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The Tap covered election news, public policy, and other noteworthy events from February 2016 to February 2022.

Review of the day

The excerpts below were compiled from issue #23 of The Tap, which was published on July 2, 2016. READ THE FULL VERSION HERE.

Federal

A final draft of the Democratic Party platform was approved by the Platform Drafting Committee. It includes calls to raise the minimum wage to $15, abolish the death penalty, more strictly regulate Wall Street, establish a multi-millionaire surtax, and review existing trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. According to J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami, the draft also features language on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that gives “parallel acknowledgment of Israeli and Palestinian rights.”
- Bernie Sanders said the following day that he would continue to push for more progressive policies, including a carbon tax and fracking ban, in the platform. “We lost some very important fights. We're going to take that fight to Orlando, where the entire committee meets in two weeks. And if we don't succeed there, then we'll certainly take it to the floor of the Democratic convention,” he pledged.

A runoff election was held for two of six seats on the Lubbock City Council. No candidate in either of the two races won a majority of votes cast in the general election on May 7, 2016. In the runoff, Juan Chadis won the District 1 seat and Shelia Patterson-Harris won the District 2 seat. Both of these seats were open because the incumbent council members did not file for re-election. District 1 incumbent Victor Hernandez left his position to run in the race for mayor of Lubbock. Because there was more than one year left in his term, Hernandez’s bid for mayor was considered an automatic resignation of his position on the city council. This made the election in District 1 a special election, although it appeared on the ballot with other regular elections. Hernandez’s successor, Chadis, will only serve until 2018, when Hernandez’s term would have expired. Chadis will then have to file for re-election if he wishes to retain the seat. The mayor’s office and two other city council seats were also on the ballot in the general election in May. Lubbock is the 11th-largest city in Texas and the 84th-largest city in the U.S. by population.

The excerpts below were compiled from issue #22 of The Tap, which was published on June 25, 2016. READ THE FULL VERSION HERE.

The South Dakota Republican and Democratic parties will hold conventions at which they will nominate candidates for the seat up for election on the Public Utilities Commission. Incumbent Chris Nelson (R) announced earlier this year that he would seek the Republican nomination; Ballotpedia was unable to identify other potential candidates prior to the conventions.

Two of the seven seats on the Lubbock City Council in Texas are up for nonpartisan runoff election. Both seats, as well as the mayor’s office and another pair of city council seats, were up for general election on May 7, 2016. Since no candidates in the District 1 and District 2 races received more than 50 percent of the vote, those races resulted in runoffs. The District 1 contest is a special election for a two-year term, which was added to the ballot due to Councilman Victor Hernandez’s unsuccessful mayoral campaign. Frank Gutierrez and Juan Chadis will face each other in the District 1 runoff, and Shelia Patterson-Harris and Jared Hall will compete in the District 2 runoff. Lubbock is the 11th-largest city in Texas and the 84th-largest city in the U.S. by population.