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• PA Redistricting: Jesus. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything that makes me want to reach for my puke bucket like redistricting. (In this line of work, they issue you one of those on your first day on the job.) The craven selfishness is completely appalling, particularly among Democrats who make deals with Republicans to protect their own sorry-ass personal interests. The latest episode is just disgusting beyond words:
Now it seems that House Republicans don't have the support to pass a map drafted by Republicans that appears to protect GOP incumbents and snag several Democratic seats along the way.
Arm twisting was underway late last week with Philadelphia Democratic City Committee Chairman and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, D-Philadelphia, calling Democratic state House members from the Philadelphia delegation, asking for a vote for the congressional redistricting plan, according to Capitolwire news service.
Brady and U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Allegheny, in exchange for concessions in that map that helped them, said they would round up votes to pass it. And now they were hearing from House Republican leaders in Harrisburg that they needed more votes, because going into this weekend, and today, the map lacks the House votes to pass it.
The way Capitolwire's Peter DeCoursey sees it, two of the four most liberal urban members of the U.S. House are lobbying their fellow urban Democrats to pass a congressional redistricting that masses the largest number of urban Democratic voters into the smallest number of districts.
Why? Because it helps Doyle and Brady—giving Brady more white Democrats along the Delaware river, protecting him against future black primary challenger. (Folks who know how beloved Brady is among African American voters may question that theory but it's interesting nonetheless.)
If the GOP map is going to fail, let it fail! Indeed, Republicans had a tough time passing their proposal in the Senate last week, largely due to parochial reasons. If that's going to sink their plan in the House, then that would count as a huge victory! There's no reason in hell for Brady and Doyle to act as Republican whips, except for utterly base self-interest. That's just grotesque.
Senate:
• CT-Sen: After what seemed like a long delay, EMILY's List finally endorsed ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz in the Democratic Senate primary. Bysiewicz entered the race all the way back in January of this year, and between then and now, EMILY had tapped a number of less-prominent candidates while keeping Bysiewicz on their lower-tier "On the List" ranking.
• MA-Sen, MA-04: One more minor Democrat has left the Senate race in the face of the Elizabeth Warren juggernaut: engineer and anti-nuclear activist Herb Robinson, who has decided to drop down to the open MA-04 contest.
• MI-Sen: Not really much to see here (which probably explains why we missed it when it first came out about ten days ago), but a weird new poll from the Michigan Information & Research Service (aka MIRS) shows ex-Rep. Pete Hoekstra dominating the GOP primary. He's at 84%, with former judge Randy Hekman at 10 and former State Board of Education Chair Clark Durant at just 6. If you add those up, you'll notice a bizarre problem MIRS seems to have: The numbers total 100. That means zero undecideds, which is obviously garbage. So, while I don't doubt that Hoekstra has a big lead (other polling has shown this), it's almost impossible for me to take a survey like this seriously.
• MO-Sen: This is so pathetic. Rich guy (and third wheel) John Brunner challenged his GOP primary rivals Sarah Steelman and Todd Akin to a series of debates—but now Brunner's refusing to participate in a January debate that both of the other candidates have agreed to. Brunner whined that the debate schedule should be set "on the respective campaign's terms, not news or broadcast outlets," but Steelman's camp fired back hard:
"Sarah will debate anywhere and anytime. If Mr. Brunner needs his own set of special rules to make it happen then that is fine. Sarah will debate with no rules and that's fine too. But just to set the record straight, we have been calling for a debate since the beginning of October."
Steelman's politics may be odious to me, but this is the kind of talk I actually really respect on the campaign trail. John Brunner: Master of loser-speak. Sarah Steelman: Knows how to talk smack like a winner!
• NE-Sen: Is Jon Bruning less intimidating to Republicans than Ben Nelson? A report in the Omaha World-Herald says that wealthy bank chair Sid Dinsdale is reportedly considering an entry into the GOP primary field, but that his decision may hinge on whether Sen. Ben Nelson seeks re-election. That means that Bruning, the nominal but badly dinged-up frontrunner on the Republican side, isn't exactly scaring Dinsdale off, but Nelson—not exactly undamaged himself—may well be. Pretty interesting place to find ourselves in, and if this report is accurate, it dovetails with the theory that GOP Gov. Dave Heineman's half-hearted claims that he isn't ruling out a Senate bid is really just a bit of saber-rattling to get Nelson to bow out.
