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
● Where Are They Now?: Not going to jail, it would seem. On Wednesday, federal prosecutors unexpectedly agreed to drop all criminal charges against former GOP Rep. Aaron Schock, contingent on the former Illinois congressman paying back taxes to the IRS and reimbursing his congressional campaign committee for $68,000. The committee itself also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for failing to properly report its expenses.
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Schock, who did not plead guilty to anything himself, entered into what's known as a "deferred prosecution" agreement." If Schock keeps his end of the agreement and avoids any further legal trouble over the next six months, prosecutors will abandon their case against him.
This generous arrangement, which the Journal Star says "isn't typical for federal court," is the latest twist in Schock's strange career. Schock was elected to a safely red House seat in downstate Illinois in 2008 at the age of 27, a win that made him the youngest member of Congress and a Republican rising star. He continued to attract plenty of attention over the next few years, especially when his six-pack abs graced a 2011 cover of Men's Health magazine under the caption "America's Fittest Congressman!"
Schock also loved to post photos of himself on Instagram—posing with singer Ariana Grande, jumping in the air while on a glacier, surfing (shirtless, naturally), and chugging a bottle of Mountain Dew (not shirtless). When not busy on social media, he contemplated running for higher office, and even flirted with running for governor in early 2013 for a few months.
But in February of 2015, Schock's glam life came to an abrupt halt. The Washington Post's Ben Terris arrived at Schock's Capitol Hill office to write about how the congressman had apparently decorated his workplace to look like a sumptuous salon from the TV show "Downton Abbey," which seemed like the type of innocent story the publicity-loving Republican would relish.
However, the opposite happened. While Terris was still touring the office, Schock's communications director, Benjamin Cole, sensed trouble, and a staffer asked Terris to delete the pictures he'd taken. Naturally, the reporter declined, and the piece was published, complete with photos. The derision directed Schock's way was as swift as it was intense.
As a result, over the next month, Schock began to attract a very different kind of attention than he was accustomed to. Schock's reticence about Terris' story soon made a lot more sense in light of a slow drip of revelations about his habit of sticking taxpayers with the bill for other extravagances, like a $1,200 trip on a private plane to see a Bears game in Chicago. It didn't help that Cole resigned during this ordeal for posting rants on Facebook comparing African-Americans to zoo animals.
Schock reimbursed the government $40,000 for his office redecoration, but that didn't settle the matter. In March, after weeks of bad headlines, Politico asked Schock if he'd broken the law or ethics rules. The congressman would only say, "I certainly hope not," then qualified his shaky remarks even further by insisting he couldn't be definitive because he was "not an attorney."
Things only got worse a week later when Politico reported that that there were huge discrepancies in Schock's mileage reimbursement requests. Schock billed the federal government for 170,000 miles logged in his Chevy Tahoe, but when he sold the vehicle in July 2014, the odometer only read 80,000 miles, meaning he overbilled by 90,000 miles—worth tens of thousands of dollars to him. Schock announced he would resign hours later.
In November of 2016, Schock was indicted on 24 counts of violating federal law, including theft of government funds, filing false tax returns, charging the government for 150,000 miles he never drove, using campaign money to buy himself a 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe, and using government and campaign money to pay for private plane travel, like he did with that Bears game.
However, the case never went to trial. The following year, Schock's attorney alleged that prosecutors had asked inappropriate questions about his sex life, including whether he was gay. A House attorney also said that investigators may have broken the law by instructing one of Schock's congressional staffers, who was acting as an informant, to take materials from his district office.
The Justice Department ended up appointing a new team of prosecutors, and Schock's trial was rescheduled for June of this year. However, there was little indication that prosecutors were looking to give Schock a deal anywhere near as favorable as the one he received Wednesday. As part of the agreement, Schock admitted that, in addition to seeking reimbursement for miles he hadn't driven, he'd sold tickets to events—including 46 World Series tickets and eight Super Bowl tickets—for profit, which helped him earn $42,000 that he had not reported to the IRS.
