Yesterday saw the close of the qualifying period for a slew of races.These races include the replacement of Mitch Landrieu as our Lt. Governor and all of the Federal races – each congressional district as well as the Vitter Senate seat.(This column is about the Federal Races, the State races will follow.)
There has been so much action it is almost enough to make this political junkies head spin right off my neck, but let’s take a look at the more notable races.
USSenate
David Vitter has had his share of problems and now it seems as if he has more than his far share of challengers.First – let’s look at the Republican Primary – yes, - exciting – there will be one!
Two Republican Challengers will be facing off with the embattled senator and they are former Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor and little known Nick Accardo of Franklin.Traylor is definitely the surprise here in this race and could really give Vitter a run for his money.Lacking no far right bonafides, Traylor enters the race as a “country lawyer” with strong support from north Louisiana and in the business community.Traylor is arguably most famous for writing the opinion of Louisiana’s highest court that retained Louisiana’s Anti Sodomy Laws that are still on the books here in our state (albeit completely unenforceable after Lawrence v. Texas).For more on this check out what they are saying on TPM.
UPDATE: Cao is taking a "fresh look" at the language to determine if he can support the bill. Give his offices a call:
Washington, D.C.: (202) 225-6636
New Orleans: (504) 483-2325
Now that there seems to be a final bill that we can all look at, we can finally talk about what the bill, if passed, would mean for the citizens of LA-02, the site of what will be a spirited challenge to Rep. Joseph Cao (R), who, at press time, has pledged to vote NAY on the health care bill in the House when it comes to a vote in the next week.
That being said, let's see what the bill means for the folks living in LA-02, which was prepared by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and was done for all 435 districts in the nation:
Improve coverage for 186,000 residents with health insurance.
Give tax credits & other assistance to up to 102,000 families and 11,100 small businesses to help them afford coverage.
Improve Medicare for 61,000 beneficiaries, including closing the donut hole.
Extend coverage to 59,500 uninsured residents.
Guarantee that 12,600 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage.
Protect 400 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.
Allow 42,000 young adults to obtain coverage on their parents' insurance plans.
Provide millions of dollars in new funding for 19 community health centers.
Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and other health care providers by $61 million annually.
And Congressman Cao wants to kill this bill because it allows women to buy health insurance that provides abortion coverage with their own money?
So Rep. Cao finally fired his odious direct mail fundraising firm, BMW Direct now d/b/a Base Connect because they were overcharging for their services:
The AP reported last month that the campaign of another Base Connect client, Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), had a similar financial profile to Russell's, spending around 75 percent of the money it raised on fundraising, leaving it with just $315,00 cash on hand. Cao, a freshman who represents a heavily Democratic district, is considered highly vulnerable this year, and his financial situation only makes things seem bleaker.
But the stellar reporting done by the folks at Talking Points Memo overlooked a thread of the story that is racially divisive, and was mentioned by Jeremy Alford in The Gambit:
Of the $283,000 Cao spent during the last quarter, a great deal went to direct mail. Nearly $39,000 went to Base Connect of Washington, D.C., a firm with connections to various outreach organizations and so-called 527 groups, which have relaxed reporting requirements, like the National Black Republican Association. According to The Washington Post, the NBRA once bankrolled radio ads to "identify Martin Luther King Jr. as a Republican and pin the founding of the Ku Klux Klan on Democrats."
Now y'all might be wondering why that's an important thread to this story. It's important because Base Connect takes an unknown candidate that's running against some "infamous" Democrat, (in this case, Cao, who was an unknown candidate running against Dollar Bill back in '08), and mail off letters to easily pissed off small dollar conservative donors all over the country. They, along with the firms they contract with to help them get this program off the ground, then take nearly 75% of the fundraising take from the unknown candidate. The folks that send money to those running against "infamous" Democrats then get letters from real candidates like Vitter. What's really sketchy about this is that real candidates like Vitter only get charged for the cost of drafting, printing and mailing the fund-raising letter to their list of small-dollar conservative donors.
In short, Cao got robbed, and Vitter's benefiting from the robbery if he is still using Base Connect for his fundraising letter campaign.
So, the question remains ... is Base Connect (or one of their subcontractors) working for the Spinning Sinning Senator David Vitter this cycle?
UPDATE: This does not in any way constitute an endorsement for Congressman Cao's re-election. It is simply a recognition that the Congressman was the only member of the Louisiana delegation in the House of Representatives to vote for health care reform.
In the interest of keeping y'all informed, the Kingfish and some champions of working class Louisianans have compiled a list of the town halls that our Republican elected officials are hosting throughout Louisiana over the next week. If you know of any that are not on this list, or you have the details of one that we know of, but haven't been able to nail down, please let me know in the comments, or you can email me at ryan at dailykingfish dot com.
