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• House Open Seat Watch: The newest installment in our 2012 House Open Seat Watch is finally here. We've accounted for every twist and turn brought on by reapportionment and redistricting, and you won't find a more comprehensive list anywhere else of who's in, who's out, and who's still on the watch list. An impressive 49 seats are open as of this date, and there may be many more yet to come. Click the link for our bevy of charts which will give you the full picture, in classic Daily Kos Elections style.
4Q Fundraising:
The fourth-quarter fundraising deadline is on Tuesday at midnight Eastern time, so we'll bring you our roundup of House fundraising numbers shortly thereafter. In the meantime, we'll keep bringing you numbers from Senate races and other contests as they trickle in:
• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon (R): $327K raised; Chris Shays (R): $522K raised (incl. $100K self-loan)
• WA-Sen: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D): $1.4 mil raised, $4 mil cash-on-hand
Senate:
• FL-Sen: We may be back to a polling stalemate in Florida's Senate race. After Quinnipiac and PPP split on the issue of whether it was a close race or not (Qpac yes, PPP no), Suffolk came out with a poll last Thursday tipping the balance toward "no," showing a 42-32 lead for Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson. Unfortunately, though, now the balance tips back, with another poll showing a close race. This one's from Mason-Dixon, on behalf of various in-state newspapers, and it has Nelson up by only 3, leading GOP Rep. Connie Mack IV 45-42. Mack's in firm control of the GOP primary, at 38, with 12 for George LeMieux, 7 for Mike McCalister, 4 for Adam Hasner, and 1 for Craig Miller.
Miller may have gotten tired of seeing very small numbers next to his name, though, as this weekend he became the first of the lesser GOPers to pull the plug, post-Mack's entry. He isn't vanishing, though, just dropping down to a House race to be determined. (You might remember that Miller narrowly lost the GOP primary in FL-24 back in 2010, which for some bizarre reason he thought he could parlay into a statewide run.) Based on where his house is, in Orlando suburb Winter Park, that would pit him against long-time Rep. John Mica in a GOP primary in the 7th District, so he might gravitate toward one of the open seat opportunities that will pop up in central Florida once the maps are set. (David Jarman)
• HI-Sen: Honolulu Civil Beat, a site which has justly earned praise around these parts for its thorough reporting on the 2nd Congressional District Democratic primary, is out with a poll of Hawaii's other hotly contested Dem race, the one for its open Senate seat. What's a bit awkward, though, is that Civil Beat is using Merriman River—the very same pollster relied on by ex-Rep. Ed Case last summer to make an exceptionally dodgy argument that he was more electable than Mazie Hirono, his rival for the nomination. That earned Case a spectacular smack-down by none other than the DSCC, which accused Case of not "being honest."
In any event, Civil Beat's survey finds Case at 41 and Hirono at 39, which at least is a far cry from the 53-37 Case's internal alleged back in July. By way of comparison, PPP had Hirono up 45-40 in October while a Benenson poll for Hirono had her with a 54-36 edge in November. Civil Beat will also have general election results on Tuesday.
• IL-Sen: Another update from the office of GOP Sen. Mark Kirk, who suffered a serious stroke a week ago:
"Senator Kirk's recovery is continuing. He is alert, talking and responding well to questions. He has been upgraded to fair condition and we are very pleased with his progress," said Richard Fessler, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
• MA-Sen: The alt-weekly Boston Phoenix takes an interesting look at what they refer to as Elizabeth Warren's "Dr. Phil years": the point in Warren's career when she decided to branch out from academia to take her message about personal fiscal discipline to the broader public, via the popular television show hosted by Phil McGraw, a fellow Oklahoman.
• MD-Sen: Lovely: Not that he ever had any chance at all of beating Sen. Ben Cardin in the Democratic primary, but state Sen. C. Anthony Muse was set to speak at a rally against marriage equality on Monday night. That ought to seal his fate for sure.
