U.S. House

I've got a great idea - if we have a problem with risky lending and risky borrowing, we should enact laws which encourage more risky lending and risky borrowing.

If there is fraud, prosecute it.  But don't use a single penny of taxpayer money to bail out lenders or borrowers who knew (or should have known) they were engaging in a risky behavior and now expect all of us to bail them out of it.

This "solution" is worse than the problem it is supposed to address, and will only make that problem worse.

Anyone want to guess when the national Republicans are going to learn their lesson?

Democrats picked up a northern Mississippi House seat in one of the most conservative-minded districts in the country Tuesday night -- an upset  that will reverberate darkly through a House Republican caucus already reeling from losses in special elections in Illinois and Louisiana.

With 411 of 462 precincts reporting, the Democratic nominee, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers, leads Republican Greg Davis, 52 to 48 percent.  The Associated Press has called the race for Childers.

The victory marks the Democrats’ third straight special election pickup in three months. It will be a serious blow to the Republican Party’s already-flagging morale and will surely prompt a new round of finger-pointing among the already fractured GOP caucus.

The special election was held to fill the seat of former Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who was appointed to serve out the remainder of Sen. Trent Lott’s term last December. Wicker had never faced a competitive race since first elected in 1994, and the district gave President Bush 62 percent of the vote in 2004.

My guess is 2012.

UPDATE:  A remarkable statement from the Chair of the NRCC:

Think about this Cole statement - "Democrats are running as conservatives, and Republicans can't beat 'em." So take that club out the GOP arsenal heading into November.

That tells me two things.  The first is that conservative ideas are still popular, at least in some parts of the country.  And the second is that national Republicans have no credibility to claim that they're conservative and Democrats aren't.  And the reasons for that are clear:  earmarks, corruption, out-of-control spending, entitlement expansion, border security, energy policy.  And the list goes on and on.  National Republicans, especially in the House and Senate, don't stand for anything.  And when you don't stand for anything, you will be beaten in surprising places and in surprising ways by people who do stand for something, and you will have no standing to criticize them for doing so.

Today was the special election for the seat of retired former GOP Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert.

This is the Illinois GOP though, so of course they ran Alan Keyes's twin brother to run for the seat. Here's Oberweis (R) on the left and Foster (D) (the winner of the election) on the right:

Some people may not be able to see the resemblance to Alan Keyes:

The trick is to look real close. Once you look real close you'll see the resemblance as both are nuts, vile, and a sure bet to lose whatever general election he’s running in. They even wear the same color tie.

Meanwhile the Illinois GOP has not only lost another solidly Republican district to the Democrats, giving them an extra House seat, but they suffered yet another humiliating defeat compounding the fact that they lack even a single statewide office and are the minority in both houses of the Illinois General Assembly to the point of having the Illinois Democrats having a supermajority in both.

It really doesn't matter what the Illinois GOP do... their opinion is entirely irrelevant in Illinois and they apparently mean to keep it that way by running these sure-bet losers like Oberweis and Keyes. Meanwhile almost every state office, General Assembly leadership and committee chairs are run by Chicago Democrats who ensure that no piece of legislation or policy isn't Chicago approved prior to passage, in spite of the rest of the State having more voters and population. The downstate Democrats help propagate this entire dismissal of downstate issues by voting to keep the Chicago-centric legislature leadership and committee heads in power.

Amazing. Sad. But in an amazing way.

It's like watching a train wreck. But less fun because you're on it.

Evidently, the United State House of Representatives has finished all of its important work, and has nothing better to do than this:

Bud Selig and Donald Fehr, the commissioner and union leader often at loggerheads, sat side-by-side Tuesday as Congress pressed them yet again with questions about baseball's doping problem.

At a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in the same, wood-paneled room where Selig, Fehr, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and others testified three years ago, congressmen mixed criticism of baseball and its players with praise for progress on steroids.

That 2005 hearing was referenced right away when panel chairman Henry Waxman opened the proceedings by calling on the Justice Department to look into whether former AL MVP Miguel Tejada lied to committee staffers when questioned in connection to Palmeiro's perjury case.

Congressional approval ratings, by the way, are at about 25 percent.  And it's obvious why.

From the Politico:

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) formally submitted his resignation this afternoon to current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.  He will officially be stepping down from Congress at 11:59 p.m. EST tonight.

This may mean a special election on February 5th including Jim Oberweis, Chris Lauzen, and who knows who else.

Your thoughts on the Hastert legacy? Or his replacement?

It is sad to see him go, but every one has to move on sometime.

Via We Are Illinois email:

Former Speaker Hastert's Farewell
Uploaded by petulant

I normally don't post about Congressman Tim Johnson, as I work for him, and I know a lot of you got tired of my shilling for Senator Judy Myers last fall, but I thought I'd post this for discussion since nobody else has:

David Gill, the emergency room physician from Clinton who opposed U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana, in 2004 and 2006, apparently won't be a candidate in 2008.

