Rep. Vito Fossella of Staten Island might be facing a mandatory sentence of five days in jail after being arrested with DWI charges yesterday:
According to court documents in Alexandria, Va., Mr. Fossella, the only Republican member of Congress from New York City, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17.
S. Randolph Sengel, the commonwealth attorney for Alexandria, said that a blood-alcohol level higher than 0.15 would require a mandatory jail time of five days.
Ruh-roh.
(H/T: ChadinFL)
Rep. Vito J. Fossella (R-N.Y.) was arrested overnight in Alexandria and charged with driving while intoxicated, court records showed today.
Fossella is scheduled to appear in Alexandria General District Court on May 12 for an advisement hearing, the records said.
No other details were immediately available.
Reached by phone, Fossella’s communication director had no immediate comment on the report.
More as we get it. Fossella was already facing a potentially competitive re-election campaign this fall.
(H/T: mississippiboy)
Tom Wrobleski is reporting in the Staten Island Advance that despite Rep. Fossella having the strongest quarter he is now trailing Domenic Recchia in Cash on Hand. All the candidates had rather sad first quarter fund raising efforts. Last quarter’s number in parenthesis;
Q1
Fossella (R): $148,641 ($304,453)
Harrison (D): $43,878 ($69,230)
Recchia (D): $129,690 ($220,770)
COH
Fossella: $248,496 ($250,501)
Harrison: $91,131 ($83,116)
Recchia: $325,175 ($206,451)
If this is true, FEC filings are not up yet, Fossella will have already blown all the money he raised this quarter and finish with less cash on hand than he had at the end of 2007, $250,501. While this is good news that Fossella is behind in cash, there is a late primary in September and Harrison is clearly the progressive favorite in this race having racked up the only endorsements thus far from various political clubs as well as PDA nationally.
Well, it looks like Boehner is starting to take matters into his own hands and rectify some of Tom Cole’s incompetence.
More after the fold…
Full article from cq politics:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmsp…
It’s not uncommon for congressional leaders to steer fundraising assistance to party candidates who are in difficult races and in need of extra campaign cash. One such effort is the House Republicans’ “ROMP,” an acronym for Regain Our Majority Program, which has released its latest list of Republican candidates who will benefit from additional aid because they are politically vulnerable and/or have been targeted by the Democrats for defeat.
“ROMP 2008,” presently overseen by the political operation of House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, was recently established in papers filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). These records identify the 10 newest recipients of the program’s assistance.
These candidates make up the first batch of ROMP candidates named this year, and the third since the current election cycle began in the 2007-08 cycle. The new recipients’ election contests are outlined below.
7/10 of the candidates were incumbents we ousted in the last election cycle.
• Michele Bachmann , Minnesota’s 6th District (North and east Twin Cities suburbs; St. Cloud). Bachmann was first elected in 2006 to succeed Republican Mark Kennedy, who lost his campaign for the U.S. Senate to Democrat Amy Klobuchar . The Democratic nominee for November’s election will be either Bob Olson, a lawyer, or Elwyn Tinklenberg, a former state transportation commissioner. The latter candidate initially campaigned for the Democratic nomination in 2006 but later deferred to Patty Wetterling, a child safety advocate who lost to Bachmann after also losing as the Democratic nominee against Kennedy in 2004.
• Vito J. Fossella , New York’s 13th (Staten Island; part of southwest Brooklyn). Fossella is the only House Republican who represents part of New York City. He saw his re-election percentage drop from 70 percent in 2002 to 59 percent in 2004, and then again to 57 percent in 2006 even though Democratic challenger Steve Harrison didn’t raise much money. Harrison, a lawyer, is seeking a rematch, though he faces a well-funded primary opponent in New York City Councilman Domenic Recchia.
• Sam Graves , Missouri’s 6th (Northwest – St. Joseph, part of Kansas City). Graves’ campaign for a fifth term may well be the toughest of his career. His Democratic opponent, former Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes, is well-known and well-funded.
• Ric Keller , Florida’s 8th (Central – most of Orlando). Keller won a fourth term in 2006 by a 7 percentage-point margin over Democrat Charlie Stuart, a marketing executive who is one of several Democrats seeking the 2008 nomination.
