State Legislature Special Election Megathread v3

[jimrtex]

TBD: TX Runoffs for House 28, 100, 148

January 28, 2020

[jimrtex]

Advances to Runoff. Stay tuned for timing.

CRAIG CARTER REP 3,802 5.53%
ANDY HOPPER REP 2,471 3.59%
SHELLEY LUTHER REP 21,814 31.7%
JACOB MINTER DEM 14,493 21.06%
DREW SPRINGER REP 21,903 31.83%
CHRIS WATTS REP 4,324 6.28%
(I) - Incumbent Race Total 68,807 Spacing

Final results:

Luther(R) 22,242
Springer(R) 22,127
Minter(D) 14,825
Watts(R) 4,321
Carter(R) 3,448
Hopper(R) 2,456

December 19 for runoff.

Luther was jailed for opening her hair salon in defiance of government officials, and then refused to apologize.

Springer is a representative for a very rural House district (22 counties) whose most noteworthy bill was pushing through a filing fee for Libertarian Party candidates. He had never had a Libertarian or Green Party opponent (5 elections). He had never had a Democratic opponent until this year, when he received 85% of the vote. He did have Republican opponents in 2012 when he won the primary runoff for an open seat.

It turned out that Luther had never voted in a primary.

The special election was triggered by Senator Pat Fallon becoming the Republican nominee for TX-4 when John Ratcliffe became Director of National Intelligence. Fallon has been elected with 75% of the vote. Texas permits special elections to be triggered in anticipation of a vacancy (Fallon resigned effective with start of the new term - such a resignation has to be unconditional, but Fallon was assured of election). The timing of the special election permitted it to be resolved before the legislature meets next spring.

If Springer is elected to the Senate, a special election would be triggered for his House seat, which likely won't be resolved before the legislature meets.

Turnout will be the key in the special election, the week before Christmas. The district includes parts of Collin and Denton, but they were only about 1/4 of the vote in the special election. Parker and Grayson had more votes than either, and Wichita was not far behind. In the 2018 election (concurrent with the gubernatorial election) about 1/3 of the votes were from Collin and Denton.

The Dallas/Fort Worth news media won't cover a special election on the northern edge of their coverage, while those in in Wichita Falls, Sherman, and Stephenvillle and smaller cities will.

[jimrtex]

The special election was triggered by Senator Pat Fallon becoming the Republican nominee for TX-4 when John Ratcliffe became Director of National Intelligence. Fallon has been elected with 75% of the vote. Texas permits special elections to be triggered in anticipation of a vacancy (Fallon resigned effective with start of the new term - such a resignation has to be unconditional, but Fallon was assured of election). The timing of the special election permitted it to be resolved before the legislature meets next spring.

I suggested such a "deferred resignation" or "voluntary commutation" of a term (but a non-rescindable one) when the Augusta City Council was conducting a review of the City Charter in early 2018.  It's quite common to have a City Councilor get elected Mayor in the middle of their Council term or for a regular Board of Education member to get elected Board of Education Chair in the middle of their Board term.  Sometimes they're unopposed in the latter case (I think an open seat for Mayor will almost always result in a contested race).

The City Attorney raised concerns about the idea, like what if someone changed their mind?  (I might have omitted the non-rescindable part, which seemed obvious to me, but I had mentioned how there's a risk one could be out of office if they lost the race they were running for after voluntarily commuting their term to prevent a potential vacancy that would otherwise occur if they won.)  A City councilor beat me to the punch and said, "Make it irrevocable," but the City Attorney still had concerns about it and at the end everyone agreed that there wasn't really a problem with the occasional vacancies that come up.