• MI-Sen: Buried in EPIC-MRA's Michigan presidential primary poll last week were some numbers for the GOP Senate primary. Ex-Rep. Pete Hoekstra leads charter school advocate Clark Durant by an extremely wide 40-3 margin. Unless Durant can somehow find a way to put a lot of money in this race—whether by his own doing or with outside help—it looks like Hoekstra is going to walk away with the Republican nomination.
• MT-Sen: Karl Rove's American Crossroads—which has already spent a ton attacking Dem Sen. Jon Tester—is touting an internal from Public Opinion Strategies which purports to show GOP Rep. Denny Rehberg up by a 52-42 spread. Considering that every other poll has showed this race a dead heat, this one is very difficult to credit, especially seeing as Crossroads certainly has a dog in this fight, and can afford to keep polling until it gets numbers it likes. I'm sure Rove rolls up his D&D characters the same way.
• NE-Sen: The Fix reports that Democratic ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey, who is contemplating a comeback bid in the wake of Ben Nelson's retirement, is buying a home in Nebraska. (He hasn't lived there in over a decade.) Kerrey says, though, that "it really isn’t a signal that we have decided to re-enter politics" but rather claims: "Almost all my family is in Nebraska so we need a place to gather when I am back." So what did he do the last dozen times he visited his folks? You don't need to buy a house just to visit with people. Sounds like he wants to keep his options open, at the very least.
• NM-Sen: Rep. Martin Heinrich is touting a new internal from GBA Strategies (also known as Gerstein-Bocian-Agne) that shows him ahead of Auditor Hector Balderas by a 52-22 margin in the Democratic primary. The polling memo notes that Heinrich even leads among Hispanics, 46-30, and that his edge isn't attributable solely to name recognition: Among respondents who recognize both candidates, Heinrich is up 51-28.
• NY-Sen: With Mark Cenedella's nascent candidacy starting to look like a keg-stand gone wrong, Republicans are busy touting someone else who may be willing to get steamrolled by Dem Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: attorney and conservative activist Wendy Long. Long was a key figure in leading the right-wing opposition to Sonia Sotomayor's elevation to the Supreme Court, so that will play as well with Latinos as Cenedella's douchefaced blog posts will with women. Keep `em coming, GOP.
• PA-Sen: The GOP's state committee issued endorsements this past weekend, and the main event was the Senate primary, where there a variety of little-known self-funders are jostling for the nod. As expected (since Gov. Tom Corbett had already come out with an endorsement last week), Steve Welch got the state party's backing. (Welch is the most moderate of the bunch and the only one from SE Pennsylvania, hence considered the most electable in November.) Welch got 182 votes to 51 for Tom Smith, 46 for Tim Burns, 33 for Sam Rohrer (who isn't personally wealthy, but is an ex-state Rep. who then ran the Pennsylvania chapter of Koch front group Americans for Prosperity), and 6 for former Santorum staffer Marc Scaringi.
Rohrer's definitely staying in, but Will There Ever Be a Rainbow for Mr. Burns? Well, he's determined to find out, despite the state party going for his rich rival Aristotle Amadopolis Steve Welch. Burns, contrary to earlier signals, now vows to keep on fighting in the GOP Senate primary, rather than drop down to the PA-12 race, as some had wanted.
• TN-Sen: Tennessee Democrats have come up very, very short in recruiting anyone to take on freshman Sen. Bob Corker, so now they're are talking up some "nontraditional options":
"There's some intriguing conversations with some people in the entertainment industry in our state that would have instant name recognition," said Chip Forrester, the party's state chairman, who declined to name any of the celebrities or other potential candidates. "But there's always that conundrum that people in the entertainment business who have an interest in politics face: What impact does that have on their entertainment careers?"
Could he be referring to country singer Tim McGraw, a self-described Democrat who has expressed an interest in running for office in the past? He'd certainly have name rec!