• NJ-Sen: Roxbury township Councilman Tim Smith says he won't seek the GOP nomination for Senate, and a pseudonymous columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger ("the Auditor") thinks that state Sen. Michael Doherty is also unlikely to run. That clears the way for state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, who the Auditor expects to announce "shortly after Christmas." Kyrillos would face Dem Sen. Bob Menendez in the general election.
• TX-Sen: ESPN analyst and former college and NFL football player Craig James has confirmed he'll run for the GOP Senate nomination, filing his candidacy paperwork on Monday. Not only does James face long odds against some serious heavyweight opponents—LG David Dewhurst, former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, and former state Solicitor General Ted Cruz—he's also not particularly well-liked. My Daily Kos colleague Jake McIntyre explains:
Long story short, he's widely loathed by significant numbers of college football fans—particularly those in West Texas—for using his position at ESPN to get celebrated Texas Tech coach (and lovable lunatic) Mike Leach fired. Leach was fantastically successful at a program that had never been worth much, and put Tech on the map.
James's untalented douche of a son played WR at Tech under Leach, and constantly complained about a lack of playing time. James himself would call Leach to complain about his refusal to play junior.
One day, James begged out of practice with a possibly-concussion-related headache. Leach sent him to rest; Junior claimed (falsely, it appears in the fullness of time) that Leach had him locked in a small equipment shed. He complained to Daddy, and Daddy hired a PR firm to push an anti-Leach narrative. At the same time, James leaked untrue anti-Leach stories to credulous ESPN journos. All this eventually led to Leach's firing, which enraged most Tech fans—and the bulk of the CFB blogosphere, who loved Leach and hated James. James sucks as an announcer, and was an essential part of the SMU death penalty scandal of the mid-'80s.
Meanwhile, Democrats have found a replacement for retired Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who dropped out of the race late last week: former state Rep. Paul Sadler. Sadler served in the state House from 1991-2003 and is currently executive director of a wind power lobbying group called the Wind Coalition. Sadler says he'd been contemplating a run ever since Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison announced her retirement… which means he's been thinking about it for almost a year, since that was in January. He certainly was quiet about it, because I don't think anyone had heard his name come up before yesterday. In any event, he said that Sanchez's decision to drop out is what tipped him into the race.
House:
• IL-08: In response to a large local branch of the IBEW announcing their support for Democratic rival Raja Krishnamoorthi last week, Tammy Duckworth just unveiled endorsements from 11 mostly local labor unions representing "thousands" of workers.
• KY-04: There's been a lot of motion in the ocean as far as the GOP primary field for Geoff Davis's seat is concerned. (Davis, you'll recall, just announced his surprise retirement late last week.) Here's a run-down on who's in and who's out:
State Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington: In
Former Mitch McConnell chief-of-staff Hunter Bates: Out
Businessman Kevin Sell: Out
Former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson: Out
And despite this district's deep red hue, quite a few potential Democratic candidates are emerging from the woodwork. Three of them tell the Louisville Courier-Journal that they're considering the race, Grant County Judge-Executive Darrell Link, former Gallatin County Judge-Executive Kenny French, and state Democratic Party vice chairman Nathan Smith, whom we mentioned as a possibility when the news of Davis's retirement first broke. Meanwhile, reporter Amanda Van Benschoten rattles off several more names:
[L]ongtime Campbell County Commissioner Ken Rechtin, the lone Democratic county commissioner in Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties; Edgewood attorney Patrick Hughes, who has previously run for Kenton County judge-executive and now works in the office of Attorney General Jack Conway; and Linda Klembara of Fort Thomas, president of the Kentucky Women’s Network who previously ran for state representative.
• MN-06: This is certainly unusual: A senior Republican state legislator is stepping down from a leadership post due having an affair with a staffer—but in the case, the lawmaker is a woman, Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, the first woman to hold that position. Koch is saying that she'll serve out her term in the Senate, though at least one fellow Republican senator gunning for her old leadership job thinks she should resign from the chamber entirely. This is getting filed under MN-06 because Koch had been considered a possible successor to GOP Rep. Michelle Bachmann if she decides not to seek re-election this cycle. That is almost certainly off the table now.
