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Conservative effort to oust Tennessee Supreme Court justices fails
Three of the court’s five justices were targeted in retention election
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
NASHVILLE (CFP) — Conservative critics of Tennessee’s Supreme Court have failed in their campaign to oust three of the court’s five justices, which would have given Republican Governor Bill Haslam the power to appoint a new majority on the state’s highest court
Chief Justice Gary Wade
Tennessee voters decided to retain Chief Justice Gary Wade and Justices Cornelia Clark and Sharon Lee in the August 7 vote. The three targeted justices were all appointed by former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen.
In Tennessee, justices don’t run directly for election, but voters decide every eight years if they should be retained. The Supreme Court also has the power to appoint the state’s attorney general, which uniquely in Tennessee is neither elected nor appointed by the governor.
Support for retention of all three justices topped 55 percent.
Critics of the three justices accused them of being soft on crime, particularly in death penalty cases. The effort to oust them was lead by Republican Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey and supported by Americans for Prosperity, a political operation funded by the billionaire Koch brothers from Kansas.
The justices raised and spent more than $1 million defending their record.
Louisiana U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu hit with new anti-Obamacare ad
Also, State Rep. Paul Hollis joins the race against Landrieu
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu
NEW ORLEANS (CFP) — An anti-Obamacare group is launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign criticizing U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and two other Democratic senators over President Obama’s claim that everyone who had health insurance would be able to keep it.
Obama’s assertion was characterized as the “lie of the year” by Politifact, a nonpartisan group that monitors political claims.
The anti-Landrieu ad, funded by Americans for Prosperity, shows footage of her on the floor of the Senate stating that people can “keep their current plan.” It also shows an exchange between Landrieu and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in which she says she has no regrets about her vote in favor of Obamacare.
“We’re putting pressure on senators who repeated that lie and doubled down on Obamacare, even as it became obvious that the law was hurting millions of Americans,” said AFP President Tim Phillips in a statement
Meanwhile, Landrieu, who is running for her fourth term in the Senate, has drawn a third GOP challenger, State Rep. Paul Hollis of Covington, who has filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission and plans to make a formal announcement in January.
Two other Republicans are also running, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy from Baton Rouge and Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel from Madisonville.
Cassidy is the favored candidate of much of the Republican leadership, both in Washington and Louisiana. Maness is aiming for Tea Party support by positioning himself as the only “constitutional conservative” in the race.
To drive home his criticism of Cassidy as being too much like the incumbent, Maness’s Web site shows pictures of Landrieu, Cassidy and himself, with the captions “Mary,” “Mary,” and “Quite Contrary.”
In Louisiana, all of the candidates, regardless of party, run against each other in a single primary. If no candidate gets a majority, then the top two candidates face each other in a runoff.
In 2008, when she faced a single Republican, Landrieu won without a runoff. But she was forced into runoffs in both 1996 and 2002, when there were multiple Republicans and other Democrats in the race.
Here is the Americans for Prosperity ad against Landrieu:
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