Goobergunch Political Report

2012 Republican National Convention
(1144 delegates needed to nominate)
Gingrich Huntsman Paul Romney Santorum Unallocated
Selected 29 2 8 73 3 2039
Automatic 3 1 22 1 105
Total 32 2 9 95 4 2144

30 December 2010

Redrawing the Lines: Vermont

Goobergunch @ 21:00 CT
Posted in: Redrawing the Lines
Tags: ,

This is Part 2 of a 50-part series examining the Congressional districts in place for the 2012-2020 election cycles.

Continuing our look at the at–large House seats, we go to a state that cancels out Wyoming’s votes—Vermont. Vermont will also not be voting on new legislative boundaries until 2012, but this series focuses on Congressional lines, which doesn’t require such a long wait. Vermont has had one at–large seat since the 1930 census.

One thing that Vermont has in common with Wyoming is that it’s overwhelmingly white, so again I have no worries that using the 2009 estimate for ethnicity will cause any major problems.

VT-AL (Vermont)

Population: 625,741

Ethnicity (2009 est.): 96.2% white

Incumbent: Peter Welch (D)

2008 Presidential Vote: Obama 67%, McCain 30%

2012 Outlook: Safe DEM Hold

Vermont was Republican for a very long time. Even now, it’s only elected one Democratic Senator since Senators were elected to begin with. However, that’s a misleading statistic for two reasons. First, its Democratic Senator is Pat Leahy, who’s been in office since 1975. Second, its other Senator is Bernie Sanders, who’s an independent calling himself a Socialist. In fact, the Republicans that Vermont liked were the kind of moderates that can’t be found in today’s Republican Party. The state hasn’t elected a Republican to the House since 1988, the same time it last voted for a Republican candidate for President.

In 2008, current Representative Peter Welch managed to win both the Democratic nomination and—via write–in—the Republican nomination. Even in years when the Republicans have managed to find a candidate, the House races here haven’t tended to be particularly close. I’d be surprised to see this seat flip any time soon.

 

With 2 states considered, the notional partisan breakdown of the House prior to the 2012 election is: GOP 1, DEM 1. (No net change.)

23 December 2010

Redrawing the Lines: Wyoming

Goobergunch @ 21:00 CT
Posted in: Redrawing the Lines
Tags: ,

This is Part 1 of a 50-part series examining the Congressional districts in place for the 2012-2020 election cycles.

Wyoming, the smallest state in the country, is one of seven states that only has one Congressional district. While Wyoming isn’t scheduled to formally adopt a redistricting plan until early 2012, there will be no surprises as to the Congressional lines, as there’s only one way you can draw an at–large district. This isn’t news for Wyoming, as it’s had only one district since statehood.

As more detailed 2010 Census data won’t be out until mid-March, I’m using the 2009 estimate for ethnicity, although that’s a statistic that really doesn’t matter for Wyoming since it’s so overwhelmingly white.

WY-AL (Wyoming)

Population: 563,626

Ethnicity (2009 est.): 93.5% white

Incumbent: Cynthia Lummis (R)

2008 Presidential Vote: McCain 65%, Obama 33%

2012 Outlook: Safe GOP Hold

Wyoming’s Representative has been a Republican since 1979. Its last Democratic Senator was defeated in 1976, and it last voted Democratic for President in 1964. In 2008 and 2000, Wyoming’s Presidential vote was the most Republican of any state in the country.

While previous incumbent Barbara Cubin was almost defeated in 2006 due to some controversial remarks, with her 2008 retirement I don’t expect Cynthia Lummis to be in much trouble for the foreseeable future. Barring a scandal, the Republicans should have this seat for a while.

 

With 1 state considered, the notional partisan breakdown of the House prior to the 2012 election is: GOP 1, DEM 0. (No net change.)

This “notional partisan breakdown” will be a running tally to see how the redistricting process changes the composition of the House—it will be an attempt to reflect how the House would be composed based on the 2012 maps. Obviously, this is a really easy determination for at–large seats.

