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Symbolic solution in search of an actual problem
Support of 9 Southern Republicans for Respect for Marriage Act shows why Supreme Court isn’t about to ban same-sex marriage ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor…
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West Virginia stubborn, or playing hard to get
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin pisses off his party yet again … to what end? ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor Also in this report: Atlanta DA…
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2 Mississippi Republican U.S. House members forced into runoffs after weak primary showings
Michael Guest narrowly trails challenger in 3rd District; Steven Palazzo clears just 32% in 4th District ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor JACKSON, Mississippi (CFP) –…
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Mississippi Republican U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo facing Tuesday primary fight amid ethics investigation
6 opponents hitting “No-Show Palazzo” over inattention to district, ethics problems ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor GULFPORT (CFP) — Mississippi U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo —…
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Primary Wrap: Kemp, Raffensperger survive Trump’s ire; Brooks makes Alabama U.S. Senate runoff
Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar survives challenge from the left; George P. Bush gets blown out by Attorney General Ken Paxton ♦By Rich Shumate,…
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U.S. House’s last pro-life Democrat, Texas’s Henry Cuellar, fighting to keep seat in Tuesday primary runoff
Challenger Jessica Cisneros wanted House Democratic leaders to rescind Cuellar endorsement; they refused ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor LAREDO, Texas (CFP) — Amid the newly…
Texas governor hopeful Wendy Davis questioned over her campaign biography
Davis’s characterization of her up-from-the-bootstraps life story challenged by Dallas Morning News
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
DALLAS (CFP) — State Senator Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, is clarifying her characterizations of her life story, after the Dallas Morning News published a story calling some of the details into question.
Texas State Senator Wendy Davis
On the campaign trail, Davis has highlighted her past as a divorced teenage mother who lived in a trailer before working her way through Texas Christian University and Harvard Law School.
But in a January 18 story, the Dallas Morning News challenged some of the details of her biography:
- Davis divorced at 21, not 19 as she has previously said, and lived in a trailer for only a few months after the divorce with her daughter, Amber, before moving into an apartment.
- Three years later, she married for the second time, and her husband helped pay for the remainder of her education at TCU and law school at Harvard. Together, they had a second daughter, Dru.
- She left her second husband, Jeff Davis, the day after the last payment was made on her student loans at Harvard, according to Jeff Davis.
- When they divorced, Jeff Davis was granted custody of both daughters, and Wendy Davis was ordered to pay $1,200 in monthly child support.
After the story ran, Davis issued a statement clarifying some of the details of her life story. However, she defended overall impression left by her previous characterizations.
“The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce,” she said. “And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future, and that’s what I’ve done.”
“I am proud of where I came from and I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance.”
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
Davis also accused her Republican opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, of instigating what she termed a political attack.
However, in a tweet, the author of the Dallas Morning News piece, Wayne Slater, denied that the Abbott campaign was behind the story.
“I talked to no — zero — Abbott people,” Slater said.
In her statement, Davis concedes that she was divorced at 21, not 19. However, she said she and her first husband separated when she was 19 and that she lived in a trailer with Amber until the divorce.
She also says that after she and Jeff Davis divorced, they shared custody of their daughters, although the younger daughter, Dru, lived with her ex-husband in their family home. The older daughter was already away at college.
She also says her ex-husband “helped her fulfill her dream of attending Harvard by cashing in a 401k and later they took out loans.”
“She and Jeff Davis have a healthy and respectful relationship based on their mutual love of their daughters,” the statement said.
Davis, 50, who represents a Fort Worth-area district in the Texas Senate, shot to fame last June when she led a more than 11-hour filibuster against an anti-abortion bill.
The bill would have prohibited bill abortions after 20 weeks, required abortion clinics to meet the same requirements as outpatient surgery centers and forced abortion doctors to get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Her filibuster ran out the clock on a special legislative session called by Governor Rick Perry. He promptly called another special session – which cost Texas taxpayers $800,000 – and the legislature passed the abortion restrictions, which are now being challenged in court.
Abbott, 56, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court, is in his third term as attorney general. Given that no Democrat has won a statewide race since 1994, he starts the race as the prohibitive favorite.
Abbott also holds a huge fundraising advantage. Through the end of 2013, he had raised more than $27 million dollars, compared to $4.6 million for Davis, according to reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.
Perry, who has been governor since 2001, announced last summer that he would not seek re-election.
Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul organizes class-action suit over NSA surveillance
Paul is taking names of potential plaintiffs on his Web site — names that could be the foundation of a 2016 White House bid
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
WASHINGTON (CFP) — Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is organizing a class-action lawsuit against the National Security Agency over its surveillance programs — a novel political gambit that could lay the groundwork for a 2016 White House bid.
Paul is soliciting potential plaintiffs for the suit on two political Web sites he operates — Rand Paul 2016 and RAND PAC. His stated goal is to get 10 million Americans to sign up for the class-action suit.
However, an unnamed senior Paul advisor told Politico that any names collected may also be added a database for Paul’s future political campaigns.
That would give him access to a ready pool of voters upset by NSA surveillance — voters who would be inclined to support Paul. He’s also asking them for donations.
