| 12/11/2023: It's a "Special" Time of Year [RightDataUSA] |
Photo credit: AP
In 2024, mainly early in the year, a quartet of special elections will be held to fill four U.S. House vacancies which have already occurred or are upcoming. Cowardly Republicans expelled their conservative colleague George Santos (R-NY) on December 1, and three other Representatives have announced their pending retirements: Brian Higgins (D-NY), Bill Johnson (R-OH) and Kevin McCarthy (Squish-CA). As to the other special elections, the Republicans have zero chance for a pickup in Higgins' district which includes the ghetto area of the city of Buffalo, however the GOP should easily hold the other two soon-to-be-vacant seats in California and Ohio. Well, maybe California. Squish McCarthy's district (CA-20) is the most Republican in the entire state, so it's not a question of a Democrat winning here unless that Democrat puts an "R" after his name (see below) and runs on the GOP ticket. The question, at this moment anyway, is whether there will even be a special election. With the outcome a foregone conclusion, the Democrats are not anxious to send a new Republican to Congress, particularly one who may not be as accommodating as McCarthy was. The Republicans, bless their hearts, are making plans as if there will be an election early next year and have already formed the customary Circular Firing Squad. The establishment is specifically aiming their fire at MAGA conservative state Senator Shannon Grove, who was the first to announce her candidacy for the opening in CA-20 [Update: After "prayerful considerations and thoughtful discussions" with her family, i.e. after the CAGOP explained to her that conservatives need not apply, Grove has withdrawn from the race.]. A couple of McCarthy-type moderate state legislators are also expected to jump into the race. The filing deadline is only a couple of days away, so we'll know soon. In Ohio, Rep. Bill Johnson is resigning from Congress sometime before March in order to become President of Youngstown State University, much to the chagrin of the snowflakes at that institution and the ones in the local media. More information on that special election will come later. Tags:
2024
Special election
George Santos
Kevin McCarthy
Bill Johnson
New York
California
Ohio
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| 11/2/2023: Yesterday's Developments in Congress [RightDataUSA] |
Photo credit: The Hill
On November 1, there were two roll-call votes in the House concerning possible disciplinary actions against two individual members, and another two Republican representatives announced that they would not be running for re-election in 2024. Earlier in the day, GOP representatives Kay Granger of Texas and Ken Buck of Colorado revealed that they will retire from Congress at the end of the current term. Granger was first elected to her suburban Metroplex district in 1996, and Democrats have not seriously challenged her since 1998. The district has been moved politically to the right over the years through redistricting (though it was shifted back towards the left this time around), which also tends to discourage challenges. The GOP should easily be able to hold this seat next November. The same applies to Ken Buck's Colorado district, which favors GOP candidates slightly more than Granger's district. Buck is a perfect example of why you cannot evaluate a Republican's conservatism simply by looking at his voting record. Buck's voting record in Congress is highly conservative, or at least it was through 2022; he voted the right way nearly 100% of the time. However Buck is also a flake, flitting all over the place in the past and especially lately. Buck did the right thing by being one of the tiny number of GOP insurgents who ousted Squish McCarthy as Speaker of the House. However.... Back in July he used his allotted time during the Republicans' grilling of quisling Christopher Wray to heap praise (instead of well-deserved derision) on the Trump-hating FBI director and his organization, even as the FBI was busy protecting the Biden Crime Family from any consequences of their crimes. In recent days, Buck led the revolt against conservative Jim Jordan in order to prevent him from replacing McCarthy as Speaker. Buck has made no secret of his desire to join the most liberal of all liberal media outlets (CNN) as a GOP-bashing commentator when his days "serving the public" are over. But at least he votes the correct way and that's sufficient, right? Wrong. And good riddance. The second vote yesterday was to potentially expel -- not merely censure -- non-terrorist Republican George Santos of New York. Ever since being elected in 2022, Santos has been accused of lying about his past, though at least Santos never lied by claiming to have "served' in the Vietnam War, like a certain Democrat Senator from Connecticut has done with impunity. Santos is being persecuted, a la Trump, by the always impartial and non-partisan "lawfare" system in New York state. This resolution to expel Santos (the second one he has faced this year) was brought by five of his Republican colleagues from New York, all of whom are liberal freshmen (Santos is the only conservative among the newest members of the NY delegation) and all of whom are, not surprisingly, totally gutless. Apparently these invertebrates fear being labeled as guilty by assocation with Santos when they run for re-election next year. Therefore they would prefer to be rid of him prior to that time. One wonders why Michigan Democrats are not equally fearful of guilt-by-assocation with their racist Muslim colleague, Rashida Tlaib. Do simps like Brandon Williams, Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro -- running in New York districts many miles away from the one Santos represents -- really need to be so terrified of some liberal media reporter challenging them about another member of their party? Although 24 of his fellow GOP-ers did vote to expel Santos yesterday, 31 Democrats tactically came to his rescue, and the motion for expulsion failed. What great human beings those 31 Democrats are, putting aside their partisan differences to aid an embattled Republican! Right? Hardly. The list of Santos' newly-minted supporters from across the aisle contains some of the most hard-core racists in the Democrat party. The Democrats merely want Santos to remain in Congress -- as a whipping boy for themselves and as an albatross for Republicans -- because they (like the five New York cowards) believe he will be a campaign issue in 2024. Those Santos haters are likely to be disappointed. Although Santos has not yet announced that he isn't running in 2024, it's a fact that he won't be. Santos has zero chance of being re-elected, and probably has the lowest amount of campaign cash-on-hand of any incumbent Republican. He's finished. Even without Santos in the race there's still a greater than 50% probability that the seat flips anyway in 2024 because his win was perhaps the greatest fluke outcome among House elections in 2022. And that prediction for 2024 comes even without considering the probable implementation of a hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymander which will eradicate many House Republicans in New York. There's a ton of money in the race already in Santos' district -- on both sides -- several million dollars as compared to Santos' pittance, and almost a dozen financially-viable candidates. Tags:
U.S. House
George Santos
Expulsion
Rashida Tlaib
Actual Insurrection
Kay Granger
Ken Buck
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