Close Races in Virginia, New Jersey May Be Indicators for 2010
By Dan Balz
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Off-year elections rarely predict the future -- except when they do. That's why Democratic and Republican leaders will be closely watching the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and especially Virginia between now and November.
The lineup is almost set. In New Jersey, Republicans have nominated Christopher Christie, an aggressive politician who made a name prosecuting corrupt politicians. He will face off against incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, the former Goldman Sachs executive and former U.S. senator who has had a rocky first term. In Virginia, Republicans have selected former attorney general Bob McDonnell as their nominee.
The last piece will fall into place on Tuesday, when Virginia Democrats pick their nominee after what has turned into a spirited race among three candidates: Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman; state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds; and former delegate Brian Moran.
Recent public polls have shown all three candidates bunched within the margin of error. But the dynamic in the final days has McAuliffe, who had more resources and the early poll lead but no elective experience, fending off a late surge by Deeds, whose candidacy was boosted by the endorsement of the editorial page of this newspaper.
Virginia and New Jersey now have Democratic governors, and both states went for Barack Obama last November. But Democratic leaders expect difficult races. "In both instances, Republicans are fielding good candidates, not candidates who are so extreme they disqualify themselves in the eyes of moderate voters," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said.
Rendell, chairman of the National Governors Association and himself a former Democratic Party chairman, took the unusual step of intervening in the Virginia primary by endorsing McAuliffe on Friday. Even more telling was the decision by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer to jump into the race in behalf of McAuliffe. Schweitzer chairs the Democratic Governors Association, an organization whose sole purpose is to elect as many governors as possible.
Out-of-state endorsements generally mean little in political primaries. "If I thought my endorsement would decide the election, I might have pondered it longer," Rendell told me on Friday. "I don't think Virginians are dying to hear what the governor of Pennsylvania has to say."
Schweitzer tried to deflect questions about why he had decided to take sides in a primary, saying he was acting as governor of Montana, not as DGA chairman. But when pressed, he offered this explanation: "Nobody can outwork Terry, and this is going to be a knife fight to the end," he said. "He's got the energy to take this all the way to the end, and when there's a bump in the road, he's not going to cry like a girl and quit."
Whether those endorsements resonate with Virginia voters won't be known until Tuesday night. Deeds told reporters: "If this race is about out-of-state money and out-of-state endorsements, Terry's going to win. If this race is about Virginia, and I think it is . . . I think I'm going to win."
Whatever the outcome, the decisions of Schweitzer and Rendell hint at the significance this year's elections hold for leaders of both parties. When Corzine was nominated for a second term last week, Vice President Biden was at his side. "Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to Jon Corzine's reelection," he said. "Period. End of sentence. It's that simple."
At this point, Democrats are wise to worry: Corzine trails Christie in early polls. New Jersey has become a reliably Democratic state in presidential races, and Democrats hold a huge advantage in party registration, but the incumbent's problems give Republicans hope. In Rendell's analysis, Corzine has "the higher hill to climb."
Virginia has been trending Democratic for several elections, led by former governor and now-Sen. Mark Warner, current Gov. Tim Kaine and Sen. James Webb. But it was Obama's victory last November that changed Virginia's national hue from red to purple. Nonetheless, early polls show McDonnell leading all three of his potential rivals.
Gubernatorial elections in the year after a presidential election are unreliable indicators, but in some instances they have foreshadowed problems for the party in the White House.
In 1993, with Bill Clinton in his first year as president, Republicans captured Virginia and New Jersey; a year later, they took control of the House and Senate. Four years ago at this point, there was still talk of Republican dominance after President George W. Bush's reelection. But Democrats held New Jersey and Virginia that fall.
Those elections signaled that Bush was a declining asset and that the Republican message had begun to lose its potency. A year later, Republicans lost control of Congress, and two years after that Democrats retook the White House.
No one anticipates a congressional upheaval of that sort in 2010. The Republicans are clearly in disarray: They are shrinking as a party and are struggling for leadership and vision. The start of Obama's presidency gives Democrats hope that they can weather what normally should be a difficult midterm election for the party in power.
But White House and Democratic Party leaders know that a loss in either state this fall will be interpreted as a setback for Obama. Republican victories in either state will boost a beleaguered party that is searching desperately for signs of renewal.
