Just published: The American Senate: An Insider’s History by Neil MacNeil and Richard A. Baker.
Roll Call notes “There’s unlikely to be another single volume quite as comprehensive anytime soon, a fact that can probably be attributed to the authors.”
Walter Shapiro: “We have reform legislation desperately sought by a key voting bloc, backed by powerful interest groups in both parties and the president, which will save the federal government money and requires neither Democrats nor Republicans to abandon a core element in their ideologies.”
“If Washington cannot achieve bipartisanship with immigration reform under these favorable circumstances, then the next thing we will see are crippling filibusters over the naming of post offices. It doesn’t get easier than this in politics. And yet the difficult struggle for immigration reform remains a testament to dysfunction in Washington.”
Wonk Wire: 36 million new immigrants after immigration reform?
“These extreme right wing nutsies think of everything.”
— New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), quoted by the New York Daily News, laughing off news that he was being targeted by a “death ray.”
A New York Times reporter met Shahbaz, a scammer who used fake bank alerts to make victims panic. When confronted, he just laughed—no guilt, no remorse.
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“The upstart super PAC, called Ready for Hillary, is fast emerging as the quasi-official stand-in for potential 2016 presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton, scooping up advisers and gathering big donations more than three years ahead of election time,” the Washington Post reports.
“But the group is also making some advisers in Clinton’s orbit decidedly nervous about its potential impact on her own efforts, which for now consist of philanthropic pursuits and remaining mum on a presidential bid. Some allies also fear a repeat of 2008, when an assumed air of inevitability contributed to Clinton’s loss to fresh-faced challenger Barack Obama.”
First Read: “It’s most pronounced in the House. But it’s also evident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where President Obama and his team have been struggling over the past month. For the White House, it hasn’t just been the controversies or the president not yet finding his voice when it comes to the NSA surveillance. It also was present overseas this week, especially when he was unsuccessful in getting G-8 consensus on Syria. And even when it comes to immigration, the president is — by design — taking a backseat. By comparison, the Senate DOES appear to be working at the moment, with bipartisan support for the immigration bill. But how long does that last? Bottom line: Nobody is really running Washington right now, and the public is noticing.”
Rick Hasen: “This term too could end with surprises. One possibility is that a court majority will decide that it never should have taken California’s Proposition 8 same sex-marriage case to begin with (because those supporting the law did not have legal standing to defend it), and the case could be dismissed over the strenuous objections of other justices.”
“We just don’t know yet. There are 11 cases remaining for the court to decide, and it is likely that all 11 will be decided by the end of next week. But there are no guarantees. The court has gone into July to issue opinions when necessary.”
Charlie Cook: “As the immigration issue moves front and center in Congress, a chorus of GOP voices is warning that if immigrants–and, let’s face it, the debate is focused mostly on those from Mexico, Central America, and South America–are provided a path to citizenship, Republicans will never again win a national election. The same people also argue that Republicans would find it much harder to win statewide races in places such as Texas that now routinely fall into the GOP column. Implicit in both arguments is the notion that Republicans will remain a competitive party nationally and stay dominant in certain states if they can prevent Hispanic immigrants from becoming citizens and gaining voting rights.”
“But that position ignores the fact that the 45.5 million Hispanics already in this country legally are registering to vote and are seeing the Republican Party as distinctly hostile. The more the GOP comes to be seen as fighting immigration reform, the more difficult it will be for Republican candidates to compete for this group of voters. Remember, 50,000 Hispanic citizens reach voting age every month.”
Scott Conroy notes that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is building quite a record of accomplishments as he mulls a 2016 presidential bid.
“Among the achievements the former state attorney general steered through the New York legislature over the last five months: a landmark gun-control law, his third on-time budget in a row, a boost in the minimum wage, new teacher evaluation standards, and a development-boosting initiative for economically distressed upstate New York.”
“With two days remaining in the legislative session, the hard-charging Cuomo wasn’t done yet, as he laid out a forceful defense of an abortion rights bill that was among his most controversial proposals of the session.”
“From the amount of obesity in this country, by people we’re told do not have enough to eat, it does seem like we can have a debate about this issue without allegations about wanting to slap down or starve children.”
— Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), quoted by National Journal, on the debate for funding food stamps.
A new UMass Lowell-Boston Herald poll in Massachusetts finds Rep. Edward Markey (D) leading Gabriel Gomez (R) in the special U.S. Senate election, 56% to 36%.
Politico: “The defeat of the farm bill — after both parties were privately bullish it would pass with large margins — shows … how massively dysfunctional the House and its leadership have become. And it plainly reveals that a bipartisan rewrite of the nation’s … politically charged immigration laws are a pipe dream in the House, at least for now. Preventing a government shutdown and debt limit fight are not far behind.”
The Week notes Boehner officially has no control over his caucus.
Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who declined to run in the special U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, told Fox 25 that he would be able to win the seat if he had run.
Said Brown: “Yeah, I do. I could beat Ed Markey, absolutely.”
Howard Dean told CNN that he would consider another run for the White House.
Said Dean: “I am not driven by my own ambition. What I am driven by is pushing the country in a direction that it desperately needs to be pushed; pushing other politicians who aren’t quite as frank as I am who need to be more candid with the American people about what needs to happen. I am not trying to hedge, it’s a hard job running. It’s really tough. I am doing a lot of things I really enjoy. But you should never say never in this business.”
He added: “If you had to put a gun to my head and make me decide right now, I
wouldn’t. But who
knows?”
A Yahoo News analysis of the 444 briefings that White House press secretary Jay Carney has held since becoming spokesman has identified 13 distinct strains in the way he dodges a reporter’s question.
A federal criminal complaint says self-proclaimed Ku Klux Klansman Glen Hubbard “was planning to use a radiation-emitting device to attack a Muslim organization, a political party and a political figure,” the New York Daily News reports.
Sources say the unnamed political figure was Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “is ready to hire more state workers and rent extra voting machines to avoid any last-minute chaos between New Jersey’s two major elections this year,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.
“Christie called a special Senate election for Oct. 16 at an estimated cost of $12 million — a price tag that would rise if the Republican governor goes through with any of the backup plans his staff described to the court.”
“The date for the Senate election — 20 days before the Nov. 5 vote for governor and for all the seats in the Legislature — has rankled Democrats who said Christie could have combined the two elections but chose to spend millions to split them and boost his re-election chances.”
Downstate Illinois GOP county chairman Jim Allen resigned after likening former Miss America Erika Harold (R), who’s challenging a sitting Republican congressman in next year’s primary election, to a “street walker” whose “pimps” were Democrats and moderate Republicans, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The Newark Star Ledger profiles Sen. Jeffrey Chiesa (R-NJ), “an affable career prosecutor appointed by Gov. Chris Christie (R) to watch over the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s (D) seat until mid-October.”
“Chiesa is relying on a hybrid staff — made up of former employees at the attorney general’s office, people he hired when he was Christie’s chief counsel, and veteran Washington hands like Ken Lundberg, former communications director for recently retired Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — to helps him navigate the Capitol’s secret passageways, centuries-old rules and the current blizzard of bills.”
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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— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
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— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
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— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
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