Judicial politics

Early starts for local 2020 elections; a county budget mix-up; Robin Schimminger

/ Ken Kruly / 1 Comment

Wishing everyone a happy and peaceful thanksgiving! Try not to bring up politics at the dinner table.  Talk about other stuff.

With the United States now in a pattern where presidential politics start early and go on for what seems like forever, you would think that it would be easy to adapt to the same level of activity on the state and local level. But it still takes some getting used to.

The year 2019 saw the reinstitution of June primaries for state and local offices, something the state has not had for nearly five decades. June primaries mean petitioning starts in February, when there may be snow and ice on driveways and sidewalks and it gets dark in early evening – not ideal conditions for circulating petitions. Continue reading →

Election results mostly as expected; turnout better than four years ago

/ Ken Kruly / 1 Comment

Yesterday’s elections offered a handful of unexpected results, but incumbents mostly won.  Turnout ticked up compared with 2015.

As projected here on August 13th, County Executive Mark Poloncarz was victorious, but his margin was smaller both in terms total votes and in percentages than in 2015.  Lynne Dixon worked hard, but she offered no compelling reason for a change in leadership in County Hall. Poloncarz’s taking-care-of-business style worked just fine. Continue reading →