Happy graduation season!
As the youths say goodbye to various educational institutions and prepare to embark on even more schooling, gainful employment, or soul-crushing job hunts, it feels right and proper to check in on the state lawmakers who craft so many of the policies that affect grads’ ability to afford more school, succeed in their chosen field, or endure a period of time with little or no income.
Campaign Action
So cheerful!
Screw it, let’s party.
Live Like We’re Dying: Last week in this space, I talked about a “nuclear option” that Virginia Senate Democratic leadership might use this week to force a floor vote on expanding Medicaid through the state’s budget.
Yeah, the finger’s still hovering over the launch button.
- On Tuesday, the state Senate reconvened in Richmond so Republicans could drag their feet some more over expanding healthcare access to over 300,000 Virginians, basically.
- Despite the fact that a key Republican on the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee had worked out a Medicaid expansion provision with his GOP counterpart in the state House (which has already voted to expand Medicaid), Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment demanded that senators come back again next week to debate and—hopefully—vote on the final budget.
- Democratic Senate Leader Dick Saslaw backed off—temporarily—of his threat to force the budget to the floor for a vote via an extraordinarily rare discharge motion.
- He’s vowed to pull the discharge maneuver next week if GOP leadership remains obstinate.
- … and by GOP leadership, I mostly mean Norment, whose frustration with his (likely) inevitable legislative defeat (he’s ardently opposed Medicaid expansion from the get-go) revealed itself as he ranted on the Senate floor about rumors that he’d retire if he lost this battle. He swore to “be here in 2019 and 2020 to kick your ass.” Okay!
Tune in next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel, to see if Virginia has a Medicaid-expanding budget yet!
Doing Time After Time: The Greitens saga continues in Missouri as the legislature sits in special session and a House committee continues to investigate the governor’s misdeeds.
- The woman with whom Greitens had an affair has spoken out for the first time, and she stands by the gut-wrenching details of her story, which were first revealed in detail by the state House’s investigative committee.
- The initial invasion of privacy felony charge against Greitens was dismissed, but it will likely be re-filed by the newly-appointed special prosecutor in the case.
- The trial for the felony computer tampering charge against Greitens continues to move forward.
- A grand jury must decide whether to indict the governor for using fundraising lists from his nonprofit foundation to raise money for his gubernatorial bid.
Greitens, meanwhile, is pleading his case to the people.
- In a year in which he is in no way running for any office, he’s dropped a $185,000 buy on an ad in which he blames everyone from “Democrat leadership” in the legislature (Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers and both created and have a large majority on the House committee investigating him), “fake news,” “George Soros,” and “liberals” for his plight before begging viewers to “stand with Navy SEAL Eric Greitens.”
HAY YOU GUYS REMEMBER I WAS IN THE NAVY AND STUFF BEFORE I RAN FOR GOVERNOR AND DID CRIMES
Don’t Stop Believin’: There may yet be hope for redistricting reform in Pennsylvania.
- Earlier this week, Senate Bill 22 passed out of a key committee. The measure would create an 11-member commission to draw both congressional and legislative maps.
- But if the measure passes the full Senate, it still faces a massive hurdle in the state House: namely, GOP Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, who chairs the House State Government Committee, to which this bill would be assigned.
- Metcalfe has already gutted and corrupted two similar measures that came before his committee earlier this session, twisting them into bills that gave the majority power in the legislature even more control over the redistricting process than it already has (which is quite a lot).
- But note: One of my esteemed Daily Kos Elections colleagues argues that, in light of the state Supreme Court’s new jurisprudence mandating not just independent but fair maps, this proposal might be less preferable than the status quo.
With A Little Help From My Friends: Hide your kids—Roy Moore is back, and someone in Alabama actually wants his endorsement for some reason!
Is the failed U.S. Senate candidate and alleged pedophile going to be a political a liability, even in a Republican primary, or are his damaged goods still an asset within the party faithful?
It’s pathetic that this is even a question, but I guess we’ll see.
School’s Out: This Tuesday brought a whole slew of primaries all the way down the ballot in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Texas (runoffs).
- A number of incumbent state legislators lost their primaries in each of these states (more on that just below!), but some of the most interesting primary upsets happened in the Bluegrass State.
- Take, for instance, the school teacher—a first-time candidate and political novice—who ousted the House majority leader.
- Republican House Leader Jonathan Shell had raised $131,200, and the powerful incumbent had name recognition on his side; math teacher Travis Brenda, on the other hand, had raised just $16,100.
- Brenda defeated Shell by 123 votes.
- Shell, by the by, shepherded the controversial overhaul of the state’s pension system that ignited massive teacher protests at the state capitol.
Fun fact! Brenda is one of 39 current and former educators running for legislative office in Kentucky this fall.
Good Riddance: Shell, for his part, seems to have accepted his defeat a little more gracefully than another one of his colleagues, but that’s a super low bar in this case.
- Republican state Rep. C. Wesley Morgan lost his primary on Tuesday, too, and instead of licking his election wounds in private, he took to Facebook to decry the injustice of it all.
- “Tonight the GOP lost a true conservative and patriot,” he moaned, but he didn’t just mean as a member of the legislature, apparently: “I will no longer be associated with the Republican Party.”
- Morgan went so far as to say he “will fully support and be voting for Morgan Eaves,” the Democrat running in Kentucky House District 81. “At least Democrats don’t pretend not to be corrupt.” Um, okay!
Hey, a vote’s a vote. Just ask Shelly Simonds.
End Of The Road: It’s been a slightly tough year for incumbents in both parties on the state legislative so far.
Well, I’ve had the time of my life writing this, as always, but it’s just about closing time, and while I must say ‘bye ‘bye ‘bye until next week, don’t you forget about me!