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U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks jumps into Alabama’s U.S. Senate race
Four-term congressman says he offers “proven conservative leadership”
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com
HUNSVILLE, Alabama (CFP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks has announced he will run in a special election to fill Alabama’s open U.S. Senate seat, adding a high-profile name to a crowded field trying to unseat the temporary incumbent, U.S. Senator Luther Strange.
Announcing his candidacy in a series of events across the state on May 15, including in his hometown of Huntsville, Brooks touted himself as “the only candidate for the Senate who has a proven record of conservative leadership,” citing a list of accolades from business and conservative groups for his work in Washington.
“The solutions to America’s challenges are there. The roadblock to these solutions is all too often the U.S. Senate,” Brooks said. “We must elect senators with the understanding and backbone needed to face and defeat America’s challenges.”
Since 2011, Brooks, 63 has represented Alabama’s 5th District, which is anchored in Huntsville and takes in five counties in the northern part of the state along the Tennessee border.
During his announcement speech Brooks–who pointedly refused to endorse Donald Trump in last year’s presidential race–did not mention the president, a contrast with other candidates in the race who have embraced him.
U.S. Senator Luther Strange
Strange was appointed to the Senate seat in February by former Governor Robert Bentley after Jeff Sessions left to become U.S. attorney general. Although state law mandates that Senate vacancies be filled “forthwith,” Bentley delayed a special election until November 2018, giving Strange nearly two years of incumbency before he had to face voters.
But after a sex scandal forced Bentley from office, new Alabama Governor Kay Ivey reversed course and ordered a special election this year, which opened the floodgates for candidates eager to send Strange back home.
Brooks is the eighth Republican in the race, along with Roy Moore, the controversial favorite of the Christian right twice elected and twice ousted as Alabama’s chief justice; State Rep. Ed Henry, R-Hartselle, who launched the effort to impeach Bentley, and Randy Brinson, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama.
Also expected to run is the top Republican in the Alabama Senate, Del Marsh from Anniston.
Two Democrats are also running, although any Democrat would be considered a longshot in a state where the party hasn’t won a Senate seat since 1992.
Party primaries are scheduled for August, with a runoff to follow if no candidate gets a majority. The general election is in December.
West Virginia U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins will challenge Joe Manchin in U.S. Senate race
Jenkins hopes to parlay state’s increasing GOP tilt to unseat venerable Democratic incumbent
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
HUNTINGTON, West Virginia (CFP) — In 2014, GOP U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins toppled a West Virginia political giant to get to Congress. In 2018, he’ll try to be a giant killer again.
U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-West Virginia
Jenkins announced that he is giving up his House seat in an effort to defeat Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, in what is expected to become one of the South’s hottest Senate races.
In a campaign video released May 8, Jenkins went after Machin, accusing him of straying from the values he was elected to represent by supporting Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
“Joe changed when he got to Washington. West Virginia values? Not anymore,” Jenkins said. “Somewhere alone the way, Joe became one of them.”
Jenkins also tied himself firmly to Donald Trump, who won the Mountaineer State by a staggering 41 points in 2016, his second strongest showing in any state, behind only Wyoming.
“With Donald Trump in the White House, we’ve got a real chance to turn things around,” Jenkins said. “He needs our help, and I need your help … We can’t let liberal New York millionaires and D.C. lobbyists buy this race or the Senate.”
Jenkins, 56, was elected in 2014 to represent the 3rd District, which takes in the southern and western parts of the state. In that race, he unseated Nick Rahall, a Democrat who had been in Congress since 1977 and was, like Manchin, a political institution in West Virginia.
Jenkins had served 18 years in the state legislature as a Democrat before switching parties to run against Rahall.
West Virginia’s changing political climate has made Machin is a top Republican target in 2018. In 2014, the GOP captured all three U.S. House seats and a majority in the state legislature for the first time since 1931. In 2016, Shelley Moore Capito became the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate election since 1956.
Trump’s win was also the fifth in a row for Republican presidential candidate, in what had been considered a Democratic stronghold into the 1990s.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia
However, Machin, 69, is a political institution in West Virginia, where he was first elected to political office in 1982 and was governor for six years before being elected to the Senate in 2010.
Manchin has styled himself as a political moderate, opposing legal abortion, supporting a balanced budget amendment and opposing efforts by the Obama administration to curtail use of coal, which is a mainstay of the West Virginia economy. He also broke ranks with other Democratic senators to support Trump’s Cabinet nominees and his selection of Neil Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Clourt.
One question mark in the race will be the issue of gun rights. Although Manchin has long received support from the National Rifle Association, he drew fire from some gun rights advocates after co-sponsoring legislation to strengthen background checks on firearms after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.