• WI-Sen: Someone's been digging through Tommy Thompson's official papers from his time as governor, and I mean really digging. Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shares some remarks Thompson made in 1997 to the Puerto Rico legislature (!)—remarks that Thompson, who has tried to tie himself to conservative hero Scott Walker, probably wishes he could un-say:
"The relationship between labor and management in the public and private sector (in Wisconsin) is harmonious, due in part to the ongoing ability to communicate and solve problems through the collective bargaining process," Thompson told the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on Oct. 30, 1997, according to a copy of the speech in his official papers. [...]
"In respect to state government, Wisconsin has collectively bargained with state employees for 25 years. By working together, we've created a positive atmosphere for state employees and enhanced services to our citizens (and) ensuring excellence in delivering services to our citizens," Thompson said, according to the transcript.
"Our efforts have cumulated in Wisconsin's ranking as one of the most powerful economies in America for seven consecutive years."
It gets even better—way better. The head of the Wisconsin state employees' chapter of AFSCME, Marty Beil, says his union wrote that portion of the speech and specifically asked Thompson to include it, because they were hoping to organize government employees in Puerto Rico. Amazing stuff! Thompson, of course, is claiming that there's nothing inconsistent about what said then and the stances he's trying to adopt now... but good luck with that. (And hats off to whichever Republican candidate's oppo department churned out this hit. Well done.)
Meanwhile, Rothenberg's Jessica Taylor says Thompson is touting a new internal poll that shows him with a "15-point lead" in the Republican primary... but the full thing is behind RPR's paywall, so we don't even know who's in second (though I'd guess ex-Rep. Mark Neumann).
Finally, it looks like Lasee has decided to come home: Republican state Sen. Frank Lasee has, unsurprisingly, bailed on seeking his party's nomination for the open-seat Senate race. When he got into the race back in October, I asked: "Can a state Senator ever be a Some Dude? Maybe, if he's running in a field that includes a former governor, an obscenely wealthy former congressman, the Speaker of the state House, and possibly an obscenely wealthy hedge fund manager." Looks like my assessment was right. Incidentally, that obscenely wealthy hedge fund manager—Eric Hovde—is "moving closer toward jumping in," for whatever that's worth. (That's again according to Daniel Bice, at the end of the same piece as above.)
Gubernatorial:
• MO-Gov: Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!? Not if Brother Spence has anything to say about it!
“Leadership is something I’ve done all my life,” Spence said. “There’s a new Beta house going in Missouri: I was one of three people that said ‘we can do it,’ and everybody said “no you can’t, no you cant.’ We raised 8.6 million dollars and it’ll be open in August, so it’s going to be the finest fraternity house in the country.”
Question: Will this frat house be strictly for home ec majors?
(In case you aren't familiar with him, Dave Spence is the plastics magnate who is seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Missouri.)
• MT-Gov: The portly GOP primary field for Montana's open governor's mansion is starting to slim down a bit. State Sen. Jeff Essmann, who had been one of the better fundraisers among the bunch, has decided to drop out. (Real-estate investor and self-published sci-fi author Drew Turiano, best known for his work "George Buchanan Enters the Wormhole," also bailed about ten days ago). The nominal Republican frontrunner at this point is ex-Rep. Rick Hill, though former state Sens. Corey Stapleton and Ken Miller are also in the hunt. (A half-dozen other Some Dudes and losers are in the race as well.) The winner will almost certainly take on Democratic AG Steve Bullock in the general.
• NC-Gov: Holy moly, that's a lot of names! PPP tested out no fewer than 13 potential replacements for Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue on the gubernatorial ballot. Click the link for all the numbers (and I do mean all of them) in our full post at Daily Kos Elections, as well as a few updates about who's in and who's out (including state Rep. Bill Faison, who unsurprisingly declared for the race).
House:
• AZ-08: On Friday, Gov. Jan Brewer set the dates for the special election to replace ex-Rep. Gabby Giffords, who resigned on Wednesday of last week. The primary will be held on April 17 and the general on June 12. The elections will be conducted under the existing lines for the 8th CD, though the regularly-scheduled August 28 primary will use the new map that was recently approved by the state's redistricting commission. (That map, incidentally, will renumber this district from AZ-08 to AZ-02.)
