Feel free to discuss in comments. Some results (our preview post from Monday is here):
* In Iowa, Rep. Bruce Braley, a former plaintiff’s lawyer and leading spokesman for trial bar interests on Capitol Hill, appears to have squeaked through, but former ATLA/AAJ president Roxanne Conlin came nowhere close in her Senate bid against incumbent Chuck Grassley.
* Demagogic attacks on Michigan Supreme Court Justice Bob Young failed, as Michigan voters retained him. Illinois Supreme Court justice Thomas Kilbride, greatly aided by cash from unions, Democrats and you-know-who, won’t pay a retention price for a lawless decision striking down legislated limits on med-mal suits.
* The New York attorney general race wasn’t that tight after all, with Democrat Eric Schneiderman winning by 11 points, nor was the Connecticut senate race, where perennial Overlawyered bete noire Richard Blumenthal won by 10. Despite suggestions that attorney general candidate Kamala Harris was too far left even for California, she was running slightly ahead in late returns.
* Rhode Island voters turned down a proposal to change the official name of their state, “”State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” to appease the misplaced sensitivities of some who imagine that the word “plantations” implies a connection to slavery.
* Oklahomans ill-advisedly voted to forbid their courts from considering international law, even in the relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances where it has been traditional for them to do so. More: Roger Alford, OJ.
* Big news from Ohio, where voters turned out of office Democratic attorney general Richard Cordray, lately lionized by the New York Times as the next big activist A.G. The “next Eliot Spitzer” Times curse lives on!
* Via B.L.T., the House Judiciary Committee is set for a truly monumental ideological remake assuming that Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) is replaced by Lamar Smith (R-Tex.). Some changes will be coming along at Senate Judiciary as well.
* Republicans scored surprise inroads in Madison County, Illinois, the pro-plaintiff jurisdiction near St. Louis that has long generated vastly more than its share of high-ticket litigation. In particular, they managed to beat influential state representative/trial lawyer Jay Hoffman of Collinsville, a one-time floor leader for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, per reports by Ann Knef at the Chamber-backed Madison County Record and the Edwardsville Intelligencer.
* Mandatory employer recognition of unions on a “card check” basis without so much as a secret ballot? No thanks, say voters in four states [Wood; Hirsch/Workplace Prof].
6 Comments
Hooray deadlock!
I’d say that any bill that gets enough support to pass both the House and the Senate will likely be veto proof. That may not be a good thing though.
In California, a dead woman (d) wins election.
Hey, you did not talk about the earthquake in Wisconsin. Gov and both houses of legislature are GOP. Feingold out replaced by GOP Johnson. Obey’s seat went to the GOP as did Kagan’s seat in Green Bay. Very red in Wisconsin.
After late returns from Southern California, Harris leads Cooley in the AG race by 14,838 votes – and there’s still about 1 million mail votes left to be counted statewide. It may be weeks before this one is finally settled.
I thought what happened in Iowa was interesting. Three Iowa Supreme Court justices who were part of the unanimous decision that legalized same-sex marriage in that state, have been ousted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/us/politics/04judges.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Relinquishing his chair will free Conyers up to visit his wife in prison.