Virginia and New Jersey will be important for another reason. A lingering question from the 2008 election is whether the enthusiasm surrounding Obama's candidacy was singularly focused or transferable to other Democrats when he is not on the ballot. His candidacy was fueled by the passions he engendered among his followers and by the strongly anti-Bush sentiment in the country. To what extent did the results in 2008 signal affirmative endorsement of the Democratic Party?
The 2008 election brought a surge of participation into the Democratic primaries and significant shifts in voter registration that changed the shape of the electorates in many states, Virginia among them. Will all those new voters continue to participate this year and next?
The next phase will test whether Democrats continue to build on that record, and the first tests will come this fall. That's why so much is at stake Tuesday as the Democrats in Virginia select their gubernatorial nominee.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Group Seeks Public Access to Congressional Research
By STEPHANIE STROM
Only members of Congress and their staffs have access to the reports generated by the Congressional Research Service, a highly regarded division of the Library of Congress.
American taxpayers spend more than $100 million a year supporting the work of the Congressional Research Service, a little-known but highly regarded division of the Library of Congress.
But unlike the library itself, the research service is by law exclusively for the use of members of Congress. Only they and their staffs have access to the reports and memorandums it generates, and only they can decide to make its work public.
A nonprofit group, the Center for Democracy and Technology, is leading a fight to change that.
“We think the public should have access to the information that is shaping legislation and policy, especially since it pays for that information,” said Ari Schwartz, the organization’s chief operating officer.
The center has been working for years to gain access to the service’s reports. In a recent informal online survey financed by the Sunlight Foundation together with the center and OpenTheGovernment.org, the research service’s reports were the government documents the most respondents wanted to see.
The center has created a Web site, Open CRS, on which it makes some of the research service’s reports available, but until recently, the only comprehensive source for the reports — there is no public index of them — was a small company, Penny Hill Press. Based in Maryland, Penny Hill Press sells the reports to lawyers, universities, lobbyists and corporations, as well as to Gallery Watch, which makes them available online.
“We wear out a lot of shoe leather and get cauliflower ear on the phone and use e-mail and every other trick we can, and we manage to get virtually all of the new C.R.S. documents,” said Walter Seager, owner of Penny Hill.
Mr. Seager said there were about 20 new documents, including updates to reports, each day. He started the effort in 1992, and he and one of his sons do most of the work finding the reports and updates. His wife, a dental hygienist, helps run the business.
“I’m 70 years old and getting tired, but my son is younger, so this will continue until such time as C.R.S. or Congress does the right thing and makes the reports freely available to the public,” Mr. Seager said.
In February, Wikileaks, an online source of hard-to-get documents, began offering access to 6,780 of the research service’s reports dating to 1990.
Members of Congress may make the reports public, and their constituents can write to ask for copies of reports they know exist.
“Because there was no index until we created one, in most cases, the only reports the public was able to see were the ones that politicians saw as useful to their political agendas,” said Daniel Schmitt, a Wikileaks representative.
Mr. Schmitt would not disclose how Wikileaks has gotten the documents, and he said fund-raising challenges made it difficult for the Web site to continue providing new documents of all kinds.
Janine D’Addario, a spokeswoman for the research service, said that by law, its work is to be exclusive and confidential to Congress. Additionally, a provision in the appropriations bill that finances the service each year forbids it to make its work public.
“That is Congress’s call,” Ms. D’Addario said when asked whether the reports should be made public.
She said, however, that release of the reports would put the research service into an awkward position between members of Congress and their constituents.
“Publication of our products directly to the public could put C.R.S. in an intermediate position between members and their constituents, and it is the member, not us, who represent their constituents,” Ms. D’Addario said.
There is no classified information in the reports, nor any copyrighted information. But Congress has consistently balked at sharing the reports.
“Reports are produced by the Congressional Research Service staff for the education of members of Congress,” Kyle Anderson, a spokesman for the House Administration Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue in the House, wrote in an e-mail message. “Just as other memos produced by staffers for members of Congress aren’t made public, these are not.”
Mr. Schwartz made it clear, however, that the organization was seeking the public release of only reports the research service produces, not the memorandums it also writes for members of Congress.
A bipartisan group of senators, including John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, has tried for the last decade to make the reports public.
A spokesman for Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is the new chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said Mr. Schumer was “aware of the arguments for making these reports public” and was reviewing the current policy.
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, who makes several of the reports available on his Web site, has twice proposed legislation to make the reports public, but to no avail. He did so again last week.
