Weekly House Cleaning
A DCCC News Roundup
What’s that sound you hear? It’s the NRCC scraping the bottom of the barrel.
This week, the NRCC released its second round of additions to the Young Guns program, and boy it doesn’t amount to much. In the unusual examples where the NRCC has found candidates to run in districts that could actually be considered competitive, the recruits are unimpressive and nearly all are part of at least a two-way primary. Out of the 41 candidates listed, there are only 24 districts represented. Talk about bloody, ideological Republican primaries. Sound familiar?
First of all – what happened to the NRCC’s “New Women’s Initiative: Project Grow ?” In 2013, the NRCC rolled out an effort, to be championed by Chairman Walden, to “empower, engage and encourage female candidates.” Three years later, let’s check on that progress, shall we? Out of 41 candidates on Young Guns, there are only 8 women. So, that’s a whopping 19% of candidates. Bummer ladies.
Why doesn’t it seem that women want to “unite on the right”? Could that be because of Republicans’ repeated votes to defund Planned Parenthood? Or their opposition to legislation that ensures equal pay for equal work? Or, could it be their opposition to paid family leave? So many choices.
Missing In Action:
MN-02: Disappointingly empty. Merely days after retiring Congressman John Kline told reporters he was “disappointed” in and “concerned” with the current field of GOP candidates in Minnesotan’s 2nd District, it’s clear Washington Republicans agree. Not a single one of the Republican candidates named to the “Young Guns” are from MN-02.
AZ-01: Paging Sheriff Paul Babeu! Even though he’s widely considered the strongest Republican in the race, the NRCC has shockingly placed the other two Republicans in the primary for the Young Guns, and left poor Paul out. Wonder why?
NY-22: Ouch. NY-22 congressional candidate, Tea Party hardliner and current “frontrunner” New York State Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney got the cold shoulder from DC establishment Republicans this week. Tenney was left off the NRCC’s 2nd round of candidates named to their “Young Guns” program. The key question now: How will Tenney and her conservative base respond to DC establishment Republicans trying to undercut her campaign?
And, it appears that the NRCC is giving up on many of their 2016 targets altogether, like CA-26, CA-36, IL-17, MN-07, NH-02, NY-18, AZ-09.
Desperate times call for desperate measures:
MI-01: Michigan voters took a hit, when Washington Republicans chose their two favorite candidates in Michigan’s 1st District primary in naming both Tom Casperson and Jason Allen to the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program. Tom Casperson and Jason Allen, both career politicians, have spent decades voting against middle-class families in Lansing. Allen was even a highly-paid official as Governor Snyder’s political appointee to the VA.
NY03: The NRCC is thrusting the New York GOP into utter chaos by throwing their support behind Albany politician Jack Martins in the crowded Republican primary for New York’s 3rd congressional district. Why is that awkward? Local Republicans had pleaded with Martins not to vacate his vulnerable State Senate seat and potentially jeopardize Republican control of the New York’s State Senate. Martins ignored their pleas and decided to run for Congress anyway.
PA-08: Thanks to his bloodline, Brian Fitzpatrick is apparently ready for Congress. Within a month of Brian’s move from California, the NRCC is already trying to push this outsider on Pennsylvanians.
MD-03: Who? And Where? Mark Plaster, a candidate with 50K cash on hand, somehow is part of the Young Guns Program. Since Democrat John Sarbanes won his last election with 64% of the vote, we think the NRCC must be confused.
SEPARATELY BUT VERY IMPORTANTLY:
Speaker Ryan is doubling down on the Braveheart thing. WHY? WHY WHY?
Also, says we shouldn’t focus on tactics anymore? WHY? Oh maybe this?
The Hill – Dems ready to attack if GOP skips budget
House Democrats are set to pounce if GOP leaders decide to skip a budget this year.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) took the gavel last fall with vows to return to a system of “regular order” that would include passage of a budget resolution and the 12 underlying spending bills.