Then there were three Council vacancies for 2+ months in 2019 when three City Councilors had to resign as they were moving out of the city.  And two of them held seats that were up anyway and Augusta doesn't do the New York/Texas thing about having special elections for a ~2 month term in November so two of those vacancies were from July or August through the end of the year (the third, which interestingly enough they did allow her to remain on the Council until a time (late August) that normally would have been too late to have a special election after with the various petitioning and ballot preparation requirements (I don't know if municipal elections are required to accommodate UOCAVA voters, but they might be), sort of following my "deferred resignation" idea, but somewhat haphazardly, ... that third vacancy was filled in a November election so that guy, a former Councilor who was unopposed, took office at the City Council meeting following the election).

It is not a UOCAVA requirement that non-federal offices conform, but it may be a state or local requirement.

There was a close legislative election in Texas, and during the contest it was discovered all sorts of odd things happen.

A UOCAVA voters had been sent a ballot, and election officials had just crossed through all the non-federal races. The voter had voted straight ticket, and it was argued that he would have voted for the Republican legislative candidate. There is also some distinction based on whether the return was "indefinite". Apparently it was intended to distinguish between expatriates who might never return and therefore had lost any local connection, even though as US Citizens they may retain a federal interest; but other voters may say their return is indefinite because they have not made reservations, or perhaps a job assignment might or might not be extended for another 6 months.

So the law has been changed to include some state races for UOCAVA voters. It has little practical impact because the elections are concurrent with the federal elections. That is not true for local elections.

Other oddities from that election. Texas requires a voter to be absent from the county for the entire early voting period as well as election day. It also requires the application to made from outside the county. Someone was going to be working in Germany, but they sent their application from the Austin airport as they were leaving the country. They had an address in Germany where the ballot could be sent, but had not literally been in Germany when the application was made (it might have been legal to send the application during a layover in DFW, Chicago, or New York.

Another voter had bought a house in a different county and district. They claimed that their dogs had moved (and they drove out every day to feed them) but that they still lived in Austin.

Another person was couch surfing. They claimed that most of friends they had stayed with were in the district.

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There was a similar resignation of a senator this last spring. Special elections are ordinarily held on the uniform election day in May or November. The Senator had taking another position so he timed his resignation to happen just before the election. This would mean that his replacement could take office immediately before election. The election was cancelled because of COVID-19 and rescheduled to July, so there was a gap after all.

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Another Senator was running for Congress and was almost certain to be elected. But she for some reason refused to make an actual resignation. She claimed that the special election was not scheduled concurrent with the general election because she was a Democrat, Hispanic, and female. But is was because she refused to say I resign effective date X. The special election ran into the legislative session.

[jimrtex]

TX-Sen 30:

STATE SENATOR, DISTRICT 30 - UNEXPIRED TERM
Click for Contest Details
CANDIDATE NAME PARTY EARLY VOTES TOTAL VOTES PERCENT
SHELLEY LUTHER REP 16,344 25,146 43.55%
DREW SPRINGER REP 21,284 32,599 56.45%
(I) - Incumbent Race Total 57,745 Spacing

Jan. 2021 schedule:

1/5: VA House 2 & 90
1/19: AL House 33

1/23 TX House 68, to replace Drew Springer who has been elected to the Senate.

If TX-68 were a state it would be the 42nd largest (behind WV, but ahead of MD, HI, MA, VT, NH, NJ, CT, DE, RI). It is extremely R. Springer had not had an opponent since winning the Republican primary in 2012, until this year when S. Lamb (D) ran. Springer won 85% to 15%

With 22 counties, there may be all kinds of county officials who might jump in the special election, unless the resign-to-run law applies.

[jimrtex]

TX 68th HD is titanium R following that on Jan 23.

That is an understatement.

David Spiller(R) 43.9%
Craig Carter (R) 18.1%
John Berry (R) 17.4%
Jason Brinkley (R) 16.3%
Charles Gregory (D) 4.3%

Gregory got zero votes in Cottle and King counties.

Spiller and Carter advance to the special runoff, though Texas does permit a candidate to withdraw from the runoff. Given that the House is in session, Carter might be talked into withdrawing.

[jimrtex]

is there a website that lists upcoming special elections?

talkelections.org