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7:56 AM PT: HI-Sen: Whoa—get a load of this. Every election watcher is familiar with outside campaign spending in the form of independent expenditures, so we all know the truly "duh" thing about them: They have to be independent. In other words, third-party groups shelling out cash to influence elections cannot communicate about their spending plans with the campaigns they're hoping to boost. Of course, this broken system mostly relies on an honor code that often feels like it's being violated, but direct evidence of malfeasance is rare.
For once, though, someone might have gotten caught in the act. The Washington Post has obtained an email sent last month by Christopher Raymond, deputy chief of staff to Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, to several other top Hanabusa staffers, expressing a desire to coordinate spending efforts between PhRMA, the country's top drug lobbying group, and the Hanabusa campaign:
As I'm sure you have heard, PhRMA has committed to pulling together an independent expenditure on CH's behalf. Nick Shipley (Government Relations VP) and Bob Phillipone (Senior VP) are the leads on this and would like to be put in touch with folks on the campaign. After having talked with Nick about this a little more, and based on our discussion, I came to the conclusion that is it the three of you the he would like to be in touch with. I am going to give him your email address so he can be in touch. I didn't feel comfortable giving out your phone numbers.
Should you be contacted by Nick or Bob please know they are good democrats.
Hanabusa, as you know, is running in next year's Democratic primary against Sen. Brian Schatz, who was tapped to replace the late Sen. Dan Inouye last December. Hanabusa spokesman Peter Boylan, one of the recipients of the email, sounds like he's trying to portray Raymond
as a rogue staffer, one who "inflated his influence and mischaracterized a group's willingness to support." Boylan also claims there "have been no discussions... about independent expenditures" between the Hanabusa camp and PhRMA, but Raymond's email speaks for itself.
Aside from the fact that it's illegal for campaigns to coordinate expenditures with outside groups, though, there are two other things worth noting. One is that Hanabusa's government staff, not just her campaign staff, appears to be involved here. Raymond, as noted, is a deputy chief of staff—a Congressional position paid for by taxpayers—and one of the people he emailed was Rod Tanonaka, Hanabusa's chief of staff, who is similarly situated. Congressional staffers are forbidden from engaging in political activity unless it's on their own time.
But in a follow-up story, Honolulu Civil Beat obtained another email penned by Raymond in which he tried to drum up participation in a Hanabusa fundraiser from other members of Congress, apparently sent during normal business hours. People in Raymond's position are supposed to keep logs of their work, to keep congressional activity separate from campaign activity, but the Hanabusa campaign didn't provide any such documentation to show that Raymond had sent this email in his personal time. Rather, Tanonaka cut him loose, saying that Raymond "will not be involved in any campaign related activities."
The other thing is this: When it comes to fostering progressive values, PhRMA is not the good guys. The group exists to help protect and increase the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, and for no other reason. So bear that in mind when you see a Democrat who wants to throw in with them, especially since in this case, PhRMA explicitly wants to unseat Schatz because he supports legislation that would require drug makers to reinstate prescription drug rebates for people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. Hanabusa is opposed to the bill.
Potentially illegal coordination, apparent overlap between campaign and congressional activity, and cozying up to big pharma—these are not the kinds of things any progressive wants to see from a Democrat running for Senate.
8:15 AM PT: OH-Gov: This is Michael Coleman, the Democratic mayor of Columbus, Ohio's largest city:
Coleman repeatedly declined to endorse Kasich's likely Democratic challenger, Ed FitzGerald.
Asked if he thought Kasich deserved to be re-elected, Coleman said "You know, that is up to the voters."
When it was pointed out to Coleman that he had twice declined to endorse FitzGerald during the interview, the mayor said "well, I haven't talked to FitzGerald in a while.
"We'll get to that next year," Coleman said.
I mention this because Coleman has often been mentioned for higher office, so just bear this in mind when his name comes up again. Fortunately, one major Ohio Democrat isn't finding it too hard to support FitzGerald: Former Gov. Ted Strickland
just endorsed the likely Democratic nominee in a web video released Monday morning.