21 December 2010

Obligatory Reapportionment Post

Goobergunch @ 12:45 CT
Posted in: Election 2012, Redrawing the Lines, The Census

This is Part 0 of a 50-part series examining the Congressional districts in place for the 2012-2020 election cycles.

Reapportionment data for the next decade has been released, and there are absolutely no surprises for anybody paying attention.


State Change
Arizona +1
California 0
Florida +2
Georgia +1
Illinois -1
Iowa -1
Louisiana -1
Massachusetts -1
Michigan -1
Minnesota 0
Missouri -1
Montana 0
Nebraska 0
Nevada +1
New Jersey -1
New York -2
North Carolina 0
Ohio -2
Oregon 0
Pennsylvania -1
Rhode Island 0
South Carolina +1
Texas +4
Utah +1
Virginia 0
Washington +1

States not listed had no change in their Congressional apportionment.

At a casual glance, these changes look to net a low double digit or high single digit gain for the Republicans. However, this will be dependent on exactly how the various redistricting processes in each state play out. While Republicans have a much stronger hand in redistricting through the country than Democrats do, it remains to be seen whether they overreach and create districts that fall to Democrats in better years for them, or play it safe and create fewer, but safer, Republican seats.

More on this in upcoming posts.

UPDATE [15:00 CST by Goobergunch]: The New York Times has a really shiny graphic of the reapportionment, with data on partisan control of redistricting and everything.

16 December 2010

Supreme Court coverage

Goobergunch @ 08:00 CT
Posted in: Justice Will Be Met, Indeed, Meta
Tags:

I recently added a new page to the site, listing the cases that the Supreme Court has heard argument on for this term, as well as the decisions that have been handed down in those cases. I’m hoping to also have some posts discussing various new Supreme Court opinions up in the new year.

In other news, we can finally project that Democrat Tim Bishop has been re–elected in NY-1. That makes the final tally in the House a net gain of 63 seats for the Republicans, giving them 243 House seats to the Democrats’ 192.

15 December 2010

Tomorrow: Tax Cuts in the House

Goobergunch @ 19:29 CT
Posted in: Ways and Means

There have been a number of rumors about how the House intends to pass the Obama/McConnell tax cut bill, many involving interesting procedural tricks and various counter-proposals.

It turns out most of those rumors were wrong. Tomorrow, the House will vote on an alternative extension of the estate tax, and if that fails, there will just be a straight-up vote on the Senate language.

The House Rules Committee has released the rule for considering the Senate Amendment to the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to the Bill H.R. 4853. In regular English, that’s the Senate-passed tax cut bill.

The rule provides for three hours of debate. After debate, there will be a vote on agreeing to the Senate amendment with the Pomeroy Amendment, which is an extension of the 2009 estate tax rates (45%) through the end of 2012, instead of 35% as provided by the Senate.

If this vote fails, there will then be a vote on simply agreeing to the Senate’s bill.

If either of these votes pass, the House concurs in all of the Senate language that isn’t related to the estate tax. No amendments (such as the Sherman Amendment) have been permitted relating to the payroll tax cuts or any other provision of this bill. Also, there’s no way to support the alternative estate tax language without also voting for the rest of the bill.

1 December 2010

CR 2: Attack of the Budget

Goobergunch @ 08:00 CT
Posted in: Appropriations, Food and Drugs

Up in the House today is the new Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded. This one goes through 18 December but doesn’t do anything else exciting. Wheeee.

In other Congressional news, the House yesterday cleared H.R. 4783, the Claims Resolution bill for President Obama’s signature, and the Senate passed S. 510, the Food Safety bill. I expect the House to pass S. 510 without amendment at some point in the near future because nobody wants to deal with pushing anything through the Senate again right now.

UPDATE [10:40 CST by Goobergunch]: Or the Democrats can screw up the procedure and make all of the time they spent on the Food Safety bill effectively wasted. That works too….

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