He said Tuesday that he needs to spend more time with his three children, ages 9-17, after the May 24 death of their mother, and his wife, Polly Gill.

"It was a difficult decision," said Gill, "but I need to make them priority Number 1."

Gill said he plans to stay active in politics and would even consider being slated for next year's 15th Congressional District race if Democrats are unable to place a candidate on the ballot for the Feb. 5 primary election.

Terry Redman of Wapella, the 15th Congressional District Democratic committeeman, said this morning that he is meeting with potential congressional candudates, but declined to reveal any names.

Asked if he thought it likely he'd find a candidate to oppose Johnson, he said, "I sure hope so.

"That's all I want to say at this point. There's still a lot of time for people to jump into the race if they want to.'

Discuss.

Try not to laugh out loud when reading this:

"My goal in life has been to be a U.S. congressman," Oberweis, 61, said after a rally at the North Aurora plant for his namesake boutique dairy. "The fact that I was running for the Senate was really an accident -- partly caused by Denny Hastert, by the way, who asked me to get involved at that time."

Oberweis finished second for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2002, despite Hastert's endorsement, and in 2004. The following election, he finished second in his bid for the 2006 Republican nomination for governor. In those three elections, he spent nearly $7 million of his own money, including more than $3.3 million in the primary for governor.

He said his run for Congress was not an effort to chalk up a potentially easier win to build political credibility for a possible run for governor in 2010.

Of course he always wanted to be a Congressman - that's why he's run for the Senate twice and Governor once.  i wonder how long it will take for him to start running ads attacking other Republicans?

Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Peoria) will not seek re-election in 2008:

Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) will announce Friday that he will retire at the end of this term, removing one of the most outspoken, aisle-crossing congressmen from Capitol Hill.

LaHood, a 30-year political veteran first elected to the House in 1994, said the time has come to spend more quality time with his grandchildren.

Discuss.

Pardon me for posting this with a bit of a smirk on my face:

Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized the anti-war movement, said Sunday that she plans to seek House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's congressional seat unless she introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks.

Sheehan said she will run against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 as an independent if Pelosi does not seek by July 23 to impeach Bush. That's when Sheehan and her supporters are to arrive in Washington, D.C., after a 13-day caravan and walking tour starting next week from the group's war protest site near Bush's Crawford ranch.

Schadenfreude is such a guilty pleasure.

All I can say is, "Ugh."

Chicagoland dairy magnate and investment manager Jim Oberweis filed paperwork yesterday paving the way for a possible bid to replace former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in Illinois' 14th Congressional District. Eric Krol of the Daily Herald has the details.

Oberweis has been running more or less a perpetual campaign for public office for the last six years. He was unsuccessful in two bids for the Republican nomination for the US Senate (finishing 2nd in 2002 and 2004) and one bid for the Republican nomination for Illinois Governor (finishing 2nd to Judy Baar Topinka in 2006).

It's widely presumed that fomer Speaker Denny Hastert will not run for re-election, leaving the 14th District as a heaviliy GOP open seat.

UPDATE:  An early analysis:

[M]y prediction is that Lauzen wins.

In the 2006 Republican primary, Kane County represented 58% of the total votes in the 14th District. Kendall represented 17%. Obviously those two counties, Kane in particular, are must wins for the nomination. Oberweis' poorest showing in Kane was in 2004 (29%, compared to 56% and 40% in ’02 and ’06, respectively) when the race included a State Senator from Kane (Rauschenberger). I think the same dynamic will play out in ’08, and Lauzen will beat Oberweis in Kane.

In Kendall, Lauzen already has a base (his district includes part of the county), while Oberweis has seen his number go down from 61% in ’02 to 42% and 37% in ’06 and ’04, respectively, even though no “favorite son” was in the picture in the later two cycles. Once again, I predict a Lauzen win in Kendall. Lauzen also won most of the western counties in the district when he ran for Comptroller in '98.

If Oberweis is willing to set his sights lower than Governor and U.S. Senator in order to get elected, maybe he should skip Congress and run for Lauzen's State Senate seat.

Of course, it's unlikely that seat would have only two candidates running for it - State Rep. Tim Schmitz is often presumed to be the "moderate" candidate.  But if Oberweis ran for Lauzen's State Senate seat, I wouldn't find that nearly as noxious.

I've been talking for a few months about the dismal failures of both parties in Congress to even attempt to live up to the promises on which they campaigned.  The GOP was rejected in 2006 largely because of this - they took the majority as the party of openness, small-government and competence, and squandered twelve years with pork, corruption, and massive expansions of the Federal bureaucracy.

