Goobergunch Political Report

6 February 2011

Cleared Judicial Nominations

Goobergunch @ 23:00 CT
Posted in: Justice Will Be Met, Indeed

It looks like a bit of progress is being made on filling the understaffed federal judiciary.

Ordered, That at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, February 7, 2011, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the nominations of: Paul Kinloch Holmes III, of Arkansas, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Arkansas, Diana Saldana, of Texas, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas, and Marco A. Hernandez, of Oregon, to be United States District Judge for the District of Oregon; that there be one hour for debate equally divided in the usual form; that upon the use or yielding back of time the nomination of Marco Hernandez be confirmed and the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the Holmes and Saldana nominations in that order; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate’s actions and the Senate then resume legislative session.

In other words, the Senate is going to confirm three judges on Monday afternoon. All three of these seats are on the Judicial Emergencies list and it’s good to see that the affected areas are going to get some help with their caseload.

There were eight other judicial nominations reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday. As none of them seem to be particularly controversial, the Senate should confirm them as quickly as possible.

S. 223, the FAA Reauthorization Bill

Goobergunch @ 17:00 CT
Posted in: Providing for the General Welfare, Transportation
Tags:

Last Tuesday, I wrote:

[Y]ou can read the official summary of last year’s FAA reauthorization bill (which may have some changes from the current bill) here.

As it turns out, S. 223, as introduced, is exactly the same as last year’s FAA reauthorization bill. (Hopefully without the bit where it gets used as a vehicle for something else.) For FAA operations, it authorizes $9.336 billion in FY 2010 and $9.620 billion in FY 2011; it also authorizes some other funds in other aviation-related accounts.

There are a number of other provisions, of course. If you’re really interested, I encourage you to read the summary.

There have been a number of amendments offered on the Senate floor, of course. I’m maintaining a constantly-updated list of pending amendments, and so far two amendments have actually passed. One of them makes it illegal to knowingly point a laser pointer at an aircraft, as blinding pilots is generally considered bad. (The only Senator to vote against this was Rand Paul. I know this is shocking news.) The other one is unrelated to aviation but repeals a reporting requirement imposed on small businesses by last year’s health insurance reform law. There have of course also been a number of amendments that have been rejected, including one to repeal said health insurance reform law. In a more ideal world, the 47-51 vote would be the last word on this “repeal” notion and we wouldn’t have to hear about it again. However, I look forward to hearing the same arguments repeated ad nauseum until PPACA gets repealed just to make people stop talking about it already.

With consideration of the bill resuming at 3:00 Eastern Time on Monday, look for Senate action to wrap up on this bill hopefully later this week or next. Last year’s version passed 93-0. It’ll be interesting to see if S. 223 can do as well on the final roll call.

3 February 2011

Redrawing the Lines: Montana

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

This is Part 7 of a 50-part series examining the Congressional districts in place for the 2012-2020 election cycles.

We conclude our survey of the at-large seats with Montana. Right now, it’s got the most populous Congressional seat in the country, and had a second seat as recently as 1992. Montana looks to redraw its legislative lines later this year, but it still has but one seat in the national legislature.

Also, this is the last time I’ll have to use the 2009 estimates for ethnic data. Starting today, the Census is releasing the official data files that provide the detailed breakdowns of population information. States depend on these for redistricting purposes, and they’re fun to poke through to see what specific areas of each state gained and lost population. Today, we’ve got data for Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia, with Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, and Vermont coming next week.

Obviously, this means that Redrawing the Lines will be going on hiatus for a bit until some state actually gets a redistricting plan adopted. I’m looking forward to posting Part 8 whenever that happens!

MT-AL (Montana)

Population: 989,415

Ethnicity (2009 est.): 90.3% white

Incumbent: Denny Rehberg (R)

2008 Presidential Vote: McCain 49%, Obama 47%

2012 Outlook: GOP Hold Slightly Favored

It’s time for the first open seat in this series! This week, it became known that incumbent Denny Rehberg will be challenging Democratic Senator Jon Tester this cycle. Montana has two Democratic Senators and a Democratic Governor, but tends to vote Republican in Presidential elections. Also, the Representative in Congress has been a Republican since 1997.

As should be clear from the mixed voting record of Montana,this is a seat that should be competitive in November 2012. The current Republican frontrunner is businessman Steve Daines, but it’s so early that we’ll have to wait and see who the candidates end up being. The Fix has a good rundown of all of the possibilities.

 

With 7 states considered, the notional partisan breakdown of the House prior to the 2012 election is: GOP 5, DEM 2. (No net change.)

1 February 2011

First Senate Bill of the Year

Goobergunch @ 13:15 CT
Posted in: Transportation

The Senate is now considering S. 223, which reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration and makes a number of other changes to aviation laws. I’ve thrown up a quick version of the bill that I’ll be keeping updated as the bill is amended. I’ll also be maintaining a list of pending amendments. I haven’t had time to read through the bill yet, but you can read the official summary of last year’s FAA reauthorization bill (which may have some changes from the current bill) here. I’ll try to have more on this bill in a few days.

UPDATE [13:26 CST by Goobergunch]: Apparently the Senate Republicans are going to try to attach the health insurance reform repeal to this bill. While I don’t expect this amendment to pass, it should be a nice diversion from discussing the aviation issues that this bill actually deals with. And by “nice” I mean “stupid and pointless”.

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