• AZ-09: Democratic state party chair Andrei Cherny—the man who introduced us to the concept of the Great Mentioner—now goes from "mentioned" to reality himself. Cherny, whose name first came up in classic Great Mentioner style back in October, says he's entering the race for Arizona's new 9th District and will resign his party post in order to do so. He joins ex-state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Senate Minority Leader David Schapira in the hunt for the Democratic nomination.
• IL-10: Activist Ilya Sheyman continues his string of labor endorsements as he seeks the Democratic nomination to take on GOP freshman Bob Dold! in the redrawn 10th. This time, he's announcing the backing of the Illinois Federation of Teachers.
• MA-09: While Democratic freshman Rep. Bill Keating isn't likely to face as competitive a general election as he had in 2010 (when his district, then MA-10, was an open seat), he might have to refight the same primary battle again: State Sen. Robert O'Leary is reportedly still considering the race. O'Leary is from Barnstable County (i.e. Cape Cod), which may give him a bit of geographical advantage, as that's more clearly the district's center of gravity now; Quincy on the South Shore, where Keating's base is, got moved out of the district, though Keating just re-domiciled himself at his beach house on the Cape. (Bristol Co. DA Samuel Sutter is in the Dem primary too, though, which might split up the non-Keating vote.) The article also briefly mentions the first GOPer to get into the contest, Plymouth-area businessman Christopher Sheldon. (David Jarman)
• NC-10: Democratic state Rep. Patsy Keever formally kicked off her bid against GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry late last week. Back in November, she said she'd run "if the redistricting maps hold," and while we still don't have any certainty on that front, it's starting to look like they will, at least for 2012. Keever was a redistricting victim with regard to the new state legislative maps, so this is an escape hatch for her, albeit a very difficult one: John McCain won this district by a 57-42 margin in 2008. Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy is also running in the Democratic primary.
• NC-11: Businessman Ethan Wingfield, who first started looking at the race last month, has decided to join the crowded GOP field hoping to take on Dem Rep. Heath Shuler. Right out the gate, he says he's raised $200K, but despite his youth (he's just 26), he had said he could partially self-fund, so some (if not a lot) of that money could be from his own pockets.
• NJ-03: This sounds like as good of a get as we could possibly hope for: Shelley Adler, the widow of former Rep. John Adler, will reportedly challenge GOP freshman Jon Runyan this fall. John Adler, you'll recall, won this seat when it was open in 2008 because Republican Jim Saxton decided to retire. He lost it in the red tide of 2010, then tragically died just a few months later, only 51 years old. You may also remember that last in December, Politicker took note of the fact that Shelley Adler's hometown of Cherry Hill had been moved out of the redrawn 3rd CD, which augured against a run. But apparently she plans to move back into the district and with any luck, she'll resemble the fundraising machine her husband was. (Politicker also adds that physician Thomas Sacks-Wilner, whose name first came up as a potential Democratic candidate in November, will not run.)
• NY-13: Though the New York Times buried the lede (and gave this article a boring headline), it looks as though this story might be utterly explosive for freshman Republican Mike Grimm. Ofer Biton, an aide to an Israeli rabbi who moved to New York six years ago, Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, is already under investigation by the F.B.I. for embezzling money from the rabbi's congregation. As it happens, Biton also helped Grimm raise money from the same community in extremely—and very possibly illegal—ways. Here are some of the juiciest tidbits:
Three of the rabbi’s followers said in separate interviews that Mr. Grimm or Mr. Biton told them that the campaign would find a way to accept donations that were over the legal limit, were given in cash or were given by foreigners without green cards. [...]
