The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● East Baton Rouge Parish, LA: An effort to form a new city in Baton Rouge's mostly white southeastern suburbs faces an uncertain future after opponents filed a lawsuit earlier this month challenging its creation. The move follows an October election where residents of the proposed city of St. George, which would be the fifth-largest in Louisiana, voted to establish their own municipality by a 54-46 margin.
Campaign Action
The suit, led by East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, charges that St. George's backers have failed to explain how the new city, which is currently unincorporated and receives services from the parish government, would provide necessary services like sanitation and policing on its own.
It also argues that St. George's incorporation would have a "substantial adverse impact" on the city of Baton Rouge, as well as other unincorporated areas of East Baton Rouge Parish, by necessitating cuts to government operations. Though the initial filing doesn't delve into details, the St. George area is more affluent than Baton Rouge; if it became its own city, it would divert a sizable proportion of current sales tax revenues away from Baton Rouge's own operating budget.
In addition, the suit says the proposed incorporation would violate the parish's governing charter, which specifies, "No additional city, town or village shall be incorporated in East Baton Rouge Parish" beyond the four in existence when the charter was last amended in 2007. Opponents say a parishwide election to again amend the charter would therefore be necessary, though St. George supporters claim the provision in question runs afoul of existing state law.
While the lawsuit's opening salvo covers a lot of ground, the issue at the heart of this incorporation drive goes unmentioned. St. George supporters have said their ultimate goal is to create their own school district, which opponents have slammed because it would effectively set up a segregated school system, since St. George's 86,000 residents are overwhelmingly white while Baton Rouge is more than half black. The suit does allude to this backdrop, though: It says that after an earlier effort to incorporate a larger version of St. George failed in 2015, organizers shrunk the city's proposed boundaries and, in so doing, reduced its "minority representation" from 23% to 12%.
For now, the establishment of St. George is on hold: The law under which plaintiffs have brought their challenge specifies that the courts must first sign off before a new municipality can be incorporated. Opponents are also encouraging residents who don't want to become a part of St. George to ask Baton Rouge to annex their property, a step several hundred have already reportedly taken.
Election Result Recaps
● Hempstead, NY Town Supervisor: On Thursday, Democratic incumbent Laura Gillen conceded defeat to Republican Donald Clavin. Gillen had been waiting for absentee and affidavit ballots to be counted from the Nov. 5 election, but they ended up increasing Clavin's lead from 1,392 votes to 1,650. Gillen's win two years ago gave Democrats control of Hempstead, a Long Island town with a population of 775,000, for the first time in over a century.
Senate
● AR-Sen: On Monday, state Democratic Party chair Michael John Gray said that the party couldn't find a "viable path" to get a new candidate on the ballot in the weeks since their only Senate contender, Josh Mahony, dropped out hours after the filing deadline. GOP Sen. Tom Cotton is currently running for re-election without a major-party opponent in what has become a very red state over the last decade.
● IA-Sen: Five local unions that represent a combined 12,000 Iowans have endorsed businesswoman Theresa Greenfield in the Democratic primary.
Gubernatorial
● WA-Gov: Conservative activist Tim Eyman said last week that he didn't currently have a party affiliation for his run for governor, and on Monday, he filed to run as an independent. Eyman is competing in the August top-two primary to take on Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee.
Republicans are hoping to win this office for the first time since the 1980 election, and right now, one of their candidates has considerably more money available than any of his intra-party rivals. Developer Joshua Freed, who is a former mayor of the Seattle suburb of Bothell, raised $115,000 from donors from early September through the end of October and self-funded an additional $500,000, and he ended last month with $533,000 in the bank. Two other Republicans, state Sen. Phil Fortunato and Republic police chief Loren Culp, had $40,000 and $10,000 to spend, respectively.
Inslee, who is seeking a third term, had $821,000 to spend at the end of October.
House
● CA-22: Republican Rep. Devin Nunes unsurprisingly became the latest Trump sycophant to find himself dragged into the impeachment story when CNN reported on Friday that Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani's, is prepared to tell Congress that Nunes met with an ousted Ukrainian prosecutor last year in order to dredge up dirt on Joe Biden.