Paul, 51, is in his first term in the Senate. He is up for re-election in Kentucky in 2016, but he is also being mentioned as a possible 2016 presidential candidate.
A champion of the GOP’s libertarian wing, Paul has been a harsh critic of NSA programs that sweep up phone records of millions of Americans for use in terrorism investigations.
Last week, President Barack Obama announced changes to the program to provide more judicial oversight — changes Paul insisted do not go far enough to protect Americans’ constitutional liberties.
In his solicitation for plaintiffs, Paul said he was “outraged” by the surveillance and “that’s why I’m going to do everything I can to stop this madness.”
“So please sign below and join my class-action lawsuit and help stop the government’s outrageous spying program on the American people,” Paul said.
“After you sign up, please make a generous donation to help rally up to ten million Americans to support my lawsuit to stop Big Brother from infringing on our Fourth Amendment freedoms.”
People who sign up will have their name, email address and ZIP code put in Paul’s political database. All of those fields are required.
A Paul adviser told Politico that more than 300,000 have signed on as possible plaintiffs.
If Paul does seek the White House in 2016, his presidential ambitions may be complicated by a Kentucky law that prohibits him from running simultaneously for Senate and president.
State Republicans currently aren’t in a position to change that law because Democrats control the state House.
The law would only apply if Paul was successful in getting the Republican nomination. If he ran in the presidential primaries and didn’t win, he would be free to run for re-election to the Senate, as his father, Ron Paul, did in his U.S. House seat in Texas after he sought the White House in 2008.
Paul’s camp maintains the Kentucky law is unconstitutional because of a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that a state can’t impose its own restrictions in races for federal offices.
Analysis: Results in Arkansas Senate election bode ill for Democrats in November
Victory by an anti-Obamacare Republican in a Democratic district may forecast trouble ahead for Mark Pryor and Mike Ross
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
JONESBORO, Arkansas (CFP) — The results of a special election to fill a vacancy in the Arkansas Senate are making Natural State Democrats mighty nervous.
Republican John Cooper easily defeated Democrat Steve Rockwell in a district in Jonesboro, in the northeastern part of the state.
Rockwell was a moderate businessman in the image of Governor Mike Beebe and former U.S. House Rep. Mike Ross, the Democratic candidate for governor this year.
He was also running in a what had been a Democratic district, in a part of the state that traditionally leans Democratic.
But Cooper, a retired AT&T manager, based his campaign on opposition to the state’s private-option expansion of Medicaid to cover uninsured Arkansans — an expansion made possible by the federal Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.
Rockwell supported the private option, which Beebe pushed through the legislature last year. While the propoal had substantial Republican support at the time, a strongly anti-Obamacare faction of the GOP was incensed and has been making their displeasure known ever since.
Cooper’s victory may imperil the private option, which will come before the legislature again this year. The first time around, it passed in the Senate with just two votes to spare, one of which was cast by the man Cooper is replacing, Paul Bookout.
But perhaps more ominously for Democrats, it indicates the potency of Obamacare as a issue Republicans can use in November.
Pryor, who voted for Obamacare, is being assailed for that vote at every turn by his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton.
Ross may also face the backlash in the governor’s race. He supported Obamacare on a key vote in a House committee, although, in the end, he voted against it on the floor. But he has come out in favor of the public option in Arkansas.
Of the three Republicans in the gubernatorial primary, two — Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman and State Rep. Debra Hobbs of Rogers — have come out against the private option. Hobbs voted against it; Coleman’s campaign Web site features a petition calling for its repeal.
The Republican frontrunner, former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, has not taken a clear position on the private option. However, he has been highly critical of Ross for his committe vote for the Obamacare bill.
Coleman and Hobbs have been trying to make hay out of Hutchinson’s lack of clarity on the private option. It remains to be seen if either one of them can ride it to victory in the primary.
But no matter who Republicans end up nominating, Obamacare is going to be the 800-pound gorilla in both the races for Senate and governor. And if the Jonesboro Senate race is a barometer of how it may play, that is not good news for Pryor or Ross.
Even more problematic may be the fact that the fight over the private option will dominate the upcoming legislative budget session, pitting Beebe and his Democratic allies in the legislature against a very noisy anti-Obamacare faction for weeks on end.
One potential silver lining for Ross and Pryor: If Republicans manage to torpedo the private option, as many as 250,000 Arkansans who will be thrown off the insurance rolls may get mad enough to fight back.
Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn will resign at the end of current Congress
Coburn’s decision triggers second Senate election in the state this fall
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
WASHINGTON (CFP) — Republican U.S. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma says he will leave office at the end of the year, triggering an election in November for the remaining two years of his term.
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn
Coburn, 65, has been battling a recurrence of prostate cancer. But he said in a statement that “this decision isn’t about my health, my prognosis or even my hopes and desires.”
“My commitment to the people of Oklahoma has always been that I would serve no more than two terms,” said Coburn, who was elected to the Senate in 2004 and re-elected in 2010. “Our founders saw public service and politics as a calling rather than a career.”