One follower of the rabbi said in an interview that Mr. Grimm pressed him for $20,000. The follower said Mr. Grimm instructed him to meet him “near the F.B.I. building,” in Lower Manhattan, in summer 2010 to give the money. The follower said he handed over $5,000 in cash in an envelope to Mr. Grimm in Mr. Grimm’s car.
There's quite a bit more at the link, such as anecdotes like this:
A second follower recalled that Mr. Grimm came to his office in Manhattan to solicit a legal contribution. As he was handing over the check, the second follower said, Mr. Grimm confided in him that there were ways of working around the campaign rules.
“Grimm wanted you to supply the money, and if someone wants to give and cannot give, you have to find a friend to give it through,” the second follower recalled. “Let’s say someone is not legal to give because he’s not American. Grimm wants this guy, Joe A, to give the money to Joe B so Joe B can make the contribution to the campaign.”
A third follower said he picked up, at Mr. Biton’s behest, $25,000 for Mr. Grimm’s campaign from a single Israeli.
Grimm, of course, denies all these charges, though after initially agreeing to an interview with the Times, he's since clammed up. But it's hard to see this ending well for him. Still, one thing not to lose sight of in all this is whether Democrats have a candidate who can take advantage of the situation. Former Public Advocate aide Mark Murphy jumped into the race about ten days ago, but this tidbit from Roll Call is making me rather uncomfortable:
In a telephone interview with Roll Call on Thursday, Murphy ticked through national Democratic talking points but seemed unsure of what, exactly, he believed. He said he was going to campaign hard against a “say-no Congress.” But Murphy became flustered and had trouble coming up with an answer when asked what, in particular, he opposed that Congress had said no to.
You've gotta wonder whether ex-Rep. Mike McMahon, who has reportedly been weighing a comeback bid since forever, might be prompted to finally get in thanks to these revelations.
• OR-01: The statistics on returned ballots look as bleak as ever for Republican Rob Cornilles: 47% have been cast so far by registered Democrats, versus just 35% by Republicans. That's pretty much unchanged from the ratio last week—48D, 34R—and is as good for Democrat Suzanne Bonamici as it is bad for Cornilles. (Don't you love zero-sum games... when you're winning them?)
• PA-17: A third Democrat is circulating petitions to get on the ballot in the redrawn 17th District, Luzerne County Councilman Stephen Urban. Rep. Tim Holden is seeking re-election in this seat, which is much bluer than any he's represented in the past, and he's already drawn a primary challenge from the left in the form of attorney Matt Cartwright. While I'd ordinarily be tempted to say the clown-car effect would redound to Holden's advantage here, but Urban was a lifelong Republican until little over a year ago, and he even ran for Lt. Gov. in the GOP primary in 2010. So with Cartwright to the left of him, Urban to the right, could voters get stuck in the middle with Holden? We'll have to wait and see: Urban isn't sure yet whether he'll actually run, but collecting signatures allows him to keep his options open.
• WA-01: Don't call me, Ishmael... we'll call you. That seems to be what the state GOP said to former Issaquah School Board president and '08 WA-01 loser Larry Ishmael and the other minor GOPers cluttering up the field in the open 1st district (where Snohomish County Councilor, and '10 WA-02 loser, John Koster is the Republican standard-bearer). It looks like the GOP seriously lowered the boom at its annual conference this weekend, because all three of Koster's opponents just evaporated: Ishmael will soldier on but as an independent, while James Watkins (the '10 WA-01 loser) and Greg Anders, director of the Heritage Flight Museum, both quit the race.
This comes only days after Watkins was the lone GOP participant in a WA-01 candidate forum (held in Seattle); PubliCola's blow-by-blow write-up of the event is well worth the read, especially if you're interested in learning more about some of the other candidates in the Dem field (there's a lot more to it than just Darcy Burner and Suzan DelBene). (David Jarman)
Other Races:
• SC GOP Primary: South Carolina Republicans have finally caught up with our analysis from last week and have awarded Mitt Romney two delegates for winning the vote in the state's 1st Congressional District. The AP says that that Romney won SC-01 "by about 1,400 votes"; for the record, our analysis had it at 1,411. Anyhow, it's starting to feel like this won't matter a whole lot to the final outcome, but we're nothing if not thorough at Daily Kos Elections, especially when it comes to crunching results on the congressional district level.