But pressure from conservatives for steeper cuts has divided the party, and Ryan is now floating the notion of scrapping a new budget and adopting the spending caps set by last year’s fiscal deal between President Obama and former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
THE DIRT FROM THE DISTRICTS
IA-01: Possibly the least surprising news to come out this week is Rod Blum fibbing about how many town halls he held and then using taxpayer funded mail to spread that fib again. As a reminder, Blum received an ‘F’ for his comments about the First Amendment Defense Act and was found to have made blatantly inaccurate claims about his participation in the Congressional pension system. He seems to have created his own version of the FIBONACCI SEQUENCE:
FL-10: Val Demings gained the endorsements of the Service Trades Council group of unions representing Walt Disney World workers and specifically the United Food and Commercial Workers.
MN-02: DFL candidate Angie Craig added several more names to her impressive list of support from local and national organizations, announcing the endorsement of AFL-CIO, End Citizens United, Education Minnesota, and the NEA this week.
MI-01: While the Republican primary contenders continue to chew each other up, candidate Lon Johnson has been taking the lead on water issues in the Great Lakes. An aging pipeline through the Straits of Mackinac threatens the health of the Great Lakes and the thousands of Midwesterners who rely on it for drinking water, and Lon Johnson is leading the effort to shut it down for investigation.
IL-10: Brad Schneider earned the endorsement of the Machinists this week, the “latest in a long string of endorsements” for the Democrat running against Planned Parenthood defunder Bob Dold.
NJ-05: Less than a week after announcing his campaign against NJ Congressman and anti-equality champion Scott Garrett, Democratic challenger Josh Gottheimer is already getting help from the state’s largest newspaper. In an editorial, the Star-Ledger was “overjoyed to see that U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-5th Dist.) is facing what could be his strongest challenge yet, from Josh Gottheimer, a centrist Democrat and former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton.” Why? The Star-Ledger continues, “Because we know this much today: Garrett richly deserves to lose for any one of about 10 reasons.” And that’s just the first few sentences.
NH-01: The League of Conservation Voters endorsed Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) this week, applauding her as “a proven champion for the environment and protecting our air, land, water and wildlife.”
NY-21: Check out this great read on retired Army colonel (and candidate for Congress in NY-21) Mike Derrick’s lifelong service to protecting our country overseas and community on the homefront.
AZ-01: Sheriff Babeu is considered the Republican frontrunner. Take a moment to let that sink in… sufficiently troubled? It might be overkill at this point but the scandals and bad headlines won’t stop. The embattled Sheriff is so desperate to stem the bleeding from scandal after scandal after scandal that he actually issued a press release saying that he hired a new DC law firm to clean up his act. Given the bizarre nature of the announcement, the press obviously took notice, exposed the fact that no Personal Financial Disclosure had been posted online (even though the same bizarre press release said he filed one). As of hitting send on this newsletter, still no PFD had been filed.
CA-07: Dr. Ami Bera discussed the importance of working across the aisle and how to protect and respond to the Zika virus on CBS Sacramento. In the midst of tax season, Rep. Bera is also standing up to the IRS for punishing Californians who did the right thing by making their lawns drought-tolerant. He’s pressing the agency not to tax rebates residents earned for doing their part to address the state’s historic drought.
CA-26: The Ventura County Star’s Editorial Board praised Rep. Brownley’s bill to reduce suicides among female veterans.
CA-26: This week President Obama signed Rep. Brownley’s dyslexia research bill. This comes on the heels of last week’s passage of her bill to reduce suicides among female veterans.
CA-31: Rep. Pete Aguilar celebrated his official announcement to run for reelection, saying his campaign this year “is about growing the Inland Empire economy and strengthening the middle class. It is about giving every student the chance to attend college, expanding job opportunities for our residents, supporting our veterans and protecting Social Security and Medicare for our seniors.”