Leading Off:
● MI-01: So do you know who's suffered the most from the Flint water crisis? Not the city's children, who were injured by lead in their drinking water. Not residents, who were forced to pay for undrinkable sludge while state officials ignored their increasingly desperate complaints. No, you see, the true victim is Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, the man responsible for letting this disaster unfold on his watch, according to GOP state Sen. Tom Casperson. In a speech on the floor of the legislature on Thursday, Casperson declared that criticisms of Snyder are "almost like a poison in the heart, a poison of the spirit"—yes, he actually used the word "poison." Casperson went on to complain further:
"But I sense there's an attack on him almost to crucify him, to get him. And I would just caution all of us that there's more than just the man. His wife. He has children as well. Can you imagine what they're thinking hearing what they're hearing about their dad?"
Won't you please think of the incredibly wealthy governor who's having his feelings hurt? While the northern Michigan district Casperson is hoping to represent is a world away from Flint in every sense, Democrat Lon Johnson has brought up the crisis on the campaign trail, saying there are "too many unfortunate parallels" between what's going on in Flint and the environmental disaster he fears if a 60-year-old oil pipeline running under the Great Lakes isn't shut down. "The same politicians who told worried Flint residents to 'relax' back in July," warns Johnson, "now swear up and down that the Line 5 pipeline is secure." After Casperson's outburst, you can expect Flint to come up some more.
And he may soon have some more company on the GOP side, too. Kyle Melinn of MIRS News reports that retired Lt. Gen. Jack Bergman is circulating petitions to get on the ballot, and adds that state Rep. Peter Pettalia is still looking at the race. Also already running is former state Sen. Jason Allen.
Senate:
● CA-Sen: While California Republicans mostly seem to be coalescing around former state party chair Duf Sundheim, Tom Del Beccaro, the other former state GOP chair in the race for Senate, just got an endorsement from Rep. Tom McClintock, one of the most prominent conservatives in California's Republican congressional delegation. While this might seem like a slap-fight between two featherweight candidates, if Republicans fail to unite behind a single option, they could get locked out of the general election altogether, thanks to California's top-two primary. And Democrats care, too: State Attorney General Kamala Harris, the frontrunner, would very much like to face off against a Republican in November, rather than Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a fellow Democrat.
● FL-Sen: This is some story. According to Bloomberg Politics, hedge fund manager Alan Grayson cashed out of a profitable investment last year in Nevsun, a Canadian company whose revenues come almost entirely from a gold and copper mine in Eritrea—a mine built with slave labor. Citizens in Eritrea, a brutally repressive nation dubbed a "pariah state" by Human Rights Watch, are forced into a horrific "national service" program where many are sent to work at state-owned construction companies indefinitely and face "imprisonment, torture, and even reprisals directed against their families" if they try to flee, according to the group.
Grayson, a Democrat who is also a member of the House, has inveighed against trading with countries that employ slave labor in congressional testimony, but predictably, he says he has done nothing wrong with regard to his Nevsun investment, which may have been valued at $1 million or more. Speaking to Bloomberg, Grayson said, "I didn't know, I couldn't have known" about Eritrea's record because "nobody brought it to my attention" until now.
But Grayson, in marketing materials for his hedge fund, has touted his deep international experience and has even claimed to have visited "every country" in the world. If he's so worldly and wise, then how was he unaware of Eritrea's exceptionally awful human rights record? And if he was in fact clueless, then why should anyone invest with him? Grayson likely doesn't care either way: When asked if he regretted profiting off of slave labor, says Bloomberg, he "declined further comment and ended the interview."
● SCOTUS: While Senate Republicans are in utter disarray over how to proceed on replacing Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, movement conservatives who aren't burdened by niceties like "governing" and "elections" have a message for the GOP establishment that's clear as a bell: Don't you dare let Obama get anywhere near that vacancy. Indeed, one such group, a predictably shadowy organization called the "Judicial Crisis Network," says it's going to spend $1 million airing ads thanking Republican senators for their obstructionism.
Of course, that's not how JCN is framing things. In their ads, stock footage of diverse Americans rolls by and a gentle narrator asserts, "The Supreme Court has a vacancy and your vote in November is your only voice." That's fascinating: Evidently the 2012 election was just a straw poll that didn't actually count for anything. What's more, as the invaluable Right Wing Watch notes, the Judicial Crisis Network used to be known as the Judicial Confirmation Network, which was dedicated to ensuring that "every nominee sent to the full Senate receives an up or down vote"—during the George W. Bush years. How times have changed.
The ads, which are identical except for the bit at the end encouraging viewers to thank this or that Republican senator, are reportedly running in five battleground Senate states: Arizona, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. (There are also versions for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley.) If nothing else, they might serve as spine-stiffeners, since we've already seen a number of Republicans, like Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, go very wobbly. They're going to need a lot of help standing firm, though, since Democratic attacks have barely just begun.
Gubernatorial:
● VT-Gov: Usually when you hear candidates (especially presidential candidates) say they're "suspending" their campaigns, it's just a polite synonym for "quitting"—almost no one ever has any intention of getting back into the race. But there are exceptions. Back in November, state House Speaker Shap Smith said he was putting his campaign for Vermont's open governorship on hold because of his wife's battle with breast cancer. At the time, Smith said a return would be unlikely, but now he says his wife's treatment is "going well" and says she's encouraging him to resume campaigning. He adds, "We'll see how things look in May."