Grab Bag:
• DCCC, NRCC: In case you missed these numbers, the DCCC reported raising $61 million over the course of 2011—extremely impressive considering that Democrats lost a gazillion seats last cycle and are very much in the minority. What's more, the D-Trip even managed to outraise the NRCC! Adding their December totals to the $51.8 mil they'd taken in until that point, that gives them about $54.5 mil for the year. I'm not sure how the party with 242 seats managed to get their asses kicked by the guys with just 191 seats, but someone's gonna have some 'splainin' to do.
• Texas: One small detail almost lost in the shuffle of Texas redistricting litigation: The San Antonio court suspended the Feb. 1 candidate filing deadline it had previously imposed, until further notice. That deadline, which was optimistic to begin with, became unworkable when the Supreme Court issued its stay of the court's interim maps and no quick agreement between the parties was forthcoming.
Redistricting Roundup:
• AZ Redistricting: I don't like the sound of this at all. Though Republican dreams of putting a proposal on the ballot this year to eliminate the state's redistricting commission have been quashed (by one of their own, oddly enough—Gov. Jan Brewer), a nefarious Plan B may be in the offing. House Speaker Andy Tobin wants to put an alternate set of maps on the ballot in a May special election—in other words, he wants voters to be able to pick a specific set of maps that he's drawn (which of course favor the GOP), in place of the maps created by the commission. While the idea of the commission itself is popular and getting rid of it at the ballot box would have been extremely difficult, this proposal would turn into a clearer D-vs.-R partisan fight, one I think Team Red might be favored to win. Ugh. Anyhow, Tobin has to get this passed by Feb. 15 in order to hold the special election, so hopefully he won't be successful.
• FL Redistricting: On Friday, the redistricting committee in Florida's state House finally narrowed things down and settled on a single congressional map to send before the full chamber this week. You can view the map here—just scroll down to the "Bills" section and click on the link that says "Approved for House Floor: Congressional HB 6005 (H000C9047)" to expand it and reveal all the sub-links. Anyhow, one important thing to note is that the House did a California-style renumbering, so, for instance, FL-09 on the House map is the equivalent of FL-27 on the Senate map (which you can find here for reference).
The differences between the two plans aren't major, but there are differences nonetheless—something a moment's glance at the two maps will show. (If you'd like to compare presidential numbers for the two proposals, click here.) This means, ultimately, that the House and Senate will have to come to some kind of compromise arrangement. And never discount the possibility of parochial interests derailing the process, even when one party controls all the levers of power.
• ID Redistricting: Hahah! I'm sure the Idaho GOP is furious. After desperately trying—and failing—to fire their own redistricting commissioners, the panel met last week and unanimously agreed to a new legislative map which fixed the problems identified by the state supreme court. (The original plan had split too many counties.) The new plan could still go before the high court once again, though, if there are any further challenges.
• KY Redistricting: Unable to reach an agreement on a congressional map, the Kentucky legislature is trying to move Tuesday's filing deadline ahead by one week. The hope is that this will give lawmakers more time to work out a compromise. Also note that the looming filing deadline was the excuse Dem Gov. Steve Beshear offered as to why he signed an appalling GOP-drawn Senate map into law, rather than demanding the lege take another crack at it, even though of course the deadline can—and likely will be—delayed very easily.
• KY Redistricting: In a completely separate Kentucky redistricting story, Republicans filed a lawsuit late last week challenging the new state House map, alleging a complaint often seen in other states regarding legislative plans: It splits too many counties. Ordinarily, this kind of story is too commonplace to merit a mention here, but there's an unusual detail: The GOP's attorneys are arguing that since both the House and Senate maps were passed together as part of one piece of legislation, then "if one part of the bill is declared unconstitutional, then the whole bill is unconstitutional."