Fri Aug 14, 2009
Host: Rep. Alexander Where: Monroe City Hall, Council Chamber; 400 Lea Joyner Expressway; Monroe,La. 71210 Time: 2 PM - 3 PM
Mon Aug 17, 2009
Host: Sinning Senator David Vitter Where: St. James Parish Courthouse;
5800 La 44; Convent, LA 70723 Time: 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM
Host: Sinning Senator David Vitter Where: Lafayette South Regional Branch Library; 6101 Johnston St.; Lafayette, LA 70503 Time: 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Host: Rep. Cassidy Where: Ascension Parish; Dutchtown High School; 13165 Highway 73; Geismar, LA Time: 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Tue Aug 18, 2009
Host: Rep. Scalise - Washington Parish Town Hall Where: Bogalusa City Hall, 202 Arkansas Ave. Bogalusa Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Host: Sinning Senator Vitter - Monroe Town Hall Where: ULM Student Union Field House 700 University Ave. Time: 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Host: Sinning Senator Vitter - Bienville Parish Town Hall
Where: Arcadia City Hall
Time: 4 PM - 5 PM
Host: Rep. Cao - Westwego Town Hall Where: Jefferson Performing Arts Center
177 Sala Ave.
Westwego, LA 70094
Time: 6 PM - 7 PM
Wed Aug 19, 2009
Host: Sinning Senator Vitter - DeSot Parish Town Hall Where: DeSoto Chamber of Commerce; Mansfield, LA Time: UNKNOWN
Host: Sinning Senator Vitter - Marksville Town Hall
LOCATION AND TIME UNKNOWN
Host: Rep. Scalise - Jefferson Parish Town Hall Where: Jefferson Parish Council Chambers, 1221 Elmwood Park Blvd; Harahan, LA Time: 7 PM - 8 PM
Thu Aug 20, 2009
Host: Rep. Scalise - Orleans Parish Town Hall Where: St. Dominic's Knight's of Columbus Hall, 6254 Vicksburg St.; New Orleans, LA Time: 2 PM - 3 PM
Host: Rep. Cao - Algiers Town Hall Where:
Delgado Community College West Bank Campus, 2600 General Meyer Avenue;
Building #1; Room 130;
New Orleans, LA 70114 Time: 6 PM - 7:30 PM
Fri Aug 21, 2009
Host: Rep. Scalise - Tangipahoa Parish Town Hall Where: Ponchatoula City Hall Council Chambers, 125 W. Hickory St.; Ponchatoula, LA Time: 11 AM - 12 PM
What I'm wondering is if the Sinning Senator and his Republican friends will allow the following:
Anyone to enter the Town Hall
UNSCREENED questions from the floor
Supporters of President Obama's health care reform plan to speak without being shouted down or derided
The Employee Free Choice Act has been introduced in the House as H.R. 1409 and in the Senate as S. 560.
The corporate lobbies of America are prepared to spend $200 MILLION to defeat EFCA. I've had many conservative friends (they hate being identified as Republicans these days), and some Democratic friends express concern that EFCA will "do away with the secret ballot" with respect to the choice of deciding whether to join a union.
Unfortunately, they are all repeating the lies from the corporate propaganda machine. Right now, if you were to try to unionize your workplace ... your employer has the right to decide which process you use to decide whether y'all unionize or not - you sign a card or you have a secret ballot. Not surprisingly, companies often choose to force their workers to endure a secret ballot. Labor lawyer Gordon Lafer explains why:
When employees want to form a union, they have to go through a process that looks more like the discredited practices of rogue regimes abroad than like anything we would call American.
For an election to be "free and fair," both sides must have equal access to media and the voters. But not under labor law. Anti-union managers are free to campaign to every employee, every day, throughout the day; but pro-union employees can campaign only on break time. Furthermore, management can post anti-union propaganda on bulletin boards and walls - while prohibiting pro-union employees from doing the same.
By law, employers can force workers to attend mass anti-union propaganda events. Not only are pro-union employees not given equal time, but they can be forced to attend on condition that they not ask any questions. Recent data show that workers are forced to attend between five and 10 such one-sided meetings."
And yet you never hear about that part of union organizing from the corporate interests. All you hear is that the secret ballot will go away. Again, it's NOT TRUE. With respect to elections, the bill simply puts the choice of HOW TO VOTE ON WHETHER TO UNIONIZE where it belongs ... with the workers.
"Funny how the free-traders and deregulators suddenly want the government in everyone's face again when it comes to whether or not regular people should be able to decide for themselves how they want to tell their friends and coworkers that they'd maybe like to get together and cooperate on some stuff.
