Via an e-mail from Californians for Electoral Reform:
Thanks to you, Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) has taken a quantum leap! Due to the unanimous outpouring of support at yesterday’s City Hall hearing, the Los Angeles City Council could decide to put IRV on the November 2008 ballot TOMORROW (Fri).
And on the off chance that anyone reading this could attend, CFER adds:
…We are Item 11 on the agenda – which means that IRV will be heard anytime between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm (unfortunately, we can’t predict the exact time).
Other CFER news, from a separate message regarding the organization’s recent annual meeting:
We gave Wilma Rule Memorial Awards1 to State Senator Tom McClintock for being the only Republican in the legislature to vote for AB 1294,2 and to Max Rexroad, conservative Yolo county supervisor, who wrote an editorial in support of AB 1294 in the California FlashReport, an influential Republican web site.
__________
- Wilma Rule was a scholar and activist for electoral reform, with whom I coauthored a paper several years ago. She authored several important early pieces on the impact of electoral systems on representation of women. [↩]
- McClintock was the Republican office-holder who entered the 2003 replacement election concurrent with then-Governor Gray Davis’s recall, to oppose Arnold Schwarzenegger, and won around 12% of the vote. And, yes, Arnold would have won even with IRV, despite his winning slightly under 50% in the actual plurality contest. Too bad McClintock did not make electoral reform an issue when he had a statewide forum. Instead, repealing the “car tax” is about all he talked about. Still, kudos to him for being a Republican for democracy. [↩]