8:32 AM PT: AR-Gov: Former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Senate in 2010, is dropping out of the Democratic primary for governor. After state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel previously quit the contest, Halter had the field to himself, but he was later joined by ex-Rep. Mike Ross, who badly outraised Halter in the second quarter of the year. Interestingly, Halter says he's leaving the race "in order to avoid a divisive primary and to help unite the Democratic Party," a rather different worldview than when he challenged then-Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the primary three years ago. One poll taken earlier this year (leaked by apparent supporters of Ross) found Ross up 45-27 over Halter; perhaps Halter's own polling looked similar.
8:50 AM PT: VA-Gov: NARAL is trying to figure out how to motivate women voters who aren't likely to vote in an off-year election to come out this fall and support Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia's gubernatorial race, so they've been testing a bunch of messages to see what works best. Unsurprisingly, NARAL's pollster, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, found that "protecting a woman's right to choose" is indeed a top issue (PDF) for this demographic, but even more striking are this group's ideological leanings:
The survey, conducted June 22 to June 30, reached 600 women in Virginia who either voted in 2008 or 2012 but did not vote in 2009, or who registered since the 2009 gubernatorial election and voted in 2012 but not in 2010. Of this sample, 69 percent identified themselves as "pro-choice" and 79 percent of those said they voted for Obama in 2012. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent.
It seems like a miracle that Democrats can ever win an election in an off year when a core group of voters that supported Obama at an almost 80 percent rate might sit out.
9:16 AM PT: IL-12: Longtime state Rep. Mike Bost, the GOP establishment's preferred choice to take on freshman Rep. Bill Enyart, has made it official, as expected. Enyart won this seat last year by a 52-43 margin, but this region appears to be trending away from Democrats, as the 12th dropped from an Obama +11 district in 2008 to just Obama +2 in 2012. Bost may also prove to be a better candidate than former LG nominee Jason Plummer, who sort of seemed to fit the College Republican mold, so Enyart will likely have a tough race on his hands.
9:25 AM PT: CA-21: Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez, who just lost a special election for the state Senate last week, may have already ruled out a bid for Congress. Thing is, though, she a) said this on the Daily Show and b) taped the episode a month ago, though it only aired a couple of days after the special. So she could very well change her mind, but so far, Democrats don't have a challenger for GOP Rep. David Valadao.
9:50 AM PT: AL-01: Gov. Robert Bentley has set dates for the special election to replace Rep. Jo Bonner, who plans to announce his resignation on Friday. A primary will take place on Sept. 24, followed by a runoff (if necessary) on Nov. 5. If no runoff is required, the general election will instead happen that day, but if there is a runoff, the general will get pushed to Dec. 17. Candidates have to declare their intention to run by this coming Monday.
10:56 AM PT: Then again, Bost does seem to have a very serious temper problem—click through for video proof. Can he keep it together on the campaign trail for an entire year-and-a-half?
11:31 AM PT: Maps: Can you guess a city based purely on the locations of its Starbucks stores? Try your frappy best on this Slate quiz.
12:04 PM PT: SD Mayor: One of San Diego Mayor Bob Filner's remaining supporters seems to be engaging in a bit of strategery to keep Filner in office at least a little while longer. LGBT Weekly publisher Stampp Corbin has initiated a recall of Filner, which of course seems wildly counterintuitive, but he may have tactical reasons for doing so. For one, it's not clear whether local law permits multiple simultaneous recall efforts, so this move might block Filner opponents from starting their own. And if this recall attempt fails, Filner's detractors would have to wait another six months before trying again.
Corbin won't say whether this cynical outcome is his intention, but he's not exactly making a serious attempt to collect signatures. Instead, he says that interested citizens can pick up petitions from his publication's office. Corbin would have to gather over 100,000 signatures in just 39 days to force a recall, so it certainly seems like that's not going to happen. At best, though, it might buy Filner a temporary stay of execution, seeing as a new SurveyUSA poll says that 67 percent of San Diego voters think he should resign, and 60 percent say Filner should be recalled if he won't go voluntarily.
12:27 PM PT (jeffmd): Pres-by-LD: Three states today (one red, one purplish, and one blue), that also all happen to have 2 Congressional Districts: Idaho, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.