Now, the Democrats are in power, and have been for almost six full months, yet they have only one meager accomplishment (a minimum wage hike) to show for it.  They failed to deliver on their promises to end the War in Iraq, disappointing much of their base.  And the Democrats, unable to learn from Republican stupidity, are already ignoring the promises they made just a few months ago about pork and earmark reform.  Toss in an immigration boondoggle that everyone in DC loves but everyone else in America hates, and it's a poisonous brew.

Now we're getting a series of stories discussing how disappointing the Democrats have been, and how disappointed they are, with lots of bad poll numbers and finger-pointing and angst from everyone in the process.  The numbers for the President are in the same ballpark, with much of the same reaction.  But buried way down at the bottom of this article echoing that theme is this gem from Illinois' own Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Peoria):

Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) said he believes that voters are just plain mad -- about high gasoline prices, the lack of border security and the Iraq war.

"I don't know if it would be different if we were in the majority," LaHood said. "We didn't deal with immigration reform, we've continued to go along with what the president wanted on the Iraq war, which is what the Democratic majority has had to do, and when we were in the majority we didn't bring down gasoline prices.

"I think the American public is mad at all of us," said LaHood, "Republicans and Democrats."

Gee, you think?  I can't remember a time when I felt that our political elites - both Democrats and Republicans - were so completely out-of-touch or completely willing to ignore the national mood.  Yet here we are.

At least Rep. LaHood is voicing it. Why isn't anyone else in DC realizing this, and acting on it?

I've often said, over the past few months, that the only thing that could stop Democrats from winning the White House in 2008 is the Democratic Party.  Well, they're working on it.

Six weeks ago the Democrats held a 24-point lead over Bush as the stronger leadership force in Washington; today that's collapsed to a dead heat. The Democrats' overall job approval rating likewise has dropped, from a 54 percent majority to 44 percent now -- with the decline occurring almost exclusively among strong opponents of the Iraq War.

Of course, the high profile "failure" of the Democratic Congress is on a withdrawal from Iraq.  But they're also falling into the same pork-and-corruption cesspool that Republicans did previously, but that the Democrats had explicitly promised to avoid.  Add the immigration debacle to that, and there's lot of reasons for the plummet. 

Why are our national leaders so unworthy of the challenges we face?

I'm starting to think that the only one thing standing between national Republicans and complete electoral disaster in 2008 is the Democrats.

Why is it, given that our national politics are clearly so challenging right now, that most of the leading figures of both political parties just seem so unworthy of the challenge?

Old, but so funny.

In a little publicized poll, the Gallup organization found that the only people more unpopular than the President is the current Congress.  In the poll, 28% of Americans had a favorable view of Congress and 64% a negative view, about the same as the Republican Congress.

That was before today when Congress narrowly voted for an Iraq withdrawal timetable that included billions of dollars for pork barrel expenditures.  So the decision about American involvement in Iraq and the safety and security of our troops is being wrapped together with a $74 million dollar appropriation for the storage of peanuts.

This bill is a disservice to the troops as well as to the anti-war activists who thought that when they voted for a Democratic Congress that they would see some principled action on the war.

Pork was part of the undoing of the Republican majority.  It looks to be part of the Democrat’s undoing as well.

Charlie Johnston says look out: Jim Oberweis is going to run for Congress, and this time he's the front-runner:

Now comes the 2008 primary for U.S. Congress in the 14th District. Besides the fact that Oberweis has gotten significantly better with each race he has run, this one plays to all of his strengths and few of his weaknesses. Much more manageable than a statewide race, his skill at grass-roots politics will play a much more decisive role. While the media will almost certainly see him in the old Oberweis template, the portion of the district that is in the Chicago market is on his home-turf. The rest of the district is divided between the Rockford and the Quad Cities market. Oberweis can buy up nearly all the TV time in both of those markets and largely control his message. Besides the grass-roots advantage of running in the geographically smaller district, Oberweis can do a lot more one-on-one campaigning, and he has developed into a formidable stump campaigner. Finally, he has done very well in that district in all of his state-wide bids.

Right now his most likely primary challengers are State Sen. Chris Lauzen, a solid grass-roots conservative candidate himself and State Rep. Tim Schmitz, who some of the establishment are lining up behind. Neither has the money Oberweis can bring to bear. While both have had electoral success in low-profile races, neither has been in the sort of high-profile race this will be. Lauzen was the nominee for comptroller in 1998, but though statewide, that is still a low-profile race.

Oberweis will start with at least double the name recognition of any other candidate and has the money to keep it that way through election day. His toughness, which makes him the candidate you love to hate when you support someone else in a primary, will likely become a mark of unity when he is a nominee. And I predict he will be as magnanimous in victory as he usually is gracious in defeat. Because of the low expectations the media and some others have assigned to him, he will turn out to be a pleasant surprise to most of his critics after election and will rapidly become a leader in state Republican circles.

