Add one more to the list of potential Democratic open seats in the House to be filled by special election soon: CA-31 in downtown Los Angeles. Xavier Becerra, House member since 1992, has, in something of a surprise pick, been asked by the Obama administration to be U.S. Trade Representative. (Anonymous sources seem to conflict over whether or not he has already accepted.)
A vacancy in the Fightin’ 31st will not pose much of a threat; it’s D+30 and 70% Hispanic. State Senator Gilbert Cedillo (SD-22) seems to overlap much of this same turf, but this is also the turf of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (AD-46), who was just term-limited out of his Assembly position and may well be looking for something new to do.
If anything, the interesting fight over the musical chairs will be in the House leadership, where Becerra was just elected vice chair of the Democratic caucus, the #5 role on the leadership totem pole, possibly meaning more reshuffling involving Chris Van Hollen ditching the DCCC to become vice-chair, or perhaps Debbie Wasserman Schultz leapfrogging into the job, or perhaps another challenge by Marcy Kaptur (who was defeated by Becerra for the job several weeks ago).
Here were the results on election night last month, broken down by county. As you watch the early returns tonight, keep an eye on these numbers. If Martin is lagging behind his November results, he’s likely toast — barring some miraculously strong metro Atlanta turnout, I guess.
Given the polls, the idea of Jim Martin may be crazy. It may be crazier to report a post predicting it. But, according the the progressive blog Tondee’s Tavern, Martin’s folks are feeling good right now.
Just heard from a top Martin campaign aide that they are expecting a “close” victory for Jim.
The blogger did not give any specific reasons for such a prediction and it all just be for morale. Either way, I thought I would post it and let everyone decide for themselves.
Well, just before the election, SSP listen a ridiculously large group of Congresspersons who were late in paying their DCCC dues. Many of us were outraged since that amount exceeded I believe 6 million dollars in past dues. I said I would write my Congresswoman, who I knew would be on that list, Grace Napolitano CA-38, and today, got a response from her Chief of Staff.
Mr. Groen,
I’m Daniel Chao, chief of staff for Rep. Napolitano. Thank you for sending the Congresswoman your letter on DCCC dues. I wanted to let you know that 2 days after your email, the Congresswoman met personally with DCCC Chair Rep. Chris Van Hollen to personally hand him a check with pending dues.
I sincerely appreciate your work on behalf of us in the field going door to door for Mayor Cook. This race unfortunately didn’t garner the kind of attention it should have received and we look forward to helping in the future.
Please have a wonderful and safe holiday. Best wishes,
Daniel
Do not let it be said that I don’t do what I’ll say I’m going to do. I answered the call SSP, thank you for making me a better citizen! Honestly, I was surprised to get a response, let alone a personalized one. Rep. Napolitano is not the best when it comes to that. It is nice to know that some, if not all the late paying Congresspersons ponied up and gave what they were supposed to.
Today is the big day and I just couldn’t contain myself any longer. I also am frightened of incurring DavidNYC’s wrath by posting in another thread so lets have at it.
My guess:
Chambliss 52%
Martin 48%
I’d put the African-American vote at 25% and Martin getting about 29% of the white vote.
The following is an update of yesterday’s diary about Bill Sizemore’s arrest for contempt of court (his fourth such citation and the first time he’s been arrested for it). It contains some more details on why Sizemore was arrested and what comes next.
Bill Sizemore currently languishes in jail due to his fourth contempt of court citation in the past few years. As Judge Wilson said in court on Monday, “Mr. Sizemore is so blinded by his hatred of the unions who are plaintiffs in this case that he seems to have concluded that he is not required to follow the law.” Perhaps the best quote though, comes from Kevin Looper, head of Defend Oregon, the organization which successfully defeated all of Sizemore’s measures last fall, who told the press “We’ve got John Gotti here pretending he’s Nelson Mandela.”
For those of you who wish to learn more about Sizemore, either view my previous diary yesterday (linked above) or this video from an interview he gave ABC News this fall:
What’s Next?
Sizemore has quite the conundrum ahead of him. As I understand it the contempt citation states that Sizemore will remain jailed until he files both the state and federal tax returns for the American Taxpayers Researchers Foundation (ARTF) for the years 2006 and 2007. Sizemore controls ARTF and it is the contention of the plaintiffs (the teacher’s unions) that this is merely an attempt by Sizemore to go around the injunction against political activity filed as a result of his loss in the 2003 racketeering lawsuit. The injunction has five main components:
1. It bars any Sizemore-controlled organization from giving anything of value, be it money or support, to a political action committee for five years (which just expired earlier this year I believe).
2. It bars any Sizemore-controlled political action committee from receiving anything of value from a 501c(3) organization for five years.
3. It bars any Sizemore-controlled charitable organization or political action committee from transferring assets until the plaintiffs are paid their $2.5M judgment.
4. It bars any Sizemore-controlled charitable organization or political action committee from doing business with any Sizemore-controlled signature gathering firm for five years.
5. It requires any Sizemore-controlled organization to comply with federal or state election reporting laws as appropriate for five years. This provision might seem logical because everyone should follow the law but it appears to raise the stakes if Sizemore violates the laws again.
So Sizemore now has an unenviable choice of whether to not file the forms and therefore violate the law or to file them and disclose the extent to which he has expended moneys from these organizations for his own personal benefit. This would then expose him to potential civil liability (and maybe criminal as well but as a non-lawyer I don’t know if what he’s doing is a crime) both as a result of this suit and from the penalties the IRS and Oregon Department of Revenue might well levy against him for violating federal and state prohibitions against expending nonprofit funds for personal gain.
Mel Martinez, a Cuban immigrant who came to America with nothing and rose to U.S. Housing Secretary and then U.S. Senator, just announced that he will not seek re-election after serving out the next two years of his term. Martinez, 62, said he made the announcement early to give the “many, qualified individuals” time to organize and prepare for the open seat election in 2010.
The potential candidates:
Martinez’s departure immediately set off speculation about potential successors, including whether Democratic Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink will reconsider her expected announcement that she would not run for Senate in 2010 and instead seek another term on the Cabinet.
Among the potential Republican candidates: Attorney General Bill McCollum, former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, U.S. Reps. Adam Putnam and Vern Buchanan. Democratic names include Sink, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, state Sen. Dan Gelber, and U.S. Reps. Ron Klein, Allen Boyd, and Kendrick Meek.
From his extreme douchebaggery during the Terri Schiavo affair, to his ill-fated run at the top of the RNC, to his thoroughly mediocre job approval ratings, it was clear that the past four years haven’t been much fun for Martinez, so it’s not a huge shock that he’s decided to bail in 2010. It’s now just a question of who will run — the primaries on both sides, if 2004 is any indication, could get crowded pretty quickly.
Update: As for Alex Sink, she is apparently backing off from her planned re-election announcement in order to reassess the situation. Very good. For the GOP, state AG Bill McCollum says he’s considering a run.
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