Meanwhile, Roll Call's Abby Livingston mentions another pair of possible Bachmann replacements that we hadn't heard about before: state House Majority Leader Matt Dean and state Rep. Chris DeLaForest. We name-checked a few others back in June.
• MS-04: This is quite interesting: Former Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor, who held down some stunningly red turf in Mississippi for over two decades with aplomb before finally getting turned out in 2010's red storm, isn't closing the door on a comeback bid. Despite his long tenure, Taylor is only 58 and says "anything’s a possibility," though he's caring for his ill father, which would augur against another run.
But if Taylor does decide to make a go of it, he may get a boost from a potentially serious internecine battle on the GOP side. As we noted a couple of weeks ago, Republicans are starting to badmouth the guy who managed to knock off Taylor last year, Steven Palazzo. Since then, the drumbeat's gotten a little louder, with Roll Call reporting that Palazzo has been asking congressional staffers to handle personal chores like babysitting and moving—which would be a violation of House ethics rules against using staff for members' "personal benefit."
So it's unsurprising that some GOPers are considering a primary challenge. We previously mentioned state Sen. Michael Watson (who is just 33), but the Biloxi Sun Herald's Geoff Pender adds another potential name: Attorney Brian Sanderson, who he says "helped head Gov. Haley Barbour’s Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts" and describes as "well-connected." (Sanderson is also pretty young, 38.) Additionally, because there's no pleasing `em, local teabaggers are saying they'll put up a candidate against Palazzo, too. The filing deadline is Jan. 13 and the primary not long after, March 13, so we'll get a sense of this field very shortly.
• OH-09, OH-11: While we're on the topic, Ohio's latest (and final) map did include one key change: It made the re-drawn 9th CD even more unwinnable for Dennis Kucinich, who had been thrown into a primary with fellow Dem Rep. Marcy Kaptur. So now the rumor mill is suggesting that Kucinich might instead try to seek re-election in the majority-black 11th, home of Rep. Marcia Fudge. Fudge had already drawn a primary challenge from another black politician, state Sen. Nina Turner, so it's possible that the two could split the African-American vote in the primary and let Kucinich emerge victorious.
• PA-12: This is a surprise: Up-and-coming Republican state Rep. Jim Christiana, who first expressed interest in a possible congressional bid months ago, will not run in the redrawn 12th. This district, which will pit two Democratic incumbents against each other in a primary, was also all but custom-drawn for someone like Christiana, which is why his decision not to run is so unexpected. However, Christiana's only 28 years old and has a long career ahead of him—and it's also possible that he's clearing the way for state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai to run instead. (Turzai got crushed by Dem Rep. Ron Klink in a 1998 run for the 1990s version of the 4th CD, a partial predecessor to this district.) Right now, though, the main GOPer in the race is still attorney Keith Rothfus, who very nearly beat Dem Rep. Jason Altmire in the old 4th last year.
• TN-03: Late last week, businessman Bill Taylor announced he'd run for Tennessee's Third Congressional District as a Democrat. This very red seat hasn't been held by Dems since Marilyn Lloyd retired in 1994, and you can guess what happened to an open seat in the South that year. But Taylor may be hoping for the eventual Republican nominee to emerge damaged, thanks to a brewing primary on the GOP side. If you've been following this race, you know that GOPer Chuck Fleischmann is facing a challenge from a young but well-funded Weston Wamp, son of Zach (the guy who held the seat between Lloyd and Fleischmann).
• TX-14: Democratic ex-Rep. Nick Lampson, who had long sounded interested in making another comeback bid, filed paperwork to run in the open 14th Congressional District yesterday. And guess who delivered those filing papers? None other than Daily Kos Elections' own trowaman—aka Joseph Vogas—who'd been spearheading a Draft Lampson effort. Trowaman isn't a staffer but made the four-hour drive to Austin as a favor to the campaign. Pretty cool, huh? Anyhow, Lampson represented a large portion of the various versions of the district we've seen this year (both in the legislature's map and the court-drawn map), back when it was known as the old 9th during his first turn in Congress. Assuming the final map bears some resemblance to either of these maps, Lampson definitely has a shot, even though the district would still be quite red. Ten Republicans have filed to run here so far, so it'll be a while before we know who Lampson's opponent will be.