Parnas, along with another associate, Igor Fruman, had been sent to Ukraine late last year by Giuliani to unearth information that might damage Biden, a potential Trump opponent in next year's elections. One of the people Parnas connected with was Ukraine's former top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was dismissed by the country's parliament early in 2016 after an international pressure campaign to secure his ouster on the grounds that he'd thwarted efforts to fight corruption.
According to his attorney, Parnas says he also set up a meeting between Shokin and Nunes in Vienna last year, shortly after Republicans lost the midterm elections. Parnas' attorney now says that Shokin told his client that Nunes had specifically sought the same thing Parnas had been looking for: muck that could be used to smear Biden.
Shokin has denied he met with Nunes, but in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, Nunes refused to answer a direct question about whether such a meeting had taken place. Instead, he predictably called CNN's reporting "fake news" and threatened to sue the network, as well as the Daily Beast, which published a related story.
Nunes also bizarrely claimed he'd pursue some sort of criminal complaint, saying "it is not okay to work with someone who has been indicted on serious federal crime to build a media narrative and dirty up a member of Congress," and arguing that the very normal reporting these media outlets have engaged in amounts to "likely conspiring to obstruct justice." (It doesn't, but this is the sort of legal analysis we can expect from a guy suing a fake Twitter cow.)
That bit about an indictment, by the way, is a reference to the fact that Parnas was arrested last month (while attempting to leave the country with a one-way plane ticket) on charges that he'd illegally sought "to funnel foreign money" to U.S. politicians in a bid to gain influence.
But while Parnas may have a newfound desire to cooperate with investigators as a prison sentence looms, Nunes could still face serious trouble. As the Washington Post's Amber Phillips put it, "If these allegations are true, it would mean a powerful member of Congress who is deciding whether to impeach Trump over pressuring Ukraine attempted to help Trump by working to further his political goals in Ukraine." At the very least, he could face an ethics investigation by the House, which one senior Democrat, Washington Rep. Adam Smith, called "quite likely."
● CA-25: Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who filed paperwork with the FEC late last month, kicked off his campaign for California's vacant 25th Congressional District on Monday—on Fox and Friends, of course. Papadopoulos, the son of Greek immigrants, declared his fealty to Donald Trump's racist worldview in announcing he'd pursue "an American First agenda," despite the fact that the district he's seeking to represent has moved sharply away from the GOP in the Trump era.
Aside from his questionable political instincts, Papadopoulous brings some serious baggage with him: He was sentenced to two weeks in prison last year after pleading guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with the Russian government as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. He also does not appear to live in the 25th District, as the address on his FEC forms lists a residence in the 28th District (which is represented by none other than Adam Schiff). In fact, in his Fox appearance, Papadopoulous, who hails from Illinois, said he'd only been living in California for a year and a half.
He'll also be joining two other Republicans in the race who have much deeper ties to the area, former Rep. Steve Knight and Navy veteran Mike Garcia. Two Democrats are also running, Assemblywoman Christy Smith and political commentator Cenk Uygur. All candidates will run together on a single ballot on March 3 (the same day as California's Super Tuesday presidential primary); if no one wins a majority of the vote, a runoff will take place on May 12.
● FL-03: GOP Rep. Ted Yoho still hasn't said if he'll run for a fifth term despite his 2012 promise to only serve eight years, but a new poll says he wouldn't have any trouble in a primary if he did.
The local firm Meer Research, which was assisted by the national GOP pollster Vox Populi, released a poll finding Yoho taking at least 71% of the vote in hypothetical matchups against 2018 opponent Judson Sapp, businesswoman Amy Pope Wells, and Clay County Commissioner Gavin Rollins. Meer tells us this survey was not done for a client.
Both Pope Wells and Sapp, who lost to Yoho 76-24 last year, are running, while Rollins says he would only consider if Yoho retired. Florida's filing deadline isn't until April, so Yoho can keep everyone guessing for a while longer. This North Florida seat, which includes Gainesville and Ocala, backed Donald Trump 56-40.
● GA-07: Do you love to watch local TV in the wee hours of the morning but wish there were more 30-minute infomercials for Republican House candidates filling your screen? If you fit this very specific criteria and happen to live in the Atlanta area, then we have some incredible news for you. Businessman Mark Gonsalves, whom we hadn't previously mentioned, will be going up with a half-hour campaign ad on the local Fox, NBC, and CBS affiliates. If you don't live in the Atlanta area but really want to watch this spot at 4:06 AM, you can find a link here.