The 14th District is currently represented by former Speaker Denny Hastert, and there's widespread speculation he won't run again in 2008, if he doesn't resign his seat even sooner than that.

My problems with Oberweis have always revolved around two points:

• Generally, I don't like Republicans who attack other Republicans during Primary campaigns.
• Generally, I don't think that Governor or U.S. Senator is an entry-level position in politics.  Oberweis is rich, and even though he'd never been involved in the GOP grassroots, he thought that he deserved to be our nominee for statewide offices in 2002, 2004 and 2006.  I don't mind if you're rich, but I do mind if you first involvement with the Party is when you start writing checks to your own campaign for the US Senate.

As Charlie says, it's possible - even likely - that Oberweis could win the 14th.  It's even possible that he could pleasantly surprise me by being a GOP leader that builds the grassroots and is a unifying presence.  But at this point in his political career, I'm going to need to be convinced.

I apologize for the spammy feel of this as my first blog entry at IlliniPundit, but we at The Minority Report decided that a splash was in order.

Give TMR a look, click "About" and "Who", and join up if you want.

Especially, take note of Barack Who?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Minority Report Blog Launched

Los Angeles, February 1, 2007 - Bloggers today unveiled The Minority Report Blog (theminorityreportblog.com). The site will bring a decidedly different perspective on political news and events as seen by numerous seasoned blog contributors.

The Minority Report Blog views are generally aligned with Republican policies and conservative political perspectives. However, the site provides an opportunity for serious comments from users across the political spectrum. It will also provide links to political news headlines and other related sites of interest.

"We saw the relegation of Republican party to minority status as an opportunity' said The Minority Report Blog founder Steven Foley, "An opportunity to provide commentary from a different perspective with the aim of regaining the majority and holding it".

The blog and more information can be found at: theminorityreportblog.com

Contact:
Steven Foley or Administration @
The Minority Report Blog

Administration@theminorityreportblog.com

I've been meaning to post something about this, but the repeated site problems have been distracting the heck out of me.

As of January 1, 2007, I took over Congressman Tim Johnson's campaign operations, with an emphasis on fundraising and organization building. 

My work here on IlliniPundit.com was not a factor in my being hired.  Congressman Johnson has not asked me to blog more or less about him, or to stop blogging, as a result of my work for him.  However, blogging and working on the Myers campaign taught me that I really don't want to do the endless litany of "pro-my-candidate" articles.  And that you really didn't enjoy reading them.

So while I'll continue to write about national issues as I feel like it, I probably won't write about anything that specifically mentions Tim Johnson, unless it's a link to a press release or article elsewhere, for your discussion.  And I'll include the relevant disclaimer when I do mention him, so you'll be reminded of my work with him as I cover him.

As always, criticism is expected, if not welcome.

From an announcement released by Congressman Tim Johnson's office:

The Education and the Workforce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives announced today that a congressional field hearing will be held in Champaign on Dec. 15 to examine legislation introduced by Rep. Tim Johnson aimed to protect university governance.

The hearing will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday Dec. 15 in Room D244 of Parkland College. Chairman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) and Reps. Danny Davis (D-IL), Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and Johnson will preside.

"This is an important piece of legislation impacting many colleges and universities and their ability to govern themselves without intrusion by the NCAA," said Rep. Johnson (R-Urbana). "We're hopeful of a productive and civil dialogue to move this issue along."

Rep. Johnson and outgoing House Speaker Dennis Hastert introduced the legislation last May in the wake of the NCAA's refusal to remove the University of Illinois' Chief Illiniwek from the association's list of "hostile and abusive" mascots. That decision makes the U. of I. ineligible to hold post-season athletic tournaments.

"I am grateful that the committee has chosen to conduct a hearing here in Champaign-Urbana, where the symbol of Chief Illiniwek has been a source of pride and reverence for students, alumni and Illini fans - actually quite the opposite from the kind of symbols the NCAA seeks to eradicate," Rep. Johnson said.

"While I am a strong supporter of the Chief, I must emphasize that this legislation is not about the chief per se but is a bi-partisan endeavor to preserve the autonomy of member institutions from dictatorial mandates from the NCAA," Rep. Johnson said.

The legislation is called the Protection of University Governance Act of 2006 (HR 5289).

The bill limits the NCAA's ability to impose sanctions on member institutions by reason of a team name, symbol, emblem or mascot. The bill would allow any college or university that is penalized for those reasons to sue the NCAA and seek a court order to stop the decision. The institution could also seek damages, including attorneys' fees, for the revenue lost from not being allowed to hold an athletic championship.

Discuss.