Senate:
• ND-Sen: Dave Catanese says that GOP Rep. Rick Berg, widely expected to run for Senate, will formally announce next week.
• NE-Sen: The Tea Party Express just announced it would back AG Jon Bruning in his bid for the GOP Senate nomination, their first endorsement of the cycle. Local teabaggers are unhappy, in a classic People's Front of Judean/Judean People's Front-type situation. Except in this case, TPX is probably closer to the Romans.
Gubernatorial:
• KY-Gov: This Courier-Journal piece on Republican attitudes toward state Senate President and gubernatorial frontrunner David Williams is full of juicy cat fud, and cn|2 has pulled out a few of the tastiest on-the-record morsels from Williams' fellow Republicans:
House Republican Floor Leader Jeff Hoover told Wolfson, “If you disagree with him, he doesn’t take that very kindly and is sometimes punitive in his actions and his words.”
And GOP state Sen. Tom Buford of Nicholasville told Wolfson that Williams pushed for a bill this year to create charter schools as a way to “exact revenge” on the Kentucky Education Association.
There's more in the original article. Despite his many shortcomings, though, David Williams looks set to win next week's Republican primary, according to a semi-recent Braun Research poll, albeit with less-than-amazing numbers against crappy opponents.
House:
• AZ-08: Rep. Gabby Giffords will travel to Florida once again to watch her husband's space shuttle launch. The prior launch attempt (which Giffords was also present for) was scrubbed due to technical problems.
• NY-26: The NRCC said yesterday that it, too, will get involved in the special election, which I count as a victory in its own right. No word on how much they'll spend. Meanwhile, Karl Rove's American Crossroads is up with their first ad, a spot slamming Crazy Jack Davis for his Demmycrat ways. And speaking of CJD, he scored the endorsement of failed teabagger candidate David Bellavia.
• RI-01: The Providence Journal says that recently retired state Police Supt. Brendan Doherty will challenge Dem Rep. David Cicilline, rather than run for Senate. No formal announcement or even any anonymous quotes—the ProJo is simply saying it "has learned" this information.
• WV-02: Republican state Del. Jonathan Miller says he plans to primary Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, because "God is calling me to run for this office now." He mumbled some stuff about self-serving DC pols, but maybe he's just hoping she'll run for governor or senator next year and free up the seat.
Other Races:
• Wisconsin Recall: Republicans have finally landed at least one legit challenger: state Rep. John Nygren says he'll run against Dave Hansen if there's a recall election. The problem for Nygren is that Brown County Board vice chair Mary Scray already declared for the race, which would set up a primary if she doesn't back out. Meanwhile, another (former) Brown County official, ex-supervisor Rich Langan (who also worked for ex-Rep. Steve Kagen), said he'd run again Rob Cowles for the Dems.
Grab Bag:
• Vocab: We got a cool mention in the NYT's "Schott's Vocab" blog, calling out our neologism of "Schrödinger’s Seat," which they succinctly define as "term for House seats which may or may not exist, depending on how district lines are drawn." For more on this term and all the others we use here at DK Elections, check out the DKE Living Glossary, faithfully maintained by SaoMagnifico.
Redistricting Roundup:
• Colorado: I'll see you in court! As the legislative session ended with no compromise map, Republicans and Democrats each filed separate redistricting lawsuits in federal court.
• Delaware: This is just pathetic. Last year, Delaware became one of the first states to pioneer an end to counting prisoners as residents of the jurisdiction they're incarcerated in and instead passed a law requiring they be counted at their last known address for the purposes of redistricting. Well, whatever crappy software program the legislature was using supposedly couldn't handle this data set (srsly?), so rather than pay for an upgrade, lawmakers decided to just pass a new law giving themselves a get out of jail free (har har) card for this round of redistricting. That means the law won't "really" take effect until 2020. Great going, guys.
• Indiana: Gov. Mitch Daniels signed his state's new redistricting plan into law on Tuesday. I'm not clear on why it took so long, since the maps passed the legislature a couple of weeks ago, though I note that Daniels signed 80 bills into law all at once. (Ouch! His hand must hurt!) We're hard at work crunching the presidential numbers for the new districts, and in fact, we could use a little help: If you have precinct results for Crawford County, IN for 2008, please send them our way!
• Nevada: Moving right along: Dems passed their new congressional and legislative maps in both the state House and Senate on Tuesday, so now they go to Gov. Brian Sandoval for his almost-inevitable veto. Then, lawsuit city.
• Oklahoma: Gov. Mary Fallin signed her state's new congressional redistricting plan into law on Tuesday. We've crunched the new numbers (you can see all of jeffmd's hard work here) and yer gonna laugh: not a single district changed so much as a single percentage point in terms of the 2008 presidential vote. Next!
• Virginia: AG Ken Cuccinelli has sent his state's new legislative maps to the DoJ for preclearance, but in a weird move that Louisiana officials also made, he's simultaneously pursuing a lawsuit before a three-judge federal district court panel. Redistricting expert Gerry Hebert (who happened to be my election law prof in law school) explains why this is a silly idea:
Louisiana has foolishly sought preclearance simultaneously in the DC court and at DOJ. I say foolishly because Louisiana says it wants 'expedited review'. But filing in the DC court can only slow the process down. First, any proceeding in the DC court is an adversarial one and will likely take more time to resolve than simply proceeding administratively before DOJ. Second, the legal standard is the same in both the DC court and before DOJ, so what's there to gain? Perhaps the State thinks that by going to the DC court, it can avoid the Obama Justice Department. It can't. DOJ is the statutory defendant in such a DC preclearance case and its views and review of the Louisiana plan will get a full airing. Third, filing in the DC court could see groups opposed to the redistricting plans intervene in the suit and delay the process even further. DOJ rightfully has told the DC court that it will review the maps and data, but it needs time to do so. If other states follow Louisiana's lead and file simultaneously in the DC court and before DOJ, they invite delay, not expedited consideration. That's something else to watch in the aftermath of Louisiana's dual submissions.
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