• Idaho is one of the most Republican states in the nation, and it shows in its legislature. The state Senate has 7 Democrats out of 35, and the state House has 13 Democrats out of 70. (The state is divided into 35 LDs, each of which sends three members to the state legislature, one to the Senate and two to the House.) Obama won a mere four LDs across the state (all clustered around Boise), and all elect solely Democrats. In addition, there are three Dem Senators and five Dem Reps. from Romney districts (notably, the 53-43 Romney LD-29, based in Pocatello, sends three Democrats to Boise). Idaho is also home to the most Republican state legislative district we've seen so far, with the Rexburg-based LD-34 having gone for Romney at a 92-7 clip. Perhaps not coincidentally, Madison County (of which Rexburg is the county seat) is the most heavily LDS (Mormon) county in the nation: statistics maintained by the Association of Religious Data Archives show that 101.3% of people in the county are LDS! (Though, Census undercounting may be an issue here.)
• Devoted electioneers will recall that New Hampshire's state legislature (known as the General Court) is notable for its 400-member House, which has been prone to large swings in composition over the past several election cycles. In addition to having districts with varying numbers of seats (ranging from 1 to 11), the House also features floterial districts (which are highlighted in gray in our summaries) to more finely-tune the representation-population ratio without splitting towns.
To put a concrete example to floterial districts: consider the adjacent towns of Amherst and Bedford, in Hillsborough County. As of the Census, the "ideal" population per seat in the House was 3,291. Based on this, Amherst (pop. 11,201) "deserves" 3.40 seats, while Bedford (pop. 21,203) would "deserve" 6.44 seats. Rounding down (to 3 and 6 seats, respectively) would short change these towns, while rounding up (to 4 and 7 seats, respectively) would benefit these towns at the expense of other towns. This is where a floterial district comes in: Amherst itself elects 3 Reps. (District Hillsborough-22), while Bedford itself elects 6 Reps. (District Hillsborough-07). Then, combined, the two towns form Hillsborough-41, a floterial district electing one rep. Thus, together, the towns elect 10 Reps., and the population-per-Rep. is 3,240, which is much closer to the 3,291 target than would be otherwise achievable.
The median seat (as distinguished from district, due to varying district sizes) in the House is about 51.9 percent Obama, not far from the 52.2 percent he achieved statewide. (That is, a single-member district would be counted once in the calculation of the median seat, a two-member district twice, etc.) There are 23 Dems in Romney-won districts, while 45 Republicans sit in Obama-won districts. Almost 25 percent of the chamber comes from districts where Obama received between 49 and 54 percent, potentially explaining the large swings that we observe.
In contrast, the 24-member state Senate is downright conventional compared to the eccentricities of the House: single-member districts each covering a part of the state. Though Obama and Romney won 12 districts each, Democrats find themselves at a 11-13 disadvantage owing to two Republicans in Obama-won SDs (offset by one Democrat in a Romney-won SD). (The map and geographic spread of voters in the state are slightly unfavorable to Democrats, with a median district of 50.1 percent Obama.)
• The party composition of the Rhode Island's General Assembly (which, here, refers to both chambers of the legislature) is even more lopsided than Idaho (though in the other direction, of course.) Republicans hold 5 of 38 seats in the Senate and 6 of 70 seats in the House. (As, however, the recent debate on marriage equality and the National Popular Vote compact in the state showed, the lines between the parties are often blurred when one party is so numerically dominant.
Obama won every single SD in the state (he got about 60.5 percent in the median SD), and all but two HDs (though one is held by a Democrat). The median HD is 61.1 percent Obama, also lower than his 62.9 percent statewide take. This difference owes to the high concentration of Democrats in Providence (the city itself and not in its metonymic sense), where there are several 90 percent-plus Obama districts in both chambers.
1:56 PM PT: NYC Mayor: Quinnipiac's new poll, conducted immediately after ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner's new sexting revelations, confirms Weiner's steep slide, and also finds Public Advocate Bill de Blasio narrowly in second, just as Marist found last week. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is back in first with 27, while de Blasio sits at 21, among likely Democratic primary voters. Former Comptroller Bill Thompson is hot on his heels at 20, while Weiner has faded to 16. Just a week earlier, Weiner was atop with 26, following by Quinn at 22, Thompson at 20, and de Blasio at 15.
A Weiner-less scenario depicts an even tighter three-way race, with Quinn at 30 and Thompson and de Blasio tied at 25. Quinnipiac is also going to have to change up who they ask in their runoff scenarios, or at the very least, start including de Blasio. Weiner now gets absolutely crushed by Quinn (60-33 versus 46-44) and Thompson (66-28), while Thompson maintains his lead over Quinn (50-40, little changed from 51-42 a week ago). But I'd really love to see how de Blasio fares in a runoff, especially against Quinn, since that matchup would probably provide the clearest ideological divide the field has to offer.
