House of Representatives

The Congressional Reapportionment Battle Begins: Early Indications!

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The Census Bureau will not announce final population figures for the nation until December, but early indications are that 8 states will gain seats in the House of Representatives for 2012 and after, and that 10 states will lose seats!

The Sunbelt will again gain, while the Northeast and Midwest will lose, a trend going on for a half century!

It looks as if Texas and Florida will gain 4 and 2 seats respectively, while the following states will gain one seat each: South Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Washington!

New York and Ohio will, apparently, lose 2 seats each, while Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan will lose one seat each in the House of Representatives!

Additionally, the only Sunbelt state to lose a seat will be Louisiana, with Hurricane Katrina the main reason for the loss of population in that state!

The gubernatorial elections and state legislative elections will be crucial as to how these gains and losses of seats will affect the two major political parties over the next decade in Congress!

The Historical Reality On Midterm Elections!

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There are many predictions that the Republican Party may win either or both houses of Congress on November 2, the day of the midterm elections!

Historical reality is that whenever the party in power has lost one chamber of Congress, it also has lost the other house! Also, on the average since the beginning of the 20th century and the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, the party in power loses an average of 28 seats in the House of Representatives, and an average of 4 seats in the Senate!

Although some prognosticators seem to think that the Democrats will lose enough seats (10) to give up control of the Senate, it still seems a long shot to most! And since the Republicans would have to gain 39 seats to win the House of Representatives, that seems a tall order too, considering that if any seats are lost by the GOP in either house, that makes it all the more difficult for them to gain either chamber! To consider that the GOP will not lose any seats in either house of Congress, at a time when there is an anti incumbent attitude out there, seems an unlikely event!

It seems likely that the Democrats will lose close to the average of seats in both houses, but doubtful they will lose much more, if any, when the dust settles! But we shall see soon enough!

Seven Seats The Democrats Might Gain In House Races!

Ronald 1 Comment

Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post today outlined the reality of at least seven House races that might switch from the Republicans to the Democrats in November, which would make it necessary for the GOP to win 46 seats, instead of the 39 minimum, to gain control of the chamber!

He outlines seats in California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania that are seen as likely to switch to the Democrats!

The point is that the disgust with incumbents, along with the effects of the Tea Party Movement, could lead to these seven, and other Republican seats in the House to switch in favor of
the Democrats!

So again, with the public opinion rating for Republicans running lower than the Democrats, it is not time yet to toast Speaker of the House John Boehner! 🙂

The House Of Representatives Battlegrounds: Can The Democrats Keep Control?

Ronald 1 Comment

The NY Times has published a detailed look at the battleground states in play for the House of Representatives, which most polls now predict will go Republican in November.

As the Times portrays it, each party has 168 safe seats, with the remaining 99 in play!

However, the projection is that the Democrats lead in 47 and the Republicans in 19, with 33 seats a tossup. So if you count those that lean to one party or the other, the Democrats would have 215 seats, and the Republicans would have 187, meaning the Democrats would only need 3 more seats to keep control of the chamber!

Of course, leaning to one party or the other does not mean it is a guarantee that the elections will work out that way, and voter turnout and enthusiasm will be, as always, a key factor in the results! At this point, the enthusiasm and turnout has favored the Republicans, a bad sign for the Democrats in November if it continues! 🙁

When one looks at the key House races which are tossups, it is noticeable that Pennsylvania has four contested seats; while Florida and Illinois have three competitive seats; and Indiana, Michigan and New Hampshire each have two battleground seats! So 16 of the 33 tossup seats are in states which Barack Obama won. That plus 10 other seats in states which Obama won (Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin) would mean a total of 26 seats, and if these all went to the Democrats, it would give them a total of 241 seats, meaning a loss of 16 seats, a mild loss!

But this is all speculative, and we will simply have to see if the Democrats can change the public mood in the next eight weeks and retain control of the House of Representatives and keep Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House!

The Inscrutable Nature Of The American Voter: The Future At Stake!

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The upcoming Midterm Elections of 2010 for the House of Representatives, Senate, and Governorships are a topic of discussion among not just journalists and bloggers, but also every day Americans who are living through the most difficult economic times in 75 years!

Certain points seem clear:
1. There is great discontent and anger with the high unemployment rate, and the continuing housing crisis, with foreclosures at very high levels!
2. The vast majority of Republicans and conservatives are totally negative toward everything that the Obama Administration has promoted into law, and everything they advocate in statements and actions!
3. Democrats are unenthusiastic about the upcoming elections, and have lost their passion to be involved in promoting their party through activism and voting participation!
4. Independents are unhappy with the Obama Administration, but not enthused either by the Republican alternative!
5. Moderates may be unhappy with some of what the Obama Administration has done and advocated, but don’t want to go over to the right wing Tea Party activist movement!
6. Tea Party activists are zealous in their hatred of government, but it is doubtful that a large percentage of Americans believe in their cause!
7. A majority of Americans may hate the power and influence of the federal government, but at the same time want the federal government to be there to control and regulate the powerful economic forces, the corporations, that dominate their lives!
8. A majority of Americans are disillusioned about the future, and that may lead to record turnout for the elections, based upon this emotion, or could also lead to a record decline in participation, based on alienation from the whole situation existing in America!

