Dear Readers,
Before jumping into our top stories of the week, I wanted to share our plans to keep you updated on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting politics and government.
Like most Americans, we've spent the past two weeks adjusting to our current, new reality. We have been busy publishing new pages to track this crisis.
The questions we hope to answer in our coverage are as follows:
- How does the situation affect the election cycle? What primaries or filing deadlines are being moved? How will voters cast their ballots?What changes are taking place with ballot measures?
- What are governments doing in response to coronavirus? How have federal, state, and local entities taken action?
- What political figures have been diagnosed or gone into quarantine?
- What are people saying about political responses?
- What aftermath will transpire in the political world? What will change?
We hope that our coverage helps readers to make sense of the rapidly-changing environment.
This link will take you to all of our coverage. If you have any questions or suggestions, please send me an email at [email protected].
If you’re interested in helping, we could use a hand. We would like to track more local responses but have limited resources to cover it all. Please consider contributing stories about what’s happening in your neighborhood. You can learn how to do that here.
If you would like email updates on political responses to the coronavirus pandemic, just click here and we’ll start sending them your way.
Thank you for all of your support. For my family, the current situation means kids at home, activities canceled, and routines thwarted. We’re taking advantage of this time together, learning new things about each other, and finding additional, creative ways to connect with the people and communities that matter to us. I often say to my son, “perspective matters” when discussing the various instances of frustrations that a 5-year-old encounters. Those words seem appropriate at this juncture, as we all try to contextualize the world around us.
I hope you and your family are healthy.
Sincerely,
Geoff Pallay
Editor in Chief
Now onto the stories:
   
The latest news from the presidential race
It feels like the coronavirus outbreak has pressed ‘pause’ on the 2020 election season, especially the presidential race. So, in case you haven’t had a chance to stay up to date, here’s a quick rundown of where the presidential race stands. To stay on top of all the news on the presidential race, you’ll want to subscribe to our Daily Presidential News Briefing newsletter. It provides a curated news summary each weekday—and it’s free! Click here to subscribe and start receiving it in your email each morning.
Colorado governor signs legislation abolishing the death penalty
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed legislation Monday repealing the state's death penalty. The law applies to all sentences imposed after July 1, 2020, but does not affect any death sentences issued before that date. The maximum sentence for all Class I felonies in Colorado after July 1 is now life imprisonment.
Georgia Supreme Court to review decision to cancel supreme court election
Two candidates are challenging the cancellation of a regularly scheduled election for a seat on the Georgia Supreme Court. An election for Justice Keith Blackwell’s seat had been scheduled for May 19, but it was canceled after Blackwell announced on February 28 he was retiring effective November 18, 2020.
Fifth Democratic-appointed justice joins Kansas Supreme Court
Courts may be closed, but that doesn’t mean court appointments are halting. Kansas Governor Laura Kelly (D) appointed Judge Kenyen Wall to succeed Justice Lawton Nuss on the Kansas Supreme Court March 11. Nuss, who was previously appointed by Gov. Bill Graves (R) in 2002, retired on December 17, 2019.
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