Political Wire

Sessions Not Interested In Returning to Senate

November 14, 2017 at 10:51 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Attorney general Jeff Sessions “has told political allies in Alabama that he is not considering running for his old Senate seat as a write-in candidate in next month’s special election,” the Weekly Standard reports.

“That’s according to a spokeswoman for Sessions at the Department of Justice, Sarah Isgur Flores, who also tells me that Sessions is telling Alabama Republicans he is not considering being appointed to the seat if Roy Moore wins and is either not seated by or is expelled from the Senate.”

Ryan Tells Moore to Drop Out of Race

November 14, 2017 at 10:44 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that Roy Moore (R) should drop out of the Alabama Senate race, CBS News reports.

Said Ryan: “He should step aside,” because the sexual misconduct allegations against him “are credible.”

Jones Hits Moore Over ‘Awful’ Allegations

November 14, 2017 at 9:47 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones (D) is running a television ad about the allegations swirling around challenger Roy Moore (R).

The ad uses Republican voters to explain why they can’t vote with their party in next month’s election: “You read the story and it just shakes you. Just awful.”

David Weigel: “At no point does the ad get into the particulars of the scandal, which have included graphic descriptions of a 32-year old Moore, at the start of a long legal career in Alabama, initiating a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old and dating other teens. It’s a more careful approach than the one Democrats used in 2015, the last time the party won an upset victory in the Deep South, when now-Gov. Jon Bel Edwards loudly reminded voters of his opponent’s prostitution scandal.”

Robbing Blue States to Pay Red

November 14, 2017 at 9:38 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson: “Much of the debate over the Republican House and Senate tax plans has centered on how they will shift income toward the affluent. But there is a second kind of redistribution in the plans — from Democratic blue states to Republican red states.”

“Call it the Republican two-step: redistribute upward, then sideways. The biggest beneficiaries are corporations and the rich regardless of where they are. But under the Republican plans, half of these big cuts have to be paid for in the first 10 years (the other half will be added to the national debt, increasing it by $1.5 trillion). And these ‘pay-fors,’ as they’re called, are predominantly aimed at blue states.”

Quote of the Day

November 14, 2017 at 9:24 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“As a member of the Republican Party and an elected Republican, there’s no circumstance under which having a Democrat would be better… That said, anybody who violates the moral code of ethics and decency should not be serving in the United States Senate.”

— Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), quoted by the Marietta Daily Journal, on Roy Moore’s (R) troubled candidacy in Alabama.

When You Harass a State Senator

November 14, 2017 at 9:20 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

From the Texas Tribune:

Early in her tenure in the state Senate, Wendy Davis remembers having a conversation at a political event with an older man who happened to be a recently elected, first-term House member. Unaware she was a fellow lawmaker, he reached forward, as though to pat her arm, and instead reached between her arm and breast and cupped her breast.

“It wasn’t an accidental brushing,” the former state senator said. “It was a purposeful touching of my breast.”

Davis told her colleagues in the House about the incident and “as a consequence of that, he had a challenge getting anything passed,” she said.

Finally, he apologized. But Davis, the Fort Worth Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2014 after serving in the state senate for six years, acknowledged that her position gave her a form of recourse not available to other women working in the Capitol.

Why Trump Jr.’s Messages with WikiLeaks Are a Big Deal

November 14, 2017 at 9:13 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

First Read: “Did the Russian government use WikiLeaks to disseminate the hacked DNC and Podesta emails? If the answer is yes – and the U.S. intelligence community say it is… then Trump Jr.’s correspondence with the organization appears to be one degree of separation from Russia.”

“Remember, the U.S. intel community said Russia intended to discredit the election results if Clinton had won – exactly what WikiLeaks was instructing Trump Jr to do.”

“Also remember that Trump mentioned ‘WikiLeaks’ 145 times during the final month of the 2016 campaign.”

Bill Clinton: A Reckoning

November 14, 2017 at 8:38 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Atlantic: “Feminists saved the 42nd president of the United States in the 1990s. They were on the wrong side of history; is it finally time to make things right?”

Every Vote Would Be the Deciding Vote

November 14, 2017 at 8:24 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

James Hohmann: “A victory by Democratic candidate Doug Jones would narrow the GOP’s margin of control in the Senate from 52-48 to 51-49. This would make every single Republican ‘the deciding vote’ on every bill, which anyone who has ever had an attack ad run against them in a race for Congress will tell you is not a great spot to be in. (Just ask the Democratic senators who voted for Obamacare…)”

“Mike Pence has already cast five tiebreaking votes in 2017. That’s more than any other vice president during their first year of office in U.S. history.”

Earlier for members: Republicans Lose Either Way In Alabama

Alabama Senate Race Now a ‘Toss Up’

November 14, 2017 at 7:58 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Cook Political Report: “It’s hard to know whether Moore can or will win the special election. What we do know is that there is so much uncertainty surrounding the vote that moving the race to the Toss Up is the best way to describe where this race is today.”