The reality is as follows: Based upon history, the Republican Party SHOULD gain seats in both houses of Congress and in the Governorships! That would not be a surprise! The party out of the White House traditionally gains seats in a midterm election!

But the question is, will those who vote, state by state, cause a party turnover in the Congress? The answer is highly unlikely, as a gain of more than 40 seats in the House and 10 in the Senate seems extremely remote!

Will the decision be by those who vote that the opposition is the “lesser of evils”, or rather that “better to stick with those you know, than those you don’t know”?

When those who vote have time to reflect on what has happened, will they punish the Democrats for the multitude of changes brought about, or decide after reflection that a lot of good has occurred, and they do not wish to see it repealed; or will they be supportive of a more confrontational Congress that will lead to greater gridlock and stalemate?

The key question above all is not only who votes, and how many, but how rational will these voters be when they are actually voting! Will emotion and fear and scare tactics win over, or will calm reasoning about how much worse it would have been, under a different set of policies under President John McCain, take hold?

This midterm election is truly a mandate, a sense of where the American people stand! We are at a crossroads as to whether government can work, or whether we are returning to the era of 19th century states rights (Civil War) and unregulated capitalism (Gilded Age)!

In other words, are we returning to the tragic policies of the past, and wiping out all of the progress of the 20th century under Congresses and Presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon (yes, even him!), George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama?

All of these Presidents and Congresses made life better, and advanced the cause of social and economic reform, and democracy, at times when many of the states were in the other direction, and also tamed the excesses of industrial capitalism in the public interest!

To believe that we are on the cusp of a reversal of our history is something to be worried about, and to prevent this by promoting active participation in this fall’s election by those who care about preserving the great reforms and changes that the federal government has brought about in the past century!

Can America afford to return to the past? Is this what would be best for the nation’s future? The clear answer is NO! 🙁

The Ultimate Outrage: House Republicans Vote Against Health Care For September 11 First Responders! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

One of the most outstanding examples of anger on the House floor within memory occurred last week when NY Congressman Anthony Weiner erupted after House Republicans, with the exception of a few, refused to support a bill to provide health care to first responders on September 11, 2001, who have had numerous health issues as a result of exposure to the horrific environmental conditions created by that terrorist created nightmare! 🙁

There has not been any issue that the GOP has responded to that shows any decency, any humanity, any compassion–and yet supposedly this party is favored to win seats in the midterm election! 🙁

This is also the party whose members still include people who believe the “birther” myth, that Barack Obama is not a citizen and was born in Kenya! 🙁

It is sadly clear that this party would reject Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower as RINOS (Republicans In Name Only), were they to be alive today! 🙁

African American Lawmakers And Ethics: No Excuses Accepted! :(

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As if the Democratic Party did not have enough problems facing them in the midterm elections in November, two senior African American lawmakers in the House of Representatives have managed to make themselves the center of corruption probes that are leading to ethics investigations!

Congressman Charlie Rangel of New York, the former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is facing 13 ethics violations in a public trial which seems daunting to overcome! Having been in the House for nearly 40 years, Rangel seems obviously to have misused his office and to have a level of cockiness and arrogance which does not do his cause any favor!

Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California also faces ethics charges, and is the senior African American woman in the House, with nearly 20 years in the chamber. She is facing charges of helping her husband financially with a bank tied to him. She is well known for her often outrageous statements and actions, including wanting earmarks named after her!

The problem with both Rangel and Waters is that they both display arrogance, cockiness, and extreme egotism, but if one dares to state that publicly, they often are called racists!

That cannot be allowed to be reasons for them to avoid paying the price for their corruption, which seems quite clear! The Democrats in the House need to do what is proper, which is to back away from both members on the basis that they are hurting the party’s interests and do not deserve united support just because of their race!

If the Democrats refuse to hold Rangel and Waters responsible simply to avoid the charge of racism, then the party will suffer dearly in November!

What is needed is to make clear that the party will not accept corruption in any member, whether African American, Hispanic, Asian, or Caucasian! The principles of decency, ethics, and honesty are essential to keep public support and deal with the many issues that face this nation!

The fact is that all those under any stage of ethics violations, a total of eight now, are African American House Democrats! Does that make it a racist act, or just the reality that apparently SOME members of the House who happen to be black take liberties with their positions of power?

To promote the idea that race is the key factor is not a service to the House of Representatives, and in the case of Rangel and Waters, instead of fighting the charges in a divisive way, they should both “cut deals” or face a vote based on their behavior, not their race!