2:23 PM PT: PA-Sen: Usually, it's fairly easy for prospective federal candidates to avoid having to file paperwork with the FEC if they don't want to, just by eschewing any kinds of statements that actively suggest one is running for office. This allows would-be office seekers to remain in the so-called "testing the waters" phase, meaning they don't have to file quarterly fundraising reports or personal financial disclosures. But ex-Rep. Joe Sestak isn't one for walking on eggshells, so back in May, he openly declared that he was exploring a run for Senate in 2016, and he also began filing fundraising reports.
The one thing he didn't do, though, was file a statement of candidacy, and now the FEC has instructed him to do so by the end of August, or to disavow the fundraising activity undertaken on his behalf. It's possible Sestak's just been sloppy and he'll file the proper form right away. If that's not the case, though, then the most likely reason he'd have to not submit a statement of candidacy is if one of his teaching positions (perhaps at the War College) precludes him from formally declaring that he's running for office. (Sestak might also not be eager to file financial disclosures, which he'd have to once he becomes a candidate with the FEC.)
Or it could just be the Honey Badger being the Honey Badger.
2:39 PM PT (David Jarman): Abortion: Pew is out with new polling data on the abortions-for-some, miniature-American-flags-for-others divide. They helpfully break down support for and opposition to abortion by region, but perhaps most interesting is when they add in trendlines, so we can see region-by-region how we've changed over two decades even though the nationwide balance hasn't changed much. New England has moved the hardest in the legal direction, while the South Central region (AL, AR, KY, LA, MS, OK, TN, TX) has moved the most in the illegal direction, from 52 legal/45 illegal in 1996 to 40 legal/52 illegal in 2013.
Worth noting: most of the states in the Appalachian/Ozark arc were also the ones that have trended the most in the Republican direction, in general, in that period. Which points to another interesting chicken/egg question: does the move toward more Republican preferences in general lead to a harder line on abortion, or does the move on abortion (perhaps spurred by the move since the 1980s within evangelical church leadership to focus more on abortion -- important since, except for Louisiana, these are also the nation's most heavily evangelical states) lead to a more Republican voting preference?
3:17 PM PT (David Jarman): Demographics: You might have read the AP story over the weekend that made the eyebrow-raising claim that 4 out of 5 Americans live in danger of falling into poverty, that many people on both left and right grabbed on to, to make the case that their prescriptions for the economy are right but just being ignored. Of course, there's a key add-on to that statistic, that the nation's headline writers all seem to have missed: "at some point in their lives."
Interestingly, it took a little-noticed blog post from the Census Bureau on Monday to put that into perspective (though it doesn't reference the AP story, and I don't think anyone else has connected those dots yet). It's titled "When Off-Campus College Students are Excluded, Poverty Rates Fall in Many College Towns." If you've looked carefully at Census data, you've probably noticed that poverty rates are startlingly high in a number of counties that, by any other economic measure, are thriving: counties with college towns in them. The Census blog points out that college and grad students who live in dorms aren't counted toward poverty figures, but as soon as they live off-campus, they and their total lack of incomes (or work-study or research-assistant pittances) are counted toward poverty figures. (In fact, the Census lists a number of college towns where poverty rates plunge 30% simply by excluding off-campus college students from the ranks of the impoverished.) Many of them grew up in middle-class homes and will resume being middle-class once they graduate, but in the meantime, they count as impoverished.
That phase provides a major explanation for why 4 out 5 Americans pass through the ranks of the impoverished at some point in their lives. I don't want to diminish the insecurity (not just emotional insecurity, but food insecurity as well) that people may experience during that phase (or downplay discussion of why college costs so much and TAs earn so little), but it does us all a disservice to, for statistical purposes, lump in college-town poverty with chronic, generational, structural poverty in inner-cities/Appalachia/reservations.
3:22 PM PT: WI-Gov: Madison School Board member Mary Burke, whom state Democrats had reportedly polled in a hypothetical race for governor, publicly confirmed for the first time on Friday that she's considering a bid. Burke is personally wealthy and could potentially self-fund, but she declined to say how much she might be willing to spend in a race against GOP Gov. Scott Walker.