Brooks Will Stick with Roy Moore

November 14, 2017 at 7:56 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) told the Birmingham News that he is sticking with Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations, arguing that the conservative agenda is “vastly more important” than the claims against Moore.

Said Brooks: “Who will vote in America’s best interests on Supreme Court justices, deficit and debt, economic growth, border security, national defense, and the like? Socialist Democrat Doug Jones will vote wrong. Roy Moore will vote right. Hence, I will vote for Roy Moore.”

He added: “I do believe this, there are millions of people in America who would lie in a heartbeat if it meant adding another Democrat to the Senate.”

Sexual Harassment Rampant on Capitol Hill

November 14, 2017 at 7:53 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

CNN: “Be extra careful of the male lawmakers who sleep in their offices — they can be trouble. Avoid finding yourself alone with a congressman or senator in elevators, late-night meetings or events where alcohol is flowing. And think twice before speaking out about sexual harassment from a boss — it could cost you your career.”

“These are a few of the unwritten rules that some female lawmakers, staff and interns say they follow on Capitol Hill, where they say harassment and coercion is pervasive on both sides of the rotunda.”

New Book Already Shaking Up White House

November 14, 2017 at 7:11 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Coming in January: Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff.

Mike Allen: “My conversations with the West Wing show there’s already a frenzy inside to figure out who told Wolff what. Wolff tells me key players have been barraging him with calls, trying to figure out what his sources said about them: ‘It’s the fundamental dynamic of this White House — people divided against each other.'”

McConnell Sees Sessions as Replacement for Moore

November 14, 2017 at 7:07 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “Publicly, Mr. McConnell, appearing at a news conference in Louisville, said he was ‘looking at’ drafting a write-in candidate for the Dec. 12 special election. Privately, Mr. McConnell was doing more than merely looking. One idea being discussed, first brought up by two different White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would be for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to run as either a write-in candidate or to be appointed to what was his seat should Mr. Moore win and be immediately removed from office.”

“Mr. McConnell is supportive of the idea and discussed it on Monday in a telephone call with Vice President Mike Pence that was chiefly about the Republican tax overhaul proposal… Mr. Sessions remains popular among Alabama Republicans, but his relationship with Mr. Trump has frayed since he recused himself from the investigation of the role that Russia played in last year’s presidential campaign.”

Is Expelling Moore, If Elected, a Viable Plan?

November 14, 2017 at 7:06 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Playbook: “Expulsion takes a while. It’s tricky. The Senate hasn’t expelled a member in more than a century. But is there an argument to be made that Republicans would be better off electing Moore, expelling him and getting Alabama’s Republican governor to appoint another GOP senator? That way two Republicans don’t split the vote. And Republicans get to actually take action to expel someone whose behavior they say they find abhorrent.”

“If the Senate has to expel Moore, it could tear the party apart even further and embolden Steve Bannon in his war against incumbents. And it could look like the Senate is subverting the will of the voters.”

“By the way, remember: November was supposed to be all about tax reform. Republicans don’t want to be talking about whether their Senate candidate in Alabama had an unusual interest in high school girls.”

McConnell Takes Hard Line on Sex Scandals

November 14, 2017 at 6:11 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “has a well-documented history of showing little tolerance for sex scandals that he fears could tarnish the image of the Senate and his party,” the New York Times reports.

“He was a major force behind the effort to push out Larry E. Craig, the Idaho Republican arrested at the Minneapolis airport in 2007 in an undercover sex sting. And he was the chairman of the ethics committee when Senator Bob Packwood, the powerful Oregon Republican, resigned in 1995 under threat of expulsion after he was accused of sexual harassment.”

Sessions Mulls Special Counsel to Investigate Clinton

November 13, 2017 at 8:22 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Attorney General Jeff Sessions “is entertaining the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate a host of Republican concerns — including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia — and has directed senior federal prosecutors to explore at least some of the matters and report back to him and his top deputy,” the Washington Post reports.

“The list of matters he wanted probed was wide ranging, but included the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, various dealings of the Clinton Foundation and several matters connected to the purchase of the Canadian mining company Uranium One by Russia’s nuclear energy agency.”

New York Times: “The decision to examine those matters raises questions about whether Mr. Trump is trying to use the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals and distract from the special counsel’s investigation into his presidential campaign. It also comes at a tenuous time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Mr. Trump has hinted to advisers he may want to fire.”

RNC Still Supporting Roy Moore

November 13, 2017 at 8:05 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“About a dozen national party staffers are on the ground in Alabama, handling field organizing duties for next month’s special election between Moore and Democratic nominee Doug Jones,” an RNC official told BuzzFeed News.

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