Newt Gingrich For President? Not Good For America! :(

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Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who left electoral politics in 1998 after four years as the most controversial Speaker since Joseph Cannon at the beginning of the 20th century, is making clear his interest in running for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2012!

While not declaring his candidacy, he is traveling in the first caucus and primary states, and while in Iowa, he spoke openly about his planning to run, and the fact that he will decide by the early months of 2011!

It is true that it is already time for presidential candidates to travel to the first states that are part of the marathon race for the White House, and many have been in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. But none have gone as far as Gingrich in openly promoting the idea that he plans to run!

Gingrich is, obviously, a very intelligent man of deep thoughts and ideas, and were he to be the nominee against President Barack Obama, it would be a very intellectual race, probably only matched by John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, and Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, in the past century!

But Gingrich is also a “flamethrower” who utilizes outrageous, irresponsible statements, and throughout his career in the House, he was more interested in being controversial than in promoting unity or compromise!

If “politics is the art of compromise”, then Gingrich is clearly the wrong kind of person to lead the nation in a difficult time economically, socially, and internationally! His Presidency would be far more divisive, and make the political split that exists in Washington, DC far worse than it is now! 🙁

It is odd how sometimes Gingrich seems to be very reasonable and sane, but at other times, he is totally whacko in his statements and beliefs! His problem is that he is not believable that he has any strong convictions other than his own desire for power, influence, and constant media attention! 🙁

And in a time of fervent morality on the part of many Republicans, do they really want a person who, while condemning the sexual misbehavior of President Bill Clinton, was himself engaged in an extramarital affair behind the back of his second wife, and has been married now three times? Yes, people make mistakes and have moral lapses, but three wives, two divorces, and a reputation of a tone of corruption while he was Speaker? Is this a winning combination for a person who also presided over the loss of seats while Speaker, in 1996 and 1998?

The best advice that could be given to Newt Gingrich is to reconsider the idea of running, as he would not contribute one iota to the solution of our problems, and would instead simply create even more division and turmoil in a nation that does not need it at such a difficult time in our history! 🙁

Imagining Speaker Of The House John Boehner: Not A Pleasant Thought! :(

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Congressman John Boehner of Ohio, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, has served in Congress for twenty years. He is the Speaker in waiting, meaning if his party wins 39 or more seats beyond what they have now, then he will become Speaker of the House for the 112th Congress in 2011-2012!

The question that arises is what kind of Speaker he would be if the GOP did indeed gain 39 or more seats and have a majority!

Would John Boehner be any less partisan than Nancy Pelosi, Denny Hastert, or Newt Gingrich before him? Based on observations of others and the record of how he has conducted himself in opposition during the 18 months of the Obama Administration, the answer is NO!

Would he accomplish positive change for the nation, including cutting spending and promoting movement toward a balanced budget? Based on the GOP experience for the twelve years (1994-2006) that they controlled the House, the answer is NO!

The reality is that Boehner’s intention is to repeal the Health Care Reform law, and cut back ruthlessly on the entitlements brought about by the New Deal and the Great Society! It is no secret that the aim of the GOP leadership is to be negative, and begin the attack on the Democrats and President Obama, in order to get ready for a full scale assault in the Presidential Election of 2012! 🙁

There is no good will, no desire to compromise, no willingness to concede in any form, on the part of John Boehner and his colleagues! 🙁

If the American people allow themselves to believe that a GOP takeover will bring heaven on earth, they will have a rude awakening come January 2011! And as outgoing GOP Senator Robert Bennett has stated, the Republicans might win, but then rapidly lose power, if they continue to have no vision, no agenda, no program, other than to block any change or progress promoted by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party! 🙁

Michele Bachmann To Be Challenged By State Senator Tarryl Clark In Minnesota!

Ronald 1 Comment

Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, arguably the most controversial woman in Congress, with outrageous right wing views, and newly the center of conflict for her defense of BP and criticism of the Obama Presidency on the Oil Spill Crisis, has a strong Democratic opponent in the wings, hoping to unseat her from her 6th Congressional District seat after two terms!

The woman opposing her is Democratic State Senator Tarryl Clark, who is gaining a big “war chest” to attempt the removal of one of the key figures that Democrats would like to see out of Congress!

The removal of Bachmann would be a major feat, and would be a bright moment in what is likely to be a rough year for the Democratic party in Congress, being that the party in the White House traditionally loses seats in Congress in the midterm election!

Bachmann has been both a blessing and a curse to the Republican party, as often her utterances and activities have put the GOP in a bad light, putting party leaders in a position of being unable to figure out how to react. At the least, she makes many Republicans squirm at her outrageous statements and assertions! It would be a plus to see her leave this December, so we can hope for the best, while not expecting it to happen! 🙁