained silent and are adamant that the shooting was unjustified. Multiple witnesses are reporting that the man was unarmed and fleeing, potentially due to the fact that he was on probation for driving with a suspended license.
“It’s mind blowing that it went from possible traffic stop to jail time to him being in a body bag,” a witness told ABC27.
Kassick was pulled over by an unnamed female officer around 4 pm on …read more
This article about spending in California’s 2014 statewide elections has lots of interesting information, but one especially interesting point is that incumbent Treasurer John Chiang, a Democrat, spent only $24,293 on his re-election campaign. In November he won with 58.8% of the vote. …read more
Bills have been introduced in both Massachusetts and Vermont to provide that overseas absentee presidential primary ballots should allow a limited form of ranked-choice voting. Both states in 2016 will have March 1 presidential primaries, and in both states, the ballot will just be for president, not other office. The bills would provide that overseas(More)… …read more
Stuart, FL– Rosemary Aquino is a retired NYPD police officer, her Facebook page contains multiple images of her pride in the thin blue line and her former department, in particular. This pride is unsurprising as she spent 15 years on the force and was one of the first responders after the 9-11 attacks.
During the Super Bowl halftime, Aquino received a call from her 16-year-old son alerting her that he had been in a car accident after a tire fell off of his vehicle. The panicked mother jumped into her car and drove 30 minutes to the scene of …read more
Los Angeles, California – This weekend, police broke up a peaceful gathering of several hundred photographers and sent them home after their event was mistaken for a rave.
.@runwiththemob recap up now feat. @simplyyyG, @mrjasonblake, @mandeebence and more: http://t.co/tRHe5XdOkv #flaskmob pic.twitter.com/DLrBO4nJih
— Los Angeles Clicker (@RTxPhotography) February 2, 2015
Luckily, there were no arrests, injuries or incidents reported, aside from the fact that hundreds of people had their right to peaceably assemble violated the LAPD.
The event is called Photo Walk, and according to the organizer’s website they are “a group of like-minded creatives that get together once a month and take photos of …read more
The California Secretary of State has determined that Americans Elect is no longer a qualified party in California. This is because it neither has enough registrations to qualify, nor did it poll 2% for any statewide race in the June 2014 primary. It did have a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Alan Reynolds, on the June(More)… …read more
Ken Broder has this commentary about the January 29, 2015 decision in Rubin v Padilla at All Gov. Rubin v Padilla is the case concerning California’s top-two system. …read more
