Category: State

As of May 2019, the range for vehicle registration costs in the 45 states with a fixed cost (rather than variable) was between $8 and $225. The cost for a title in those states ranged from $3 to $100. Five states had variable costs based on either the MSRP or the age and weight of…

On November 6, 2018, elections were held for 6,073 state legislative seats across 87 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers. Five hundred and eight elections (8.3%) resulted in control of a seat changing to a new party. Of the 508 flips, 391 (77.0%) were Republican seats that flipped to Democrats and 93 (18.2%) were…

A special election for District 130 of the Connecticut House of Representatives was held on May 7. Unofficial results showed 23-year-old Antonio Felipe (D) winning with 47.2% of the vote. Felipe will be the youngest member in the state House. The second place finisher, Kate Rivera, earned 34.8% of the vote and was the first…

On May 3, 2019, a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled unanimously that Ohio’s congressional district plan constitutes an illegal partisan gerrymander. The court held that the plan, enacted in 2011 by a Republican legislature and governor, violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of Democrats.…

Vermont Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Skoglund is retiring on September 1, 2019.   Selection of Vermont Supreme Court justices occurs through assisted appointment. The governor appoints a justice from a list of names provided by a nominating commission. The appointed justice must be confirmed by the Vermont State Senate. Once confirmed, justices serve six-year terms.…

An election recount is a process by which votes cast in an election are re-tabulated to verify the accuracy of the original results. Recounts typically occur in the event of a close margin of victory, accusations of election fraud, or the possibility of administrative errors. Recounts can either occur automatically or be requested by a…

The Maryland House of Delegates voted 139-1 to make Adrienne Jones (D) the speaker of the house in a special session on Wednesday. She replaces Michael Busch (D), who passed away on April 7 after developing pneumonia. Busch had served as speaker since 2003 and was the longest serving speaker in Maryland history.   Jones,…

April’s partisan count of the 7,383 state legislators shows 52 percent of all state legislators are Republicans and 47 percent are Democrats.   Ballotpedia completes a count of the partisan balance of state legislatures at the end of every month. The partisan composition of state legislatures refers to which political party holds the majority of…

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (R) appointed appeals judge James Beene to the Arizona Supreme Court on April 26, 2019. Beene became Ducey’s fourth appointment to the seven-member court, and the ninth state supreme court justice appointed by a governor in the country this year.   Beene replaces former Justice John Pelander, who retired on March…

A special election is being held for District 64 of the Wisconsin State Assembly on April 30. Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Tip McGuire (D) and Mark Stalker (R), a former Kenosha school board member, are running in the general election.   The seat became vacant when Peter Barca (D) stepped down in January 2019…