• TX-27: Former Brownsville city commissioner Anthony Troiani says he'll join the Democratic field in the 27th CD.
• UT-02: Another Republican resigns to run in Utah: This time it's state Rep. David Clark, a former House speaker, who plans to seek the open 2nd CD seat. (Last week state Sen. Dan Liljenquist did the same.) Clark will be joining a whole bunch of other GOPers, whom Robert Gehrke of the Salt Lake Tribune helpfully lists out:
The Republican field includes conservative activist Cherilyn Eagar, author and former Air Force pilot Chris Stewart, former Air Force official Chuck Williams, businessman Howard Wallack, and Navy and commercial pilot John Willoughby. Former NFL defensive lineman Jason Buck also may join the race.
Other Races:
• PA-St. Sen.: A little down in the weeds, but good news for Democrats: Four-term Republican state Sen. Jane Earll won't seek re-election next year, which is worth noting because her Erie-based district is almost certainly the bluest seat held by a GOPer in the entire Senate. (Adam B has a good suggestion for a possible candidate: Dem ex-Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper.) Republicans have a 30-20 edge in the chamber, though, so it's a long march back for Dems.
Redistricting Roundup:
• AZ Redistricting: According to reporter Howard Fischer, Arizona's redistricting commission is getting close to finalizing a congressional map, which makes sense since the chair of the panel, Colleen Mathis, had previously set an informal deadline of Christmas for signing off on new plans. You can check out all the various proposals at the commission's website.
• NJ Redistricting: New Jersey's congressional redistricting efforts got underway in earnest on Monday, as the panel responsible for coming up with a new map finally convened. We haven't seen any proposed maps, but this is what the latest scuttlebutt says:
The Democrats’ initial map will put Garrett (R-5th Dist.) and Lance (R-7th Dist.) together, according to the sources. And while it’s less certain what the Republicans will do, they’ll probably put Rothman (D-9th Dist.) and Bill Pascrell (D-8th Dist.) — whose hometowns of Fair Lawn and Paterson share a border — in the same district.
But members of both sides privately conceded that it is possible, even likely, that the final map will have what is called a "fair fight" district, where a Democrat and Republican are thrown together and either could win.
Patrick Murray, the director of polling at Monmouth University, said that is the most likely scenario. And he agreed with the matchup of the conservative Garrett and the liberal Rothman, the scenario that has been making the biggest rounds recently in political circles.
"I think something like a Garrett-Rothman matchup seems like a very high probability because I think it will appeal to John Farmer," Murray said. "It will pit a Democrat against a Republican. And it won’t threaten the most senior members of our delegation."
• OH Redistricting: Gov. John Kasich signed Ohio's revised congressional redistricting plan into law last Thursday, right after it passed through both chambers of the legislature with shameful numbers of Democrats voting in favor of it. Meanwhile, Ohio Democratic chair Chris Redfern is blaming the DCCC for the failure of the petition drive to place the first map that Republicans passed in September on the ballot for a referendum. Redfern says he asked the DCCC for money to fund the effort but they refused—and the D-Trip isn't denying it, either.
This supports my pet theory that most of the remaining members of Ohio's Democratic congressional delegation were actually okay with the map, and therefore the DCCC's hands were tied, since it can't really go against the wishes of the incumbents who pay the dues that fund its mission. That's still no excuse for the ODP, though, which—if it was sincere about pursuing this referendum—should have put the pedal to the metal. What's more, it doesn't explain why Democratic legislators voted en masse for the latest map. There was no call for that at all. They could have at least let it pass with a non-referendum-proof margin and hoped that a rich benefactor or motivated union would come and save with day with a second petition drive. The fact that they gave the GOP their votes despite getting bupkes in terms of revisions suggests to me that the fix was in, regardless of Redfern's attempt to shift blame to DC.