Schock didn't seem particularly contrite afterwards, telling CBS that a "rogue prosecutor" had pursued him in a case "without merit," and waving away all his misdeeds by saying he should merely have done a better job filing his paperwork. Schock also didn't rule out running for office sometime in the future, saying, "At 37 years old, I don't think I'll ever say never."
Senate
● AZ-Sen: Republican Sen. Martha McSally, who has a history of campaign finance irregularities, reported refunding $120,000 in donations this week after the FEC flagged more than 50 contributors who gave more to McSally than federal law allows. This sort of thing is, well, a thing with McSally:
- In an FEC report she filed early in 2015 as a member of the House, McSally reported raising $5 million over the previous six months—a flat-out impossible sum that, several days after the mistake was pointed out, she amended down to $1.7 million.
- In 2016, she refiled an astounding 26 fundraising reports to correct years’ worth of errors—including $42,600 in excess contributions.
- And last year, in a rare audit, the FEC determined McSally's 2014 campaign was riddled with problems, including failures to disclose required information like donor employer names—and, guess what? $319,000 in excess contributions.
When McSally had to refile all those reports in 2016, the editorial board of the conservative Arizona Republic—which had endorsed her successful bid to enter Congress in 2014—opined, "It is reaching the point that it is difficult to ascribe the word 'error' to her reports; this many failures begins to look intentional." Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of "errors" later, it sure does seem like a feature rather than a bug.
● KY-Sen: While Gov. Matt Bevin didn't rule out challenging Sen. Mitch McConnell in a GOP primary back in June, he told the National Journal this month that "of course" he'd be backing McConnell. Bevin lost the 2014 primary to McConnell and was elected governor the following year.
● TX-Sen, TX-31: Former state Sen. Wendy Davis, who was Team Blue's 2014 gubernatorial nominee, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that she was urging Rep. Joaquin Castro to challenge GOP Sen. John Cornyn and that she was waiting to see what he'd do before she decided whether to run. Davis added that she hopes Castro will decide soon so that if he stays out, someone else could step up.
Castro and 2018 House candidate MJ Hegar have also expressed interest in running for the Senate, with Hegar saying last week that she didn't want to take on Davis and that it was unlikely that she'd face Castro either. It sounds like this group plans to consolidate behind one candidate, since Davis said the trio has been "working together to decide how [we] can we best beat John Cornyn" and that "[a]s we answer that question, we are going to circle behind that person and do all we can to support them." Davis also added that the eventual candidate they end up supporting might not be Castro, Hegar, or herself, though she didn't name anyone else.
Hegar, who held longtime GOP Rep. John Carter to a 51-48 win last year, has also talked about seeking a rematch with him next year rather than taking on Cornyn, and DCCC chair Cheri Bustos told The Hill this week that she was personally trying to recruit Hegar for another House run. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also reportedly talked with Hegar over the weekend, so Senate Democrats also seem to have their eye on her.
Texas' 31st District, which includes Austin's northern suburbs, has long been safely red turf, with Mitt Romney carrying it 60-38 and Donald Trump taking it by a smaller, though still wide, 54-41 margin. However, according to the Texas Legislative Council, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz carried this seat against Beto O'Rourke just 50.5-48.4 last year, which was very similar to his statewide margin of victory.
House
● CA-49: This week, San Juan Capistrano Mayor Brian Maryott, a Republican, announced that he would challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Mike Levin. Last year, Maryott ran in the very crowded top-two primary for what was an open seat and finished in eighth place with 3 percent of the vote.
● GA-07: GOP state Rep. David Clarke announced this week that he would not run for this competitive open seat.
● NC-09: On Wednesday, Democrat Dan McCready announced he would not challenge a law passed last year by the GOP state legislature that mandates new primaries whenever a new election is ordered in a congressional contest. McCready wrote in an editorial for the Washington Post that he had mulled "challenging this law in court — experts say it is probably unconstitutional — but that would just drag out the process even longer, leaving the people without a voice in Congress."