This gets at a legal issue known as "severability," which I won't delve into here, but because the challenge formally targets both maps, Democratic state Sen. Kathy Stein says it's "highly likely" she'll join the suit. Why? As we've explained previously, she has a pretty legitimate beef with the Senate plan, so the Republican lawsuit would just provide her with a vehicle to get into court. It's not strictly necessary (she could certainly file a case on her own), but Stein thinks it could move things along faster. (There's also the added issue that the GOP, if it continues to argue for the non-severability of the two maps, could wind up nuking the state Senate plan that Republicans themselves crafted—but it's possible GOPers in the House just don't give a damn about their counterparts in the Senate.)
• NY Redistricting: A couple scuttlebutt-flavored items about New York's slow-to-take-shape House map. First, Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver weighed in on the fate of NY-09, the GOP-trending part of Queens that elected Republican Bob Turner in a special election; Silver would rather keep it intact and eliminate a Republican district upstate, based on the idea that Dems can win NY-09 back under normal circumstances. (Of course, seeing as how New York City still needs to lose a seat, that would put another Dem seat on the chopping block there... most likely Gary Ackerman's NY-05. The real question may be: would the parts of NY-05, the next district to its north in Queens, that got dispersed into current NY-09 make the new version any bluer?)
There's also discussion of how to prop up Charlie Rangel a little longer, whose Harlem-based NY-15 is currently a Hispanic-plurality district. There's rumors of having it expand tendrils into the Bronx, and even up into Westchester County (presumably Mount Vernon?), to push up its African-American numbers. (David Jarman)
• PA Redistricting: While the entire Pennsylvania political universe is waiting for the state supreme court to issue its opinion explaining its ruling last week that the state's new legislative maps are unconstitutional, a sitting judge on the court quite amazingly spoke on the record about the merits of the case with a reporter. I don't think I have ever seen a judge do something like this, but that's exactly what Democrat Max Baer did:
Baer also settled a question debated between Democrats and Republicans on whether it was possible for a new map to be approved in time for the April 24 primary. He said it wasn't. Current boundaries, in place for a decade, will continue until 2014.
"I think this year's elections are going to go on the 2001 lines," Baer said. "I think that is what the majority [of justices] intended, and I think that is what a reading of the chief justice's order said."
Baer added that he was surprised by the political explosion that followed the justices' 4-3 vote on the Legislative Reapportionment Commission's plan.
"I did not expect this maelstrom," he said. "I don't think any of us did. But in 40 years since the constitution established this procedure, this is the first the court has voted to not rubber-stamp the commission's work."
Republicans are enraged: That the court overturned the map, that it didn't have its reasoning ready for publication when it did so, and, of course, that Baer is cracking out of turn. What's more, Baer's idea is ridiculous: The 2001 maps have population variances of about 30 to 40 percent—way, way more than would ever be acceptable under "one person, one vote" jurisprudence. So if the PA high court nevertheless rules this way, I think a further federal lawsuit is possible.
Oh, and here's an amusing side-note: Commenter rdw72777 points out points out that the supreme court's website includes this warning to visitors:
Notice to the Public: Justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and all judges of the Commonwealth are prohibited by judicial rules of ethics from discussing pending cases with members of the public. Please do not contact the chambers of justices or judges to ask questions about cases, to discuss cases or to comment on cases. Jurists are unable to respond to such communications.
• WA Redistricting: This may be the thinnest AP article of all time, but apparently the Washington legislature is in the midst of adopting some small "technical adjustments" to the state's new redistricting plans. The constitution only allows lawmakers to make changes that affect less than 2% of a given district's population, and even those little tweaks need a two-thirds majority to pass, so don't expect anything major to happen. The changes have passed the state House (unanimously) but not the Senate yet; either way, the maps automatically become law 30 days after the start of the current legislative session, which by my calendar would be Feb. 7.
