Latest news with #nonpartisan
New York Times
7 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Quote of the Day: Republicans Work to Discredit Experts' Tax-Cut Warning
'Without that you have chaos.' MARC GOLDWEIN, a senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, on the necessity of nonpartisan offices that estimate the costs of legislation outweighing the frustrations over their forecasts.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Last-minute bill would let Nevada's nonpartisan voters join major party primaries for the first time
A last-minute bill offered by Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager would let non-partisan voters cast ballots in major-party primaries for the first time.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nevada bill would allow nonpartisans to vote in primary elections
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A proposal from Nevada Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager would allow nonpartisan voters in Nevada to vote in primary elections. Yeager, a Democrat, filed Assembly Bill 597 on Monday. Should it become law, the bill would affect both state and presidential primary contests. More Nevada voters identify as nonpartisan than any other group. As of April, out of the nearly 2.13 million registered Nevada voters, about 35% registered as nonpartisan. In April, Republicans carried a 170-person edge in voter registration. Both Republicans and Democrats account for 29% of voters, respectively. Last November, Nevada voters rejected a ballot question that would have mandated open primaries. However, the question also carried with it ranked-choice voting. Question 3 did not move forward after 53% of voters voted 'no.' The question passed in 2022. Ballot initiatives to amend the state constitution require two votes before moving forward. In 2021, the Nevada Legislature passed a law requiring primaries over caucuses. The Nevada Republican Party then sued. In 2024, the state held primaries for Democrats and Republicans, while the Nevada Republican Party held caucuses two days later. President Donald Trump did not appear on the primary ballot as state party leaders said any candidate who appeared on that ballot would be ineligible for delegates. Before the primary, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo criticized party leaders, saying having caucuses was 'unacceptable for the voters.' Yeager's proposal was exempt from legislative deadlines, all of which have passed this close to the end of the legislative session, which ends June 2. A hearing on the proposal was scheduled before a legislative committee for Thursday, May 29. The state's next primaries are scheduled for June 2026. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Former chief justice says Supreme Court election in Kansas is a ‘really bad idea'
Sue Bond isn't squeamish about partisan politics. Her late husband, Dick Bond, spent four years as the Republican president of the Kansas Senate after all. But Bond, 89, doesn't think politics should determine who sits on the bench of the state's high court. That's why she's speaking out against the Republican plan to switch from a merit-based system to a model where voters directly elect the seven justices of the Kansas Supreme Court — an effort Republicans believe could help bring to heel a court that has protected abortion access. 'I just think that judges should be nonpartisan because the people and the cases that appear before them are from people and problems of all walks of life,' said Bond, a Prairie Village resident who spent eight years as a member of the Supreme Court Nominating Commission after being appointed by Gov. Bill Graves in 1996. She doesn't want to see statewide judicial races devolve into partisan, money-fueled brawls like this spring's Wisconsin contest, which drew more than $100 million in spending, including from super PACs run by billionaires Elon Musk and George Soros. Under the language of the constitutional amendment that Kansans will be asked to vote on next August, justices would be allowed to make political contributions, take part in political campaigns and hold office in political parties. In theory, a justice could simultaneously lead the state Republican or Democratic party while sitting on the court. Kansas used to directly elect its Supreme Court justices. But after a major scandal in the 1950s that saw a sitting governor lose his re-election bid and pull off a maneuver to get himself appointed to the high court, voters wanted a change. In 1958, they passed a constitutional amendment enshrining the current system, in which governors fill Supreme Court openings by selecting a candidate put forward by a nine-member nominating commission. Kansas is one of the 14 states with a merit selection system, first adopted by Missouri in 1940. However, as Republicans are quick to point out, Kansas is the only nominating commission where attorneys make up a majority of members — five of the nine people who interview prospective justices and settle on three finalists. Governors appoint one nominating commission member from each of the state's four Congressional districts, and licensed attorneys from within each district vote to choose their representative on the commission. Lawyers from across the state have the opportunity to select an at-large attorney member who serves as chair of the commission, which routinely evaluates dozens of applications to fill court vacancies. Bond said she was disgusted by the 'scare tactics' GOP leaders employed to make their case for direct election this spring. 'This whole business about it's run by lawyers — it's not true,' Bond said. 'The Republicans that are writing (the ballot question) are very clever, and they know the trick, and they know how to find that statement that, 'Oops, we don't want a whole bunch of lawyers.' The same way they tried to do with the abortion issue, to find a trigger point for everyone that we don't want that,' she said. In her experience, Bond said, non-attorney members' opinions are given just as much weight as their counterparts on the commission. 'They listened to me. I worked hard. I investigated the people,' she said. 