“For too long, C.R.S. reports have been available to the public only on a haphazard basis,” Mr. Lieberman said in an e-mail message. “These reports inform members of Congress and their staffs on a wide range of issues. The American people, who pay for these reports, should be able to learn from this same expert analysis.”
By STEPHANIE STROM
Only members of Congress and their staffs have access to the reports generated by the Congressional Research Service, a highly regarded division of the Library of Congress.
American taxpayers spend more than $100 million a year supporting the work of the Congressional Research Service, a little-known but highly regarded division of the Library of Congress.
But unlike the library itself, the research service is by law exclusively for the use of members of Congress. Only they and their staffs have access to the reports and memorandums it generates, and only they can decide to make its work public.
A nonprofit group, the Center for Democracy and Technology, is leading a fight to change that.
“We think the public should have access to the information that is shaping legislation and policy, especially since it pays for that information,” said Ari Schwartz, the organization’s chief operating officer.
The center has been working for years to gain access to the service’s reports. In a recent informal online survey financed by the Sunlight Foundation together with the center and OpenTheGovernment.org, the research service’s reports were the government documents the most respondents wanted to see.
The center has created a Web site, Open CRS, on which it makes some of the research service’s reports available, but until recently, the only comprehensive source for the reports — there is no public index of them — was a small company, Penny Hill Press. Based in Maryland, Penny Hill Press sells the reports to lawyers, universities, lobbyists and corporations, as well as to Gallery Watch, which makes them available online.
“We wear out a lot of shoe leather and get cauliflower ear on the phone and use e-mail and every other trick we can, and we manage to get virtually all of the new C.R.S. documents,” said Walter Seager, owner of Penny Hill.
Mr. Seager said there were about 20 new documents, including updates to reports, each day. He started the effort in 1992, and he and one of his sons do most of the work finding the reports and updates. His wife, a dental hygienist, helps run the business.
“I’m 70 years old and getting tired, but my son is younger, so this will continue until such time as C.R.S. or Congress does the right thing and makes the reports freely available to the public,” Mr. Seager said.
In February, Wikileaks, an online source of hard-to-get documents, began offering access to 6,780 of the research service’s reports dating to 1990.
Members of Congress may make the reports public, and their constituents can write to ask for copies of reports they know exist.
“Because there was no index until we created one, in most cases, the only reports the public was able to see were the ones that politicians saw as useful to their political agendas,” said Daniel Schmitt, a Wikileaks representative.
Mr. Schmitt would not disclose how Wikileaks has gotten the documents, and he said fund-raising challenges made it difficult for the Web site to continue providing new documents of all kinds.
Janine D’Addario, a spokeswoman for the research service, said that by law, its work is to be exclusive and confidential to Congress. Additionally, a provision in the appropriations bill that finances the service each year forbids it to make its work public.
“That is Congress’s call,” Ms. D’Addario said when asked whether the reports should be made public.
She said, however, that release of the reports would put the research service into an awkward position between members of Congress and their constituents.
“Publication of our products directly to the public could put C.R.S. in an intermediate position between members and their constituents, and it is the member, not us, who represent their constituents,” Ms. D’Addario said.
There is no classified information in the reports, nor any copyrighted information. But Congress has consistently balked at sharing the reports.
“Reports are produced by the Congressional Research Service staff for the education of members of Congress,” Kyle Anderson, a spokesman for the House Administration Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue in the House, wrote in an e-mail message. “Just as other memos produced by staffers for members of Congress aren’t made public, these are not.”
Mr. Schwartz made it clear, however, that the organization was seeking the public release of only reports the research service produces, not the memorandums it also writes for members of Congress.
A bipartisan group of senators, including John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, has tried for the last decade to make the reports public.
A spokesman for Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is the new chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said Mr. Schumer was “aware of the arguments for making these reports public” and was reviewing the current policy.
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, who makes several of the reports available on his Web site, has twice proposed legislation to make the reports public, but to no avail. He did so again last week.
“For too long, C.R.S. reports have been available to the public only on a haphazard basis,” Mr. Lieberman said in an e-mail message. “These reports inform members of Congress and their staffs on a wide range of issues. The American people, who pay for these reports, should be able to learn from this same expert analysis.”
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Ridge Says He Won't Run for Pa. Senate Seat
May 7, 2009, 2:11 pm — Updated: 5:03 pm -->
By Bernie Becker
Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor, has decided not to run for the Senate next year.
He released a statement on Thursday effectively shooting down talk that had been mounting ever since Senator Arlen Specter switched from Republican to Democrat a little more than a week ago.
Mr. Ridge, a moderate Republican who served as Pennsylvania’s governor from 1995 to 2001, also was among the possible candidates floated as a possible running mate last year for Senator John McCain, the party’s presidential nominee.
“I am enormously grateful for the confidence my party expressed in me, the encouragement and kindness of my fellow citizens in Pennsylvania and the valuable counsel I received from so many of my party colleagues,” Mr. Ridge said in a statement. “The 2010 race has significant implications for my party, and that required thoughtful reflection. All of the above made my decision a difficult and deeply personal conclusion to reach.”
Some leading Republicans seemed keen for Mr. Ridge to jump into the fray, given the difficult climb to election faced by conservative Pat Toomey, a former congressman, in a state whose voters went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama last year.
And current polling shows the race between Mr. Ridge and Mr. Specter might have gone down to the wire. A Quinnipiac poll released earlier this week showed Mr. Specter with a slim three percentage point lead over Mr. Ridge, who also was elected to six terms in the House and was secretary for Homeland Security under former President George W. Bush.
That same poll gave Mr. Specter, who is seeking his sixth term in the Senate, a 20 percentage point lead over Mr. Toomey, former president of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group. Mr. Specter left the Republicans in part because he did not believe he could beat Mr. Toomey for the party’s nomination next year, especially after many of the state’s more moderate Republican voters switched parties in the last election.
Even with Mr. Ridge’s name off the ballot, the race in Pennsylvania still could be plenty exciting in 2010.
Representative Jim Gerlach, a moderate Republican who has eked out victories the last four elections, is said to be considering the race, while conservative activist Peg Luksik has already announced she will seek the Republican nomination.
Representative Joe Sestak, a Democrat first elected to the House in 2006, is reportedly also considering a Senate bid and would challenge Mr. Specter in a Democratic primary. Meanwhile, Joe Torsella, a former deputy mayor of Philadelphia, announced he was running for the Democratic nomination before Mr. Specter’s switch and has released a statement saying he would remain in the race.
May 7, 2009, 2:11 pm — Updated: 5:03 pm -->
By Bernie Becker
Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor, has decided not to run for the Senate next year.
He released a statement on Thursday effectively shooting down talk that had been mounting ever since Senator Arlen Specter switched from Republican to Democrat a little more than a week ago.
Mr. Ridge, a moderate Republican who served as Pennsylvania’s governor from 1995 to 2001, also was among the possible candidates floated as a possible running mate last year for Senator John McCain, the party’s presidential nominee.
“I am enormously grateful for the confidence my party expressed in me, the encouragement and kindness of my fellow citizens in Pennsylvania and the valuable counsel I received from so many of my party colleagues,” Mr. Ridge said in a statement. “The 2010 race has significant implications for my party, and that required thoughtful reflection. All of the above made my decision a difficult and deeply personal conclusion to reach.”
Some leading Republicans seemed keen for Mr. Ridge to jump into the fray, given the difficult climb to election faced by conservative Pat Toomey, a former congressman, in a state whose voters went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama last year.
And current polling shows the race between Mr. Ridge and Mr. Specter might have gone down to the wire. A Quinnipiac poll released earlier this week showed Mr. Specter with a slim three percentage point lead over Mr. Ridge, who also was elected to six terms in the House and was secretary for Homeland Security under former President George W. Bush.
That same poll gave Mr. Specter, who is seeking his sixth term in the Senate, a 20 percentage point lead over Mr. Toomey, former president of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group. Mr. Specter left the Republicans in part because he did not believe he could beat Mr. Toomey for the party’s nomination next year, especially after many of the state’s more moderate Republican voters switched parties in the last election.
Even with Mr. Ridge’s name off the ballot, the race in Pennsylvania still could be plenty exciting in 2010.
Representative Jim Gerlach, a moderate Republican who has eked out victories the last four elections, is said to be considering the race, while conservative activist Peg Luksik has already announced she will seek the Republican nomination.
Representative Joe Sestak, a Democrat first elected to the House in 2006, is reportedly also considering a Senate bid and would challenge Mr. Specter in a Democratic primary. Meanwhile, Joe Torsella, a former deputy mayor of Philadelphia, announced he was running for the Democratic nomination before Mr. Specter’s switch and has released a statement saying he would remain in the race.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)