If Smith does get back into the race, he'd rejoin a Democratic field that features former state Sen. Matt Dunne and former state Secretary of Transportation Sue Minter. By May, they'd have had almost half a year to campaign while Smith's had to sit things out, but Vermont's primary isn't until August, so there would be time for the well-liked Smith to make up lost ground. It's hard to say who the favorite might be, though, and clouding matters is Peter Galbraith, a former state senator who is still considering a bid.
Republicans, meanwhile, are battling it out between Lt. Gov. Phil Scott and former Wall Street executive Bruce Lisman. While Democrats have had a big advantage in federal races in Vermont for many years, the state has a long tradition of electing Republicans, and voters have shown a continued willingness to support Republican candidates like Scott for state office.
House:
● LA-03: Grover Rees, a former ambassador to East Timor under George W. Bush and former chief justice of the High Court of American Samoa, has now formally joined the race for Rep. Charles Boustany's open House seat. Several other Republicans are also running for this safely red Lafayette-area district, but the big name waiting in the wings is still Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, who made an unsuccessful bid for governor last year but would likely be the instant frontrunner should he choose to run here.
● WY-AL: Even though former Sen. Alan Simpson, the pre-eminent graybeard in the Wyoming Republican Party, was extremely hostile toward Liz Cheney during her abortive run for Senate last cycle, he did say last month that he'd get behind her if she ran for the state's open House seat this year, and now he's made good on his word. It's not at all clear why Simpson has had a change of heart, but Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, will take it. There are a ton of other Republicans running, including state Sen. Leland Christensen and state Rep. Tim Stubson, but Cheney is the most prominent among them.
● NC Redistricting: On Friday, the North Carolina legislature passed a new congressional map for the 2016 election cycle, just barely meeting a deadline imposed by a federal court that had ruled that the state's existing lines were unconstitutional just two weeks ago. Later that same evening, the Supreme Court declined to issue a stay that would have halted the lower court ruling that ordered the districts to be redrawn in the first place.
But as expected, very little has changed on a partisan basis. Under the old map, the judges had found that Republican lawmakers had impermissibly relied too much on race in drawing the lines; this time, the GOP claimed it chucked out race as a consideration but still had no problem coming up with a new map that, if it stands, should easily allow the party to retain its extraordinary 10-to-3 advantage in the state's congressional delegation.
There’s no guarantee it will hold up, though. Democrats have indicated they plan to contest the latest map, and the district court hearing the case would still have to give the plan its approval. There are at least a couple of reasons why it might decline to do so. As Rick Hasen notes, ignoring race altogether might be just as problematic as depending on it too much, since it could lead to a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires districts where minorities have the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice to be created under certain circumstances.
Even more intriguing is the possibility that the court could find the new map constitutes an improper partisan gerrymander. Now, currently, such gerrymanders are not illegal because of a 2004 Supreme Court case called Vieth v. Jubelirer, where a divided court said that “no judicially discernible and manageable standards” exist to evaluate such claims. But the court’s four-member liberal bloc was ready to find them justiciable (that is, subject to legal evaluation), and Justice Anthony Kennedy held open the possibility that he, too, could someday join that group—if such a standard could be found.
Jurisprudence on the issue has indeed advanced in the intervening decade, so creative litigants might yet find a way to Kennedy's heart. And even if they can’t, everything might yet change if a liberal replaces Antonin Scalia. While that may not be for a while, the Supreme Court could delay arguments until it has a full complement of judges if the current justices feel a momentous gerrymandering case is in the offing. (Other related litigation is percolating.)
But that’s all highly speculative. Yet even if the district court upholds the legislature’s new map, there are still some changes worth noting. Democratic Rep. Alma Adams has seen her base of Greensboro evicted from the 12th Congressional District, which could open her up to a primary battle. Challengers are likely to hail from Charlotte, which is the district's new center of gravity, and could include ex-state Sen. Malcolm Graham, who finished second in the primary in 2014 when the old 12th opened up after Rep. Mel Watt resigned. Another candidate who briefly ran in that race, state Rep. Rodney Moore, has already said he's interested.
Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers, who just a few years ago had her district shored up by fellow Republicans, has now had it eviscerated. She only represents 18 percent of the new 2nd District, while fellow GOP Rep. George Holding represents 57 percent of it, and his consultant says he'll run for re-election there. Ellmers, already facing a Club for Growth-backed primary challenge, claims she's staying in the 2nd, too, but her only other alternative would be retirement, so what else is she going to say?
Holding represents the old 13th, but the redrawn district with the same number bears no resemblance to his old seat, which is why he's targeting the 2nd. In fact, no current incumbent represents more than 27 percent of the new 13th, and the member who represents that plurality, Adams, definitely won't run here since it's a decidedly Republican district. That means it will very likely be an open seat, and it's actually the least-red GOP district on the new map. Still, though, it went for Mitt Romney by about 7 points, and Democrats would have a hard time capturing it, not least because they don't have much of a bench here. One possible Republican candidate mentioned by Roll Call is state Sen. Andrew Brock.
One final note: Because the filing deadline for the March 15 primary had already passed, legislators have also voted to move all House primaries to June 7. Confusingly, the March primary will still proceed as scheduled for all other races, but votes for the House simply won't count. Lawmakers have also decided to eliminate runoffs, which used to be required in races where no candidate took at least 40 percent of the vote. That change could have a significant impact in a few contests.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and Stephen Wolf.
