“The Arkansas legislature gave its final thumbs up Friday to a bill that would block cities and counties from enacting anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT people,” BuzzFeed reports.
“Having already cleared the state senate Monday, the bill now heads to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is not expected to veto the legislation.”
Former Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) “received $100,000 in under-the-table payments from a secret ownership stake he maintained in a health eatery after his election to Congress, federal prosecutors alleged in an affidavit unsealed Wednesday,” the New York Daily News reports.
“The Staten Island Republican pleaded guilty late last year to a felony count of filing false tax returns while part-owner of the Upper East Side restaurant, Healthalicious. Grimm resigned his seat last month.”
A new SurveyUSA poll in Oregon finds a majority of voters want Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) to resign amid a scandal that has consumed him, his office and his fiancée, 58% to 36%.
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Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) “said something out loud that reporters who cover him regularly have known for a long time – he occasionally mangles his language badly, speaking in sentence fragments and run-on sentences as he makes his point,” the Columbia Daily Tribune reports.
Said Nixon in response to a reporter: “That’s a good question. I can do one of two things. I can tell you I don’t have a good answer to that and then I can talk for about a minute, or I can say I don’t have a good answer to that and then we can go to the next question. It is your guys’ choice. Pick a subject. I can talk for a minute on basically anything and be stunningly unquotable.”
A new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll in New Jersey finds just 37% of registered voters give Gov. Chris Christie (R) a favorable job rating, down 7 points in the last two months.
“The audience for the most part is awake because they’re bobbing up and down all the time. And we sit there, stone faced, the sober judges. But we’re not, at least I was not, 100 percent sober.”
— Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, quoted by CNN, explaining that she may have had too much wine before President Obama’s State of the Union address.
“Well, you know God created man first. Then he took the rib out of man to make woman. And you know, a rib is a lesser cut of meat.”
— South Carolina state Sen. Thomas Corbin (R), quoted by FITSNews, making fun of state Sen. Katrina Shealy (R), the only female member of the 46-person state Senate.
“In one of the most surreal days in Oregon political history, the state’s top Democratic leaders called for Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) to resign, and the governor vanished from public view,” the Oregonian reports.
“With support of even allies evaporating, the ability of Kitzhaber to remain in office appeared less viable by the hour… By day’s end, Kitzhaber had suffered a legal blow, too, when Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum declared that the emails of his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, are public records and must be released.”
In a visit to Iowa, Vice President Joe Biden referred to former Rep. Neal Smith (D-IA) as his “old butt buddy,” the Des Moines Register reports.
Sen. Marco Rubio wrote in a 2006 book that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire “have a disproportionate impact on the nomination of presidential candidates,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.
“Today, Rubio hits the road with a new book and his first stop is here in Iowa, a sure sign he wants to compete for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. We wonder if, given the benefit of time, he’d frame things as he did in 2006.”
New York Times: “Now, six months after he sent the military back into combat to take on the terror group calling itself the Islamic State, Mr. Obama has acquiesced and sent a measure to Congress asking it to formally authorize what he has been doing all along. And now that they have gotten what they asked for, few in Congress seem all that enthusiastic about the prospect.”
“One side thinks the president’s request for war-making powers is too brazen and even reckless. The other side thinks it is too spineless and probably ineffectual.”
A new NBC News/Marist poll finds 54% to 32% support for Obama’s measure.
Wall Street Journal: “Several GOP fundraisers from the financial-services industry and other Manhattan business sectors are hosting donor events for Mr. Walker, a likely presidential candidate, when he visits New York next week. The events show that while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have strong support in New York money circles, neither has a lock on the city’s big-dollar donors.”
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s (D) “office last week requested state officials destroy thousands of records in the governor’s personal email accounts,” Willamette Week reports.
“The request came as investigations into allegations of influence-peddling involving Kitzhaber and first lady Cylvia Hayes were intensifying… Records show the request to destroy Kitzhaber’s emails came from Jan Murdock, Kitzhaber’s executive assistant. She wanted all emails from Kitzhaber’s personal email accounts removed from state servers.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), “seeking a way to run for re-election to the Senate at the same time he pursues a presidential bid, has formally asked the Kentucky GOP to clear the way for him by changing the state’s presidential nominating contest from a primary to a caucus in 2016,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“In a letter sent earlier this month to members of the Kentucky GOP Central Committee, Mr. Paul said the change would ‘help me get an equal chance at the nomination’ by allowing him to circumvent a state law barring candidates from appearing twice on the same ballot.”
Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney (D) and House Majority Leader Tina Kotek (D) met with Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) on Thursday morning and told him it was time to resign, the Oregonian reports.
“The leaders met with their fellow lawmakers earlier Thursday to let them know about the meeting with the governor.”
The Oregonian has a roundup of the latest headlines as the pressure increases on the governor.
“We took a hostage that the president wants to shoot. This is homeland security. It’s a conservative thing.”
— Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), quoted by TPM, on the inability of Republicans to pass a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
Stuart Rothenberg: “Carson has never run even a single political race, raising huge questions about what kind of a candidate he will be and what kind of political team he will put together. The early indications are not good.”
“He and his conservative admirers dismiss his lack of campaign experience, as well as the fact that he has never held either high elective or appointive office. To them, his values and views strongly outweigh any lack of electoral experience or government service. But most voters consider experience an asset, not a liability, and candidate skills go well beyond being interviewed by a friendly voice from Fox News or conservative talk radio.”
“A growing number of House GOP conservatives are pressuring Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday to invoke the ‘nuclear option‘ and change the chamber’s rules to pass a bill defunding President Obama’s executive actions on immigration,” The Hill reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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