'And when I found information and I presented it at the meeting, people listened to me and respected me.' Bond recalled an instance when the other members of the commission were leaning towards one particular candidate. After she told them she had tried calling each of the candidates' references multiple times without hearing back, they went in a different direction. Sen. Kenny Titus, a Wamego Republican and attorney, said he votes for nominating commission members when given the opportunity. But he doesn't believe it's an equitable system. 'It's currently a political process as it stands now, and I think it's disingenuous to say otherwise,' Titus said. He said there's a 'political tilt' to practicing lawyers in Kansas, adding that they 'carry that baggage with them' onto a nominating commission that gives them undue influence over the judicial system. 'It's just like any other election. They send out campaign letters, they talk a little bit about their values and what they believe in, but the real difference is that only a very small number of people get to see that,' Titus said. Kansas Supreme Court justices stand for retention votes every six years. Titus said the fact that no justice has ever been dumped by the voters demonstrates that it's not enough of an accountability mechanism. Rep. Dan Osman, an Overland Park Democrat and attorney, said it demonstrates that voters believe the system works. Direct election would turn off the most qualified candidates, he said. 'Factors of who is the best legal scholar no longer matter (with direct election),' Osman said. 'The best person might not be up for the task of campaigning.' Former Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss told The Star he more than likely would not have sought the job if it meant running for election. 'The idea of going throughout the state either in person or through my intermediaries, or running ads in the media that basically tell people how I'm going to vote on certain issues is a really bad idea,' Nuss said. He said justices are supposed to approach each case with an open mind — listen to the arguments, look at the facts, and base a decision on the merits — not what they promised somebody during a campaign. Past legislation to move Kansas to a 'federal model' where the governor nominates Supreme Court justices and the state Senate confirms has failed to advance, though Republicans successfully moved the state's appeals court to that process several years ago. Before that switch, Lawton, then an attorney, applied three times to become an appellate judge. The first two times, he was passed over by the selection committee. The third time, he was a finalist but Gov. Graves didn't choose him. He believed he could improve his chances by getting involved in more jury trials and writing more legal briefs. When he submitted his fourth application, this time to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, he made the short list and Graves appointed him. 'It is a competition that's not based on money but based on merit, and that is ultimately whom I think Kansans want as justices on their Supreme Court,' said Nuss, who retired in 2019. During his time as chief justice, Nuss presided over the court in a number of major rulings, including one that struck down a state law banning abortions in the second trimester and two landmark school finance cases that brought hundreds of millions of additional dollars to the Kansas educational system. He said direct judicial elections are ripe for corruption. 'My concern is that people who would not necessarily be qualified but who raise a lot of money tell people in Kansas what they stand for,' Nuss said. He likened it to Simone Biles raising money and presenting it to the International Olympic Committee to persuade them to name her the greatest female gymnast of all time. A merit-based system just works better, he said. 'She competes against many, many people and she comes out on top, so you know from that that she is the best,' Nuss said. 'Instead of Simone Biles saying … 'If anybody competes against me, they can raise money, too, and they can make that argument and say how wonderful they are and how well they will perform in the future.''
Geek Wire
22-05-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Steve Ballmer's USAFacts hires new CTO, who calls access to non-biased data ‘everything right now'
Megan Winfield. (Photo via USAFacts) Megan Winfield has been named the new chief technology officer at USAFacts, the nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization started by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to provide data-driven context on everything from the economy to immigration to crime. Winfield is relocating to Bellevue, Wash., from Lexington, Ky. She's been the CTO of Campspot, the platform that helps campers find destinations, for almost three years. Prior to that she was senior director of software engineering and digital for Hilton, the global hospitality company, where she spent more than seven years. As CTO, Winfield will lead USAFacts' engineering organization and sit on the leadership team, helping to ensure that tech decisions align with strategy and mission at the nonprofit. Winfield is intrigued by the problems that USAFacts is trying to solve for the American public, and the technical challenge of tackling it all. 'Access to data is everything right now,' she told GeekWire. 'I feel like transparency, non-biased data, is such a critical part of something that a lot of different parts of the public are hungry for at the moment.' She also sees an inflection point with AI and the tools that are available now to handle large data sets and parse those into something useful. USAFacts was started in 2017 by Ballmer, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Clippers NBA team. It employees about 47 people and is led by President Poppy MacDonald, who previously led Politico. The site draws on information from 100 government databases and regularly crunches numbers in an effort to take the pulse and track trends in America — without the noise and bias that overwhelms so many Americans who regularly turn to cable news or social media. Winfield said she considers herself a civically involved person who has personally experienced the frustration of not having transparency and useful data. 'I think it's a really key time to be thinking about a truly unbiased source of data and really making sure that people understand that that's what USAFacts represents,' Winfield said. Related:
