A Great Divide...

There is a great divide in our country between elected officials and those who put them in office--the voters. In New York and Massachusetts, ordinary citizens voted for non-partisan redistricting 72% and 66% respectively. Yet in Massachusetts, the concept was completely butchered by the state legislature 34-5--makes sense? No...

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Tomblin Comments on Judiciary Committee's Vote Supporting Primary Election (WBOY 12 - West Virginia Media) To not allow for a primary would disenfranchise all independent voters as well as eliminate the opportunity for our military serving overseas to express their choice.”

REDISTRICTING

• Massachusetts Senate rejects implementation of independent redistricting commission (Ballot News) On January 12, 2011, a poll was released showing that 66 percent of Massachusetts residents support putting an independent commission in charge of redistricting. Only 23 percent of respondents said the legislature should continue to be in charge of redistricting.
• New Yorkers strongly disfavor state legislature handling redistricting, according to poll (Empire State News) Support for independent redistricting is strongest, 70 – 21 percent, among independent voters and is over 60 percent among all other groups.
• Back to court - Another questionable question (EDITORIAL Tulsa World - OK) On Monday Clark W. Duffee, an Edmond man who ran for Congress as an independent candidate, filed a lawsuit that argues that the new process stifles the voices of Oklahoma citizens who aren't members of either party, and it does. At last count there are 240,855 registered independent voters in Oklahoma - more than 11 percent of the total.

OBAMA

• Obama gets second chance from independents (By Michael Maslansky, Special to CNN, CNN Opinion) Independents seem willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt. Almost on cue, independents reacted positively at the mention of bipartisanship, so he was wise to fill this speech with examples of government doing what's best for the people, not just what's best for the party.

EDUCATION REFORM

• The politics of Rhee (Ben Smith, Politico) Now Rhee is in the process of a shift from political naif to full-fledged power broker. She has created an emphatically political new organization, StudentsFirst, and she told POLITICO she hopes to raise and spend an astonishing $200 million annually – a large sum even in the deep-pocketed world of education philanthropists.