MASSACHUSETTS: How bad was turnout in the Markey-Gomez race? It saw the fewest people ever vote in a Senate race in Massachusetts. (The secretary of state predicted 1.6 million would turnout – the lowest ever. But 400,000 fewer than that showed up.)
NEW JERSEY: Chris Christie called the striking down of DOMA a “bad decision,” the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports. On New Jersey radio, he said, “It’s just another example of judicial supremacy rather than having the government run by the people we actually vote for. I thought it was a bad decision.”AP: “A Tennessee man was charged Wednesday in a scheme involving former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s income tax returns during the 2012 campaign. The U.S. Justice Department said a federal grand jury in Nashville indicted Michael Mancil Brown, 34, of Franklin, and charged him with six counts of wire fraud and six counts of extortion. Brown is accused of having an anonymous letter delivered to the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP accounting firm in Franklin last August, demanding that $1 million in digital currency be deposited to a Bitcoin account to keep some of Romney’s income tax returns from being released. The Justice Department said Brown falsely claimed that he had gained access to the PricewaterhouseCoopers internal computer network and stolen tax documents for Romney and his wife, Ann Romney, for tax years before 2010.”
AP: “Pardoned financier Marc Rich dies in Switzerland at 78.”
NEW YORK: The New York Daily News: “The City Council overrode Mayor Bloomberg’s veto Thursday and made New York the largest city in the country to require paid sick leave for workers. … The veto override came after a protracted battle over the paid sick-leave legislation that was first proposed in 2009. Council Speaker Christine Quinn brought the bill to the floor for a vote in May under intense pressure from political opponents and labor unions. Bloomberg then vetoed the measure, saying it would damage businesses.”
