In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?… raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. “Voodoo” economics.
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Dem pickups in the 1930s:
Hard to believe, but there were only 16 Republicans in the Senate after the 1936 elections and just 88 in the House.
McClatchy’s Matt Stearns has the story: Congressional ‘civility’ hour off to rough start. There’s a real hypocricy there, touting civility while consistently parroting GOP talking points.
I live in WV-02 so this district is of great interest to me. If we can just overcome the power of incumbency, there’s just so many reasons why this district should have a Democratic Party Representative.
Rumor has it the DCCC is actively recruiting her next opponent (no big news, where aren’t they?).
In lighter fare, there’s a new group that would make Jesus General proud. In fact, they did: Jesus General loves Sigma Mu Capito.
Tuesday April 2nd is the Spring election in Wisconsin and the ideological balance of the Supreme Court hangs in the balance. The Court is split 3-3 Progressive-Conservative so this seat will decide which viewpoint dominates most cases.
The Progressive candidate Linda Clifford, an attorney from Madison (Dane Co.) is charging hard after a feeble primary showing where she anemically bested another gadfly Dane Co., Attorney in the Primary.
Annette Ziegler came out of the primary with a full head of steam and promptly ran into a brick wall. She has egregiouslty violated ethics norms as a County Judge. Her husband sits on the Board of Directors for a Bank and Annette has heard over 32 cases involving that bank wihtout once alerting the plantiffs in the case to her conflict of interest. Over 90% of the cases involving Ziegler’s husband’s bank herad by Annette Ziegler were decided in favor of the bank. Ziegler has justified her non-compliance with ethics norms by claiming that she subjected herself to a “gut check” in cases involving her husband’s bank. If her gut told her she could be fair she went ahead and heard the case. Amazingly, her “gut” always told her she would be fair, never once recusing herself from any of those cases.
The Club of Growth has targeted this race, along with the Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce interest group and they are drowning Ziegler in campaign cash.
This race is critical to the future of Wisconsin so keep your fingers crossed Linda Clifford was able to capitalize on Ziegler’s ethics troubles and can sqeak out a win as polls show Clifford rapidly closing the gap. We need a big turnout in Dane County but unfortunately the Madison Mayor’s race is a yawner, and no hot race exists in Dane County to pull badly needed Progressive voters to the polls.
Chris Beutler, a real progressive Democrat, is running for mayor of Lincoln against a reactionary City Councilman named Ken Svoboda. The primary election is Tuesday, and the top two candidates (almost certainly Beutler and Svoboda) advance to the general on May 1.
Because Jindal is so incompetent:
Yesterday the right wing attempt to put a gay marriage ban on the 2008 ballot here in Indiana was defeated in committee in the State House. The vote was 5-5, and most people say the issue is dead for the session, and therefore off the 2008 ballot. The swing vote was Terri Austin, a conservative Democrat who apparently agonized over her vote, before opposing the ban as over-reaching. Which it is — this would have been one of the broadest bans/definitions of marriage passed anywhere. Make no mistake, it would have almost certainly passed the House, and then would have been used to smear every Democrat running for office in ’08 — of course, including our three new congressmen in conservative districts. Especially as a gay Democrat here, I was REALLY not looking forward to how ugly this fight was going to get, and am relieved that at least for now, it looks like we can focus on other things. And a huge shout out of credit to the organiztion Indiana Equality and everyone else who worked so hard on this.
We need to win 2010 so we can redo some of these maps to be a bit more neutral and we need to hol a few other maps.
In need of serious redrawing (unfair republican advantage):
Ohio – so close to 3 districts in 2006. However, Space proved things can work with how he blew Padgett out of the water.
Florida – many opportunities, just need to get moving
New Jersey – Not too bad, but could be much better.
Virginia – The worst, easily
Texas – Lines are so bad, Dems can not be competitive
Michigan – Not as bad as VA, but still real bad.
*Pensylvania also needs to be redrawn. Just it was made so 55R-45D, that strong democrats were able to overcome in many marginal republican districts, with more still in our sights.
Need to maintain current maps (unfair democratic advantage):
Indiana*
Tennessee*
*Ok, these are not unfairly so, but the districts are so marginally republican that it is possible for democrats to win them. A 5-4 Democratic advantage in both of those states does not ring equal with the national picuture. They could be made A LOT worse is the republicans get to redistrict.
…to see stories like this, where a genuine Democrat is already announcing a campaign against a GOP foot soldier in a GOP-leaning district (R+8, so says the PVI) in a swing state. Every Republican in the country should be at least a little worried that they’ll end up being Jim Ryun or Gil Gutknecht.