If I want into a union and feel like saying so, get the hell out of my way, boss. Nobody asked you. It shouldn't be up to you how I get to express that any more than you get to decide how I invite people out for beers after work."
Now ... we've got nine representatives up in Washington. Six of 'em are going to vote "NO" no matter what - Vitter, Scalise, Fleming, Alexander, Cassidy and Boustany.
The other three ... Representative Cao, Representative Melancon and Senator Landrieu are going to be slammed with phone calls from nervous folks here in Louisiana telling them NOT to vote for EFCA. So ... call them, and tell them to stand up for Louisiana's working families by voting for EFCA:
This morning, the Secretaries of Homeland Security and HUD announced that Louisiana will see "hundreds of millions" of dollars committed to the state's long-term hurricane recovery plans.
While this is welcome news, I just have two questions about this photo published by the Times-Picayune:
1. Where's C. Ray?
2. Where's Ed Blakely? (hat tip to Jeffrey)
Also, why is Governor PBJ hanging in the background? Is it because he doesn't believe that the federal government should be spending money nowadays?
UPDATE: The Advocate reports on the same event, but the photo they published, taken at the same general location - SUNO - has Nagin, but not Governor PBJ or Lt. Gov. Landrieu. What's up with that? And why does the Times-Picayune's photo have PBJ and Landrieu, but not Nagin?
In the wake of the brou-haha over RNC Chairman Michael Steele's apology to Rush Limbaugh over his comments about him:
"So let's put it into context here. Let's put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it's incendiary. Yes, it's ugly."
Then not even 48 hours goes by before we get this from Mr. Steele:
""My intent was not to go after Rush - I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh. I was maybe a little bit inarticulate ... There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership."
So what did the Lousiana GOP have to say about this? Here's Governor PBJ on CNN's Larry King Live:
King: All right, governor, here was Rush Limbaugh at this weekend's CPAC Conference. Watch.
Rush Limbaugh: What is so strange about being honest and saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed?
King: Governor, do you think people are thinking about capitalism now or are they thinking about problems?
Jindal: Look, clearly, the American people are worried about paying their mortgages, keeping their jobs and paying their health care bills. I think Rush is a great leader for conservatives. I think he articulates what a lot of people are concerned about.
King: Do you want him [Obama] to fail?
Jindal: I don't want those policies to be adopted. I want my country to succeed, but I don't want policies to be adopted.
King: What if the policies work?
Jindal: Well, again...
King: What if they work?
Jindal: This is where we have a fundamental disagreement. I don't think it's going work ... to spend in excess of our revenues.
And just for the sake of comparison, here's what Joseph "Holy" Cao's Chief of Staff told Big Red Cotton:
Cao's chief of staff Clayton Hall says on the record:
"No... the problems in this country are too big. Rush Limbaugh can say whatever he wants to say. Congressman Cao does not want the president to fail."
So I asked him does Cao want the stimulus package, which he voted against, to fail. Hall gave a curt "No".
Heh. There's a schism within the LA GOP regarding the power of Rush. Obviously, Governor PBJ is a wimp. Cao, like Oyster notes, knows kung fu.
What about the rest of Louisiana's GOP delegation?
On Friday, Congress took up the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which seeks to ensure that women have a remedy when their right to equal pay for equal work has been denied by their employer. Seems fair, no?
Well, the Supreme Court, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, applied a strict constructionist view of the statutes governing pay in the workplace, and denied women the right to sue their employer over sex discrimination in pay if they didn't bring such a suit within 180 days of a corporation deciding to discriminate against the worker. What the Supreme Court majority failed to understand in this case was that most businesses do not publish their pay scale for all workers to see, so it is not likely that anyone will know that they are being paid less than their colleague within a 180 day period.
According to the entire Republican delegation representing Louisiana in Congress, it is not fair to make businesses that pay women who perform the same work as their male counterparts accountable to the legal system unless such a suit is brought with 6 months of receiving less pay as their male counterpart for the same work. In fact, to the Louisiana Republican delegation - Steve Scalise, Joseph Cao, John Fleming, Rodney Alexander, Bill Cassidy and Charles Boustany - it is downright discriminatory to those businesses, who ought to be able to discriminate against women in the workplace at will, and never face repercussions for doing so.
As Jeffrey at Library Chronicles notes, the vote made by Congressman Gao is not one that Congressman Jefferson would have made. I would add that Congressman Cazayoux would have voted differently than Congressman Cassidy as well.
I should note that the bill passed overwhelmingly, thanks to the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House, 247 to 171, with 15 Members not voting.