“I am now convinced that I can best serve my own children and grandchildren by shifting my focus elsewhere.”
Because Coburn is staying until the end of the year, his replacement will be selected by the voters, rather than by gubernatorial appointment.
The state’s other Senate seat, held by Republican James Inhofe, is also up for election in 2014. Inhofe is seeking a fourth full term.
Coburn’s decision will likely set off a scramble among Republicans for his seat. U.S. Reps. Tom Cole of Moore, James Lankford of Oklahoma City and Jim Bridenstine of Tulsa are being mentioned, as is Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt.
Given Oklahoma’s Republican tendencies, a Democratic pickup of Coburn’s seat would seem unlikely. A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race in the Sooner State since 1990.
Coburn was an obstetrician in Muskogee when he entered politics by capturing a U.S. House seat in the Republican wave of 1994, winning in the 2nd District, which at the time was a Democratic bastion in the northeast corner of the state.
In 1997, he was part of a group of conservative House Republicans that led an ultimately unsuccessful coup to oust then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, earning him the ire of many GOP colleagures.
He didn’t seek re-election in 1998, abiding by a pledge he made to serve no more than two terms.
In 2000, Coburn returned to politics by winning U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Don Nickles and was easily re-elected in 2010 with 70 percent of the vote. He had already said he would not run again in 2016 because of his self-imposed two-term limit.
In the Senate, Coburn has been a determined foe of wasteful government spending. Each year, he publishes a Wastebook, which highlights the more “egregious” examples of federal pork.
Coburn has faced serious medical issues, starting with melanoma as a young man before he went to medical school. He has also had colon cancer and had a benign brain tumor removed in 2007.
In November, he disclosed that he was being treated for a recurrence of prostate cancer. In January, he told Politico that he felt he was still strong enough to finish out his term, despite undergoing chemotherapy, but that health issues might force him to leave early.
GOP operative Ed Gillespie announces bid for Virginia U.S. Senate seat
Gillespie, the former head of the Republican National Committee, takes aim at U.S. Mark Warner’s vote for Obamacare
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedp0litics.com editor
RICHMOND (CFP) — High-powered Republican political operative Ed Gillespie is off and running for the U.S. Senate seat in Virginia with a direct swipe at Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner’s vote in favor of Obamacare.
Virginia Senate hopeful Ed Gillespie
Announcing his Senate run January 16 with a YouTube video, Gillespie, a top aide in the Bush White House and the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, notes that Warner “cast the deciding vote” for Obamacare, adding, “If I were a Virginia senator, it would not be law today.”
However, adding a bit of nuance to his argument, Gillespie says he would replace Obamacare, rather than saying he would repeal it.
In his announcement video, Gillespie highlights his first job in Washington — working as a parking lot attendant in the Senate while working his way through Catholic University of America.
“I’m running for the Senate because the American dream is being undermined by policies that move us away from constitutional principles of limited government and personal liberty,” says Gillespie, who also hits Warner for voting for “nearly $1 trillion in new taxes and $7 trillion in new federal debt.”
The president’s signature healthcare bill passed in 2009 with 60 votes, the minimum required to get around a GOP fililbuster. Republicans running in 2014 against Democratic senators who voted for the bill are all being tagged with casting the deciding vote.
Though he has never held elected office, Gillespie, 52, is a consummate Washington insider. He was a communications strategist for President George W. Bush’s winning campaign in 2000 and went on to serve as head of the RNC and a White House counselor.
In April 2012, after Mitt Romney was finally able to claim the Republican presidential nomination, he signed on as a senior adviser to the Romney campaign.
Gillespie also has a long association with Karl Rove, the Bush political consigliere who has frequently drawn the ire of the party’s Tea Party wing. He held Rove create Crossroads GPS, the super-PAC that has backed establishment candidates facing Tea Party insurgencies.
Gillespie’s entry into the Senate race sets up a class establishment-versus-Tea Party struggle within Republican ranks in the Old Dominion. Two former military officers, Howie Lind of McClean and Shak Hill of Centreville, are already in the race, running as outsiders and seeking Tea Party support.
Unlike in most states, Republicans in Virginia select their nominees with a party convention, rather than a primary. That could level the playing field for an outsider candidate who can develop a strong cadre of supporters to turn out at the convention, which will be held in June in Roanoke.
Lind’s campaign is touting the results of a “grassroots voter contact program” which it says shows Lind with substantially more support than either Gillespie or Hill. The campaign also says it has already raised $300,000 for the race.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner
Whoever wins the GOP nomination will face the formidable Warner, 59, a former governor and self-made millionaire who already has more than $7 million in cash on hand for the 2104 race — a huge head start over any of the Republicans in the field.
Both The Rothenberg Political Report and Cook Political Report classify Warner’s seat as safely in Democratic hands. Obama carried Virginia twice, and Democrats swept all three of the state’s top offices in the 2013 elections for the first time since 1969,
In a curious parallel to Gillespie, Warner also worked his way through The George Washington University at the Senate, although as an aide rather than as a parking lot attendant.
View Gillespie’s YouTube announcement:
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