McCready's decision means that there will indeed be a GOP primary for the upcoming special election, and with the March 15 filing deadline coming up quickly, potential candidates need to decide what they're doing soon. On Wednesday, former Mecklenburg County Commissioner Matthew Ridenhour went on former Gov. Pat McCrory's radio show and announced that he would run here.
Ridenhour, who was an early Charlotte tea party organizer, narrowly lost re-election to his historically Republican South Charlotte district last fall in what the News & Observer called a "surprise sweep by Democrats." Despite that recent defeat, Ridenhour is arguing he's the strongest GOP candidate against McCready, a fellow Marine veteran, telling McCrory that "it takes a Marine to beat a Marine."
State Sen. Dan Bishop, who authored the infamous "bathroom bill" that contributed to McCrory's 2016 defeat, is also reportedly planning to run. Bishop said Monday that he was "not ready" to announce he was in, but he didn't dispute a report from WBTV saying he would run and self-fund at least $250,000.
● TX-23: The Hill writes that DCCC chair Cheri Bustos told them that 2018 nominee Gina Ortiz Jones "will wage another challenge next year" against GOP Rep. Will Hurd, though there's no direct quote from Bustos. Ortiz Jones lost to Hurd 49.2-48.7, a margin of just 926 votes, and she said just before Christmas that she was "very likely" to run again this cycle. Texas' 23rd District, which stretches from San Antonio west to the outskirts of El Paso, backed Clinton 50-46, and Hurd is just one of three Republicans left holding a Clinton seat.
Legislative
● Special Elections: Here's a recap of Tuesday's two races
RI-HD-68: Democrat June Speakman, a political science professor, won this Bristol-area district that has been the site of multiple recent campaign finance controversies. In a four-way contest, Speakman led the way with 40 percent. Libertarian William Hunt was the runner-up with 29 percent. Democrat-turned-independent "incumbent" Kenneth Marshall was third with 23 percent, while independent James McCanna Jr. rounded out the voting with 8 percent. The Democrats maintain a wide advantage in the Rhode Island House of Representatives after this hold.
KY-SD-31: Republican Philip Wheeler was victorious in the race to replace longtime Democratic state Sen. Ray Jones, defeating Democrat Darrell Pugh 53-47 in this eastern Kentucky district.
Democrats had hoped to be competitive in this race as this area has been historically hospitable to the party. However, the current partisan lean of this region was too much for Democrats to overcome in a district that has been one of the most strongly Republican in the state in the last two presidential elections. It isn't all doom and gloom, however: Pugh's 6-point margin was 57 points better than Hillary Clinton's 2016 performance. This overperformance is by far the largest of special elections this cycle and one of the largest we've ever seen.
This Republican pickup expanded the party's majority in the state senate to 29 to nine.
Mayoral
● Chicago, IL Mayor: This week, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle unveiled an endorsement from Secretary of State Jesse White, who has served since 1999 and has been the top vote-getter in multiple statewide races.
● Tampa, FL Mayor: Tampa held its nonpartisan mayoral primary on Tuesday and former police chief Jane Castor took first place with 48 percent of the vote, which was very close to the majority she needed to win outright.
Wealthy retired banker David Straz, who spent more money than all of his six opponents combined, edged City Councilor Harry Cohen 16-12 for the second spot in the April 23 primary. Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who is termed-out, endorsed Castor the next day. Castor also quickly picked up the backing of former judge Dick Greco Jr., who took 9 percent of the vote.
Castor was the city's first gay police chief, and she would hold that same distinction if she is elected mayor next month. Both Castor and Straz are Democrats, though they each only recently joined the party. Castor (who is not related to Tampa Rep. Kathy Castor) was a registered Republican from the age of 18 until shortly after she finished her stint leading the police department in 2017. Calling herself a "moderate," she announced at the time that she was joining the Democratic Party because she was unhappy that the GOP was turning away from diversity.
Straz backed Donald Trump in 2016, and he's also donated to GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in the past. Straz announced in April that he was switching his party registration from no-party to Democratic, and said that he regrets his vote for Trump.