• Anne M. Northup, Kentucky’s 3rd (Louisville Metro). Northup, who served in the House from 1997 through 2006, is challenging Democratic freshman Yarmuth, who unseated her by a margin of less than 3 percentage points. Northup hadn’t planned a bid to reclaim her seat this year, but she jumped in after the Republican she had been backing, lawyer Erwin Roberts, dropped out of the race to fulfill his military obligations. Northup sought a quick political comeback last year but lost a primary challenge to then-Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who subsequently lost the general election to Democrat Steve Beshear.
• Erik Paulsen, Minnesota’s 3rd (Hennepin County suburbs – Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Plymouth). Paulsen, a state representative, is the presumed Republican nominee in this suburban Minneapolis district, which retiring Republican Jim Ramstad is giving up after nine terms. The Democratic nominee will either be state Sen. Terri Bonoff or Ashwin Madia, a lawyer and Iraq War veteran.
• Bill Sali , Idaho’s 1st (West – Nampa, Panhandle, part of Boise). The strong Republican leanings of this district are indisputable, as President Bush took 68 percent of the vote there in his 2004 election. But Sali underperformed in his 2006 election for the then-open 1st District seat, in which he defeated Democrat Larry Grant by the underwhelming vote of 50 percent to 45 percent. Grant is seeking the 2008 Democratic nomination along with Walt Minnick, a businessman who lost as the party’s losing Senate nominee against Republican Larry E. Craig in 1996. Sali is opposed in the May 27 Republican primary election by Matt Salisbury, an Iraq War veteran.
• Jean Schmidt , Ohio’s 2nd (Eastern Cincinnati and suburbs; Portsmouth). Schmidt, who is seeking a second full term in a district that usually exhibits strong Republican leanings, faces a rematch of her exceptionally close 2006 race against Democratic physician Victoria Wulsin. Schmidt won that contest by a margin of about 1 percentage point. In the primary elections that took place March 4, Schmidt was renominated with 57 percent of the Republican vote and Wulsin won with 58 percent on the Democratic side.
• Tim Walberg , Michigan’s 7th (South central – Battle Creek, Jackson). Walberg, a freshman, was elected in 2006 over Democrat Sharon Renier, a little-known and underfunded Democrat who lost by just 4 percentage points. The unexpectedly close outcome was influenced by a bitter Republican primary fight in which the very conservative Walberg unseated one-term GOP moderate Joe Schwarz. Renier is running again this year, though Democratic officials are rallying behind state Sen. Mark Schauer, a better-known and better-funded candidate.
• Darren White, New Mexico’s 1st (Central – Albuquerque). White is the sheriff of Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque and which is the population base of a politically competitive district that Republican Heather A. Wilson left open to pursue a U.S. Senate bid. White is opposed in the June 3 primary by state Sen. Joseph Carraro. The four Democratic primary candidates are Michelle Grisham, a former state health secretary; Martin Heinrich, a former Albuquerque councilman; Robert L. Pidcock, a lawyer; and Rebecca Vigil-Giron, a former New Mexico Secretary of State.
The DCCC has recently released some notes indicating that they plan on targeting Rep. Vito Fossella (NY-13), my favorite candidate for retirement, rather hard in his quest for a seventh term in 2008. This from their press release on Jan 12, 2006;
The 2006 cycle proved that ethics matters to average voters. While there were several Republicans defeated this past cycle as a direct result of their ethical lapses, a handful returned to Washington and should be considered among the most vulnerable.
We will aggressively work in districts targeting ethically challenged incumbents like Tim Murphy (PA-18), Gary Miller (CA-42), Rick Renzi (AZ-01), John Doolittle (CA-04), Jerry Lewis (CA-41) and Vito Fossella (NY-13).
First off, if this is an indication of how Rep. Chris Van Hollen will lead the DCCC efforts to pick up more seats in 2008, then by all means my enthusiasm is going to be hard to keep subdued. However I, like many of us have been burnt by the DCCC in the past, so I am not jumping into this new relationship naively thinking things will be different this time. In 2004 the DCCC or some individuals associated with the group lead our Democratic candidate Frank Barbaro to believe that they were ready to interject some money into the race. That money was always just around the corner. They just toyed with our emotions for a bit and eventually stood us up. If that was heartbreaking then 2006 just incensed us and lead many to swear off dancing with the DCCC ever again. After many of the local officials slowly backed out of the race, Stephen Harrison a local lawyer stepped up to take on Rep. Fossella and walked into the nomination due to his fighting spirit. After being vetted by the local party and being given the nod we find out that the DCCC decided to involve itself, backing a city council member who lived outside the district, in March just eight months before the election.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which bankrolls House races, yesterday said it would embrace de Blasio’s candidacy. (Staten Island Advance)
De Blasio, whom was being backed by Rep. Rangel, eventually backed out after a month of indecision, leaving Harrison to focus on Rep. Fossella. One of the bigger problems with this fiasco is that New York state has a late September primary. This makes a divisive primary an ineffective spring board to then take on a Republican incumbent in under two months.
