Political Wire

You are here: Home / Archives for City Hall

Tensions Boil Over at Buttigieg Town Hall

By Leave a Comment

“Tensions spilled over at a town hall held Sunday by South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg following the fatal police shooting of a black man, drawing further scrutiny on the Democratic presidential candidate’s record,” The Hill reports.

“The issue shines further light on what is becoming a major stumbling block for Buttigieg as a presidential contender: his lack of popularity with black voters, seen as the crucial must-win demographic for candidates seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination.”

New York Times: “For Mr. Buttigieg the candidate, this is a critical time. The first Democratic debates are this week, an opportunity for him to prove to voters that the 37-year-old mayor of a midsize Midwestern city deserves consideration in a field brimming with senators, governors and a former vice president.”

Florida City Agrees to Pay Malware Ransom

By Leave a Comment

“The Riviera Beach City Council authorized the city’s insurer to pay nearly $600,000 worth of ransom to regain access to data walled off through an attack on the city’s computer systems,” the Palm Beach Post reports.

“The city’s email and computer systems, at City Hall, the city’s Port Center offices and elsewhere, including those that control city finances and water utility pump stations and testing systems, are still only partially back online, two weeks after the ransomware attack was disclosed. But crucial data encrypted by the attackers remains beyond reach and there was no explanation of whether the city has any guarantee that the ransomers will release it if paid.”

“More than 50 cities across the United States, large and small, have been hit by ransomware attacks during the past two years.”

Buttigieg Returns Home After Police Shooting

By Leave a Comment

“Mayor Pete Buttigieg has stepped off the presidential campaign trail following a deadly shooting by a police officer in his city and canceled a planned appearance Monday at an LGBTQ gala in New York hosted by the Democratic National Committee,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Buttigieg: “We’ve had prior cases of use-of-force incidents and officer-involved shootings where I hesitated, frankly, to get in front of cameras because we didn’t know very much, and it was out of our hands. What I was told by people in the community is that it is important to open channels of communication to try to be clear on where the city is, even if we don’t find ourselves in a position to be able to say or do much right away.”

Alabama Mayor Calls for Killing Homosexuals, Democrats

By Leave a Comment

The mayor of a small Alabama town is apologizing after he recommended “killing” members of the LGBTQ community in a now-deleted Facebook post. WBRC reports.

Said Carbon Hill Mayor Mark Chamber (R): “We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics!”

He added: “The only way to change it would be to kill the problem out. I know it’s bad to say but without killing them out there’s no way to fix it.”

Lightfoot Takes Over as Chicago Mayor

By Leave a Comment

“Lori Lightfoot (D) takes over as Chicago mayor on Monday after a seven-week sprint that saw her try to build an administration she can trust to run the city and promote her agenda while she also set out to mould the City Council by installing allies in key positions to try bringing change to the notoriously reform-averse body,” the Chicago Tribune reports.

“Just days before she was to get sworn in, Lightfoot hadn’t filled several key posts in her administration. That has led to questions about just how different it will look from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s, at least at the outset.”

Buttigieg Out of Town Nearly Half Time

By Leave a Comment

South Bend Tribune: “From Austin, Texas, to West Hollywood, Calif., South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential bid has taken him out of town nearly half of the days in recent months, according to his daily calendar, news stories and information online.”

“Of the 120 days from Feb. 1 through May 31, Buttigieg was away or plans to be away from the South Bend area at least 55 days, or 45 percent of the calendar days.”

“Looking at only weekdays, he’s been gone or plans to be out of town for 39 of 86 days — also about 45 percent.”

Georgia Mayor Under Fire Over Black Job Candidate

By Leave a Comment

“The mayor of Hoschton, a nearly all-white community 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, allegedly withheld a job candidate from consideration for city administrator because he was black,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

Mayor Theresa Kenerly told a member of the City Council she pulled the resume of Keith Henry from a packet of four finalists “because he is black, and the city isn’t ready for this.”

Councilman Jim Cleveland defended the mayor: “I have black friends, I hired black people. But when it comes to all this stuff you see on TV, when you see blacks and whites together, it makes my blood boil because that’s just not the way a Christian is supposed to live.”

Texas Mayor Charged with Trying to Rig His Election

By Leave a Comment

“A Texas mayor on the U.S.-Mexico border was charged Thursday with trying to cheat his way into office through an illegal voting scheme in a region long plagued by public corruption scandals,” the AP reports.

Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina “unseated the city’s longtime mayor by about 1,200 votes in 2017, and prosecutors say Molina tried to tip the scales by having voters change their addresses to places they didn’t live, including an apartment complex he owned.

FBI Raids Home of Baltimore Mayor

By Leave a Comment

FBI and IRS agents raided Baltimore’s City Hall and the home of Mayor Catherine Pugh (D), the Baltimore Sun reports.

CNN: “Pugh, a Democrat, has taken a leave of absence amid a scandal over the sale of a children’s book she authored. While she was a board member of the University of Maryland Medical System, the UMMS spent $500,000 to fund the purchase of some 100,000 books from Pugh’s company Healthy Holly LLC, a spokesman for the medical system has confirmed.”

Secret Tapes Linger Over Buttigieg’s Meteoric Rise

By Leave a Comment

“Pete Buttigieg’s meteoric rise as a presidential candidate is putting a spotlight on his years as mayor of South Bend, Ind., including his demotion of an African American police chief,” The Hill reports.

“An Indiana judge will rule soon on whether to release five cassette tapes of secretly recorded conversations between South Bend police officers that led to the 2012 demotion of Police Chief Darryl Boykins, the city’s first ever black police chief.”

“The South Bend City Council subpoenaed Buttigieg to win release of the tapes, which were at the center of a police department shake-up and a series of lawsuits.”

Baltimore City Council Asks Mayor to Resign

By Leave a Comment

The Baltimore City Council voted unanimously to urge Mayor Catherine Pugh to resign, the Baltimore Sun reports.

“The letter comes as Pugh has taken a leave of absence as mayor amid an unfolding scandal over her sales of her Healthy Holly children’s books to entities that have business dealings with the city. The state prosecutor has opened an investigation into the book sales.”

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan 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.

Praise for Political Wire

"There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them."

-- Chuck Todd, host of "Meet the Press"

"Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all."

-- Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report

"Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”

-- Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report

"The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom -- nicely packaged, constantly updated... What political junkie could ask for more?"

-- Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia

“Political Wire is a great, great site.”

— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”

“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”

— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post

“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”

— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit

“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”

— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.