Jenkins took direct aim at Manchin on the gun issue in his opening campaign video, accusing the senator of violating a pledge he made in his first campaign to protect gun rights.
Jenkins’s decision to run against Manchin will open a House seat in West Virginia that could be a potential target for Democrats, although the GOP will be favored.
Jenkins may also have to survive a primary for the right to oppose Manchin, as state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is thought to be eyeing the race.
Twice-ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore running for U.S. Senate seat
Moore, suspended for defying U.S. Supreme Court on same-sex marriage, will take on Luther Strange in GOP primary
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
MONTGOMERY (CFP) — Roy Moore, the controversial favorite of the Christian right twice elected and twice ousted as Alabama’s chief justice after battles over same-sex marriage and the Ten Commandments, has announced he will run in a special election against U.S. Senator Luther Strange.
Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore
In an April 26 speech to supporters in front of the State Capitol, Moore offered a full-throated defense of religious conservatism, saying “before we can make America great again, we have got to make America good again.”
“The foundations of our country are being shaken tremendously,” he said. “Our families are being crippled by divorce and abortion. Our sacred institution of marriage has been destroyed by the Supreme Court, and our rights and liberties are in jeopardy.”
Moore also announced he was resigning his chief justice post, just days after a panel of retired judges appointed by his colleagues on the Alabama Supreme Court turned down his appeal of a suspension handed down by a disciplinary panel in 2016.
Moore becomes the third Republican to step forward to challenge Strange, who was forced to defend his seat nearly a year before he expected to face voters after new Alabama Governor Kay Ivey reversed a decision by her disgraced predecessor and ordered a special election.
Moore was elected chief justice in 2012, but in 2016, he was suspended by a judicial disciplinary panel for the rest of his term for ethics violations after urging local officials to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. That suspension was upheld April 20 by the panel of retired judges appointed to hear his appeal.
In 1995, Moore, then a little-known circuit court judge in Etowah County, shot to national notoriety after battling the ACLU over his practice of opening court sessions with a prayer and hanging the Ten Commandments in his courtroom.
He parlayed that prominence into election as chief justice in 2000 but was forced out in 2003 after he had a display of the Ten Commandments installed in the rotunda of the state judicial building and then defied a federal judge’s order to remove it.
Although he won two statewide races for chief justice, Moore lost races for governor in 2006 and 2010 to Robert Bentley, whose resignation led to the special election for Strange’s Senate seat.
Bentley resigned April 10 as state lawmakers were considering impeaching him over efforts to cover up a relationship with a former female aide. He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors and agreed never to seek political office again.
In February, Bentley appointed Strange to fill the seat vacated when Jeff Sessions left the Senate to become U.S. attorney general. But he delayed a special election for the vacancy until November 2018, despite a state law mandating that vacancies be filled “forthwith.”
After taking office, Ivey reversed course and ordered the election this year. Party primaries are scheduled for August, with a general election in December.
In addition to Moore, two other Republicans have so far entered the race for the Senate seat — State Rep. Ed Henry, R-Hartselle, who launched the effort to impeach Bentley, and Randy Brinson, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, who will likely vie with Moore for the Christian conservative vote.
No Democrats have so far announced.
U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke will take on Ted Cruz in Texas U.S. Senate race
Congressman from El Paso is first major Democrat to launch a bid to unseat Cruz
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
EL PASO (CFP) — Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke is giving up his safe House seat in order to make a long-shot bid to unseat Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in 2018
U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas
O’Rourke kicked off his campaign March 31 with a rally in his hometown of El Paso, which he represents in Congress, followed by a weekend of stops in major cities around the Lone Star State.
Without mentioning Cruz by name, O’Rourke accused him of putting political ambition above his job as a senator, saying that to meet the challenges of the future, Texans will need “a senator who’s working full time for Texas, a senator who’s not using this position of responsibility and power to serve his own interests, to run for president, to shut down the government.”
O’Rourke kicks off campaign in El Paso.
O’Rourke is also positioning himself as principled opponent to President Donald Trump, saying the new administration is “focused on the wrong things instead of the right things that (are) going to get us ahead,” such as a ban on refugees from Muslim counties, an immigration crackdown and construction of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We can decide that we’re going to take back this country, and we’re going to take back this state, and that we’re going to do that in 2018,” he said. “2018 starts right here, right now.”
O’Rourke, who had previously made a commitment to serve no more than four terms in the House, said that if elected, he would serve only two six-year terms in the Senate. He took a shot at the Washington political class, saying the American people need a Congress “that actually works, that’s not more preoccupied and focused on the re-election of its members than the business of this country.”