Curiously though it wasn’t until long after this past November that I came across this piece in the New York Sun from June 28, 2005;
New York Democrats are not alone in their efforts to win the Fossella seat. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already started priming the 13th Congressional District for 2006.
SNIP
Over Memorial Day weekend, it paid for radio advertisements attacking Mr. Fossella’s vote against a measure that would have expanded Tricare, the military health-insurance program.
SNIP
The organization also commissioned a poll that matched Mr. Fossella with three potential Democratic challengers: City Council Member Michael McMahon, Assemblyman Michael Cusick, and state Senator Diane Savino.
SNIP
In addition to the Congressional Campaign Committee’s efforts, the Seattle-based Democratic Advancement Political Action Committee, a group created in 2002 to raise money for Democratic candidates nationwide, plans to organize grassroots field operations once a Democratic candidate is chosen.
I am bewildered as to where all of this is coming from. DCCC funded polling? DCCC funded radio advertising? Organizing grassroots field operations? Not surprisingly after the DCCC slumped away from the district eleven months later, no polling was done by the DCCC even though indications were that Fossella had internal polling showing him in trouble. No radio ads were purchased by the DCCC. No grassroots field operations were established. Harrison went on to give Fossella the most competitive race yet, holding him to 57-43 (59-41 in 2004), being outspent by a margin of 13:1.
And to make this flirtation worse, it was just back in June 2006, after the DCCC backed out of the race, that they put out a press release attacking three Republicans for their unethical lavish travels; Rep. Pombo (since defeated), Rep. Sweeney (since defeated) and Rep. Fossella. We have heard the story before.
So it is not without some trepidation that I re-read that DCCC statement that they will be going after Fossella in 2008. But not all developments are worrisome. On December 18, 2006 I suggested that Rep. Fossella should be moved to new committees, instead of continually rewarding him with seats on both the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Committee on Financial Services. The reasoning is obvious;
The side benefit, and reason for suggesting these moves is that Rep. Fossella receives large amounts of financial support from the industries that benefit from limited oversight by these two committees; financial institutions and real estate/housing. Fossella’s largest sector donations come from the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate sector, a total of nearly $1.5 million in donations and influence, $358,790 of that just in the last election cycle.
2004-06 Donors (via Opensecrets.org)
1. Securities & Investment: $109,500
3. Real Estate: $86,050
4. Insurance: $60,250
5. Health Professionals: $52,700
7. Accountants: $37,400
9. Commercial Banks: $33,790
So it was with renewed excitement, and new found ability to control the minds of our new Democratic majority leaders, that news broke that Fossella was forced to give up one of his committee assignments. In the end he choose to leave the House Committee on Financial Services, the largest sector donor to his campaigns. It also made me appear to know what I was talking about back in December;
Should Fossella get moved from one of his committees he served on last term (04-06) consider that a good sign that this seat is on the DCCC’s list in 08 and that they are going to start the race early.
The actual implications of both of these developments will be more apparent next year, however right now we can see that Fossella’s fund raising abilities should be drastically impacted. Without some unforeseen major fund raising prowess, Fossella could have trouble cracking $1 million. To make matters worse for him, he ended his 2006 campaign over $200,000 in debt. From what I have seen this campaign debt is a first for Fossella, who tends to carry over a nice chunk of cash meaning Democrats typically start out well behind.
So is this seat really in play or are we just setting ourselves up to be stood up and heart broken by the DCCC once again? That answer will no doubt have a lot to do with who jumps into this race and how effective they are at early fund raising and early volunteer support. You can follow speculation at 2008 Race Tracker. However, if Fossella is one of the most ethically challenged (=corrupt) Republicans, can the DCCC really walk away from this district again?