● NY-21: GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik said Friday that she'd raised $500,000 in the two hours following her Fox News appearance the previous evening. Her announcement came days after Democrat Tedra Cobb said that her own campaign had raised $1 million during the previous weekend. Cobb also challenged Stefanik last year in this 54-40 Trump seat and lost by a similar 56-42 spread.
Stefanik infuriated progressives and delighted Trump fans nationwide with her antics during an impeachment hearing earlier this month. Stefanik sought to violate House Intelligence Committee rules by asking questions during time reserved for the committee's chair, Democrat Adam Schiff, and its top-ranking Republican, Devin Nunes. She then hopped on Twitter to lie about why she'd been cut off, falsely claiming that Schiff "REFUSES to let duly elected Members of Congress ask questions to the witness, simply because we are Republicans."
● NY-27: GOP Assemblyman David DiPietro has announced that he will not run in the upcoming special election for this seat.
● TX-17: Three more Republicans have joined the March primary to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Bill Flores over the last few days. On Friday, Elianor Vessali announced that she would resign her seat on the College Station City Council to run here. Vessali was only elected last year, but she's currently the only candidate in the race who has held local office in this district.
Another new GOP arrival is Todd Kent, who has worked for a number of universities. Kent has a doctorate from the local Texas A&M University, and he went on to serve as an assistant dean for their Qatar campus and recently finished a stint as head of the University of Utah's Asia Campus. Real estate agent Kristen Alamo Rowin also kicked off her bid for the GOP nod in recent days.
On the Democratic side, Marine veteran David Anthony Jaramillo also joined the contest. Jaramillo served in Iraq and later became attached to the White House Military Office. Jaramillo joins 2018 nominee Rick Kennedy, who lost to Flores 57-41.
This seat, which includes College Station, Waco, and a slice of the Austin suburbs, supported Donald Trump by a wide 56-39 margin, but Republican Sen. Ted Cruz defeated Beto O'Rourke here last year by a narrower 54-45 spread. This district should remain in Republican hands, but it's possible the trends here could give Democrats an opening if they field a strong candidate.
● TX-22: Republican Bangar Reddy, who is a former president of India Culture Center of Houston, filed candidacy paperwork with the state last week to run for this open seat. Bangar does not appear to have run for office before.
Other Races
● IN-AG, IN-Gov: While former Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel had been mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for governor earlier this year, he recently told the Evansville Courier & Press that he was considering a 2020 bid for state attorney general instead.
Weinzapfel has often been named as a potential aspirant for higher office, but if he decides to go for it this time, he won't face any opponents in a primary. Rather unusually, both parties in Indiana select nominees for attorney general at June conventions, and state Sen. Karen Tallian is already competing for the Democratic nod.
The picture for Republicans is also unsettled, though for far different reasons. That's because the incumbent attorney general, Curtis Hill, is awaiting the outcome of disciplinary hearings that were held last month. In 2018, four women accused Hill of groping them at a party in March of that year, which prompted widespread calls from Hill's fellow Republicans that he resign—calls he's refused to heed.
That could change when former state Supreme Court Justice Myra Selby, who presided over Hill's recent hearing, issues a report to the Indiana Supreme Court that could include a recommendation for his punishment. The court will eventually decide if the incumbent should face sanctions, which could lead to the loss of his law license—and thereby his job.
However, experts tell the Indianapolis Star they don't think the court will disbar Hill, saying it's much more likely that it will hand down some form of reprimand. It's possible, though, that the court could issue a lengthy suspension that would force Hill to leave office since he'd be unable to perform his duties. It's not clear when the Supreme Court will issue its ruling, though the paper says the process could take until the early spring.
Hill, however, is undeterred—and so are his critics. Earlier this month, Hill said that he'll seek a second term, while a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb quickly put out a statement saying, "The governor and lieutenant governor have been clear and consistent from the beginning: Curtis Hill should not be Attorney General of the State of Indiana." Hill already faces a challenge for the nomination from attorney John Westercamp at the GOP's convention next year.