O’Rourke also gave part of his kickoff speech in Spanish, in which he is fluent. Texas has 4.8 million eligible Latino votes, making up about 28 percent of the states total eligible electorate, according to figures from the Pew Research Center.
O’Rourke, 44, was first elected to the House in 2012, representing the majority Latino 16th District, which takes in most of El Paso County and borders Mexico. He has strong political roots in El Paso, where his father, Pat, served as county judge.
Although the first name he uses, Beto, is a common Spanish nickname for his given name, Robert, O’Rourke is Irish, not Latino. He acquired the nickname in childhood.
O’Rourke will face an uphill battle against Cruz, given that no Democrat has won a statewide office in Texas since 1994 or a Senate race since 1988. His background and liberal policy positions may also prove to be a difficult sell.
O’Rourke played in a rock band in the early 1990s and was later arrested, but not convicted, on burglary and drunk driving charges. He is a supporter of LGBT rights and an opponent of what he calls the “failed war on drugs.” He supports comprehensive immigration reform and participated in a 2016 sit-in by House members in support of stronger restrictions on gun purchases.
O’Rourke may also have primary opposition from U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, who is also considering a run.
Cruz, who run unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, has so far not drawn any Republican primary opposition.
O’Rourke’s run will open up the 16th District seat in 2018. However, the seat in the strongly Democratic district is unlikely to change hands.
Jeff Sessions confirmed as U.S. attorney general; Luther Strange picked for Sessions Senate seat
Governor Robert Bentley appoints Strange amid investigation into purported affair
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitcs.com editor
MONTGOMERY (CFP) — A day after U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions was confirmed to be U.S. attorney general on a mostly party-line vote, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange was picked to fill Sessions’s vacant Senate seat.
U.S. Senator Luther Strange
However, Strange’s elevation to the Senate post by Governor Robert Bentley on February 9 is already generating controversy because of the outgoing attorney general’s involvement in an investigation into Bentley’s relationship with a former staffer.
Strange has not confirmed if his office has been investigating Bentley’s conduct with Rebekah Mason, who served as one of the governor’s top aides and to whom he has been linked romantically. However, the attorney general had asked a state House committee considering Bentley’s impeachment to suspend its proceedings while his office conducted “necessary related work.”
By sending Strange to Washington, Bentley will now get to pick his replacement as attorney general.
State law also calls for a temporary appointment to fill a Senate vacancy, followed by a special election. But the law leaves the specific timetable for the special election in hand of the governor, and Bentley decided to hold it during the general election in 2018 to avoid the costs of a special election in 2017.
Strange had already announced that he would run in 2018 for the final two years of Session’s current term.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Sessions, who had represented Alabama in the Senate for 20 years, was confirmed as attorney general after a contentious debate during which Democrats questioned his commitment to upholding civil rights. In the end, only one Democrat–Joe Manchin of West Virginia–voted for his confirmation.
Three other Southern Democrats–Bill Nelson of Florida and Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia–voted against confirming Sessions.
Strange, 63, is in his second term as attorney general. He is known in Alabama as “Big Luther,” a reference to the new senator’s height of 6-feet 9-inches. He was a basketball standout at Tulane University in the 1970s.
In a statement, Strange said he was “greatly honored and humbled” by his appointment to the Senate.
“I pledge to the people of Alabama to continue the same level of leadership as Jeff Sessions in consistently fighting to protect and advance the conservative values we all care about,” he said.
As attorney general, he developed a reputation for rooting out official corruption, including his office’s successful prosecution of Mike Hubbard, the Republican speaker of the Alabama House who was sentenced to four years in prison.
The extent of his investigation of Bentley remains unclear, although his request to stop impeachment proceedings has been widely interpreted as an indication that such an investigation is underway.
In March 2016, an audio tape surfaced in which the governor expresses “love” to an unidentified party in a telephone conversation and talks about how much he enjoys touching her breasts. Bentley denied having an affair, although he apologized to the people of Alabama for making “inappropriate” comments to Mason, who resigned from his staff a short time later.
The controversy escalated when Bentley fired Spencer Collier, the head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, who said he warned the governor that using state resources to carry on an affair would violate state law.
Collier claimed Mason exhibited so much influence over Bentley that she was “the de facto governor.” He said he had received complaints about Mason from other law enforcement officials, as well as members of Bentley’s cabinet and members of his family.
Bentley has resisted calls for his resignation, despite an ethics complaint and a federal grand jury investigation into his relationship with Mason.
Bentley. now in his second term, is barred from seeking re-election in 2018.
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