Yeah, I’m thinking I’m back
Breaktime is over!
… hopefully. I didn’t actually plan to be away so long in the first place. Part was planned (you may recall that Independence Day fell on a Thursday this year, and also there was this little to-do at Netroots Nation the following week), and part was life, which has a knack for being poorly timed in general.
Campaign Action
But that means there’s boatloads of statehouse action to catch up on, so let’s get to it.
(Get Your Kicks On) I-66: Since Virginia’s state House and Senate elections are a true BFD this fall, let’s start here.
Two big developments over the past few weeks are:
1. The special legislative session on gun safety legislation
2. A new round of fundraising reports
You may be scratching your head and thinking, Hey, what gun safety legislation?
You’d be right. Because there was none.
- After 12 people were gunned down in Virginia Beach on May 31, Gov. Ralph Northam called a special session for July 9 to (hopefully) pass some commonsense gun laws.
- … like the bill Republicans killed earlier this year on a party-line vote in a Senate committee—which would have banned the kind of large-capacity ammunition magazine used by the gunman.
- Lawmakers (including a couple of Republicans) filed some 30 bills aimed at tightening access to guns, limiting firearm lethality, or enhancing penalties for those who commit gun-related offenses.
- But Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox, apparently fearful of the politics and optics of having GOP caucus members kill a bunch of legislation that would save lives (not to mention aware of the polling indicating that a growing majority of Virginians support gun safety measures), didn’t even let the legislature consider any of the bills.
- Instead, the big coward and his similarly bold GOP counterparts in the state Senate shunted every last piece of legislation to the Virginia Crime Commission for “study and recommendation.”
- But the Republicans are totally definitely for really reals going to consider all these bills at some point.
- Specifically, on Nov. 18.
- … or exactly 13 days after Virginians will have gone to the polls to elect all 140 members of the General Assembly.
- All in all, Virginia’s legislature was in session a grand total of 90 minutes on July 9.
- The Republicans had carefully coordinated—and “closely guarded”—their “adjournment strategy” to prevent the Democrats from taking any procedural measures to effectively counter the GOP’s gutless exit.
Nice job, jerks
- In somewhat more satisfying news, a fresh round of legislative campaign finance reports dropped just a few days later, and the fundraising outlook for Democratic candidates across the board was pretty dang rosy.
- All in all, the state Democratic Party, the Democratic caucuses, and affiliated leadership PACs took in $3.7 million over the past quarter.
- Their Republican equivalents, on the other hand, raised just $1.6 million.
- Democratic candidate fundraising is also looking quite solid.
- Seven of the top ten fundraisers for the most recent filing period in state Senate races were Democrats.
- All in all, Democratic Senate candidates raised about $400,000 more than their GOP counterparts.
- In House races, eight of the top ten fundraisers were Democrats.
- In sum, Democratic candidates raised over $700,000 more than Republicans.
- But will this translate into new Democratic majorities in both chambers in this fall’s elections that can finally end the Virginia GOP’s gun safety obstructionism?
- Without a statewide election on the ballot this fall, Democrats will have to fight harder to turn out their voters.
- And it remains to be seen how big of an albatross Northam’s blackface scandal and subsequent refusal to resign will be around Dem candidates’ necks.
Kicked In The Teeth: Congrats to Alaska for making a rare appearance in this space.
… but not really congrats because we’re only talking about it because the state government’s kind of a disaster at the moment.
- Late last month, GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy used his line-item veto power to chop $444 million from the state budget, including
- $130 million for higher education (a 41% cut),
- all Head Start and early childhood education funding,
- all Medicaid dental coverage,
- money for arts and public safety,
- environmental protection program funds,
- as well as a $334,700 cut to the budget of the Alaska Court System—an attempt to sabotage the rule of law in response to repeated rulings by the state Supreme Court that abortion rights are protected by the state constitution.
So why did Dunleavy gut funding for, well, everything?
- Because he wants to make good on a campaign promise to increase the Permanent Fund dividend—an entitlement paid to literally everyone who lives in the state—to $3,000.
- This would, by the by, be a pretty huge jump from last year’s $1,600, which itself was the biggest payout of all but two years of the past decade.
- Everyone (understandably) freaked right out.
- Mass layoffs across state government and various industries are all but certain.
- The state could find itself back in a recession.
- So a special session was called to consider overriding these draconian vetoes.
- … but the governor and the legislature couldn’t even agree on where to convene.
- Dunleavy called a session in Wasilla (which is not the state capital).
- A whopping five of his GOP cohorts met in a middle school.
- The majority of lawmakers agreed to meet in Juneau (the actual state capital), which is great, except that their numbers were shy of the 45 members needed to undo the governor’s cuts.
- Lawmakers continued to negotiate among themselves for weeks, and as of this writing the House is moving to restore $284 million of the governor’s $444 million hatchet job—including $110 million to higher education and $77 million to Medicaid.
- One veteran lawmaker predicts that all but about $84 million of Dunleavy’s cuts will ultimately be restored.
But this debacle is far from over. Stay tuned!
Kick It Out: One week, surely, I won’t have anything interesting to say about Tennessee.
This week is not that week.
So our old pal Speaker Glen Casada is back in the news.
- And no, it’s not because he’s finally about to resign his speakership after a veritable saga of a scandal involving a top aide.
But you’re a busy human, and I last wrote about this whole mess over a month ago, so here’s a quick refresher on why Republican Rep. Glen Casada is resigning from the speakership next Friday.
- It all started when information came to light indicating that Casada’s office may have tried to frame a black activist for violating a no-contact order with the express purpose of getting him thrown in jail.
- In late February, student activist Justin Jones was arrested after someone threw a cup into the speaker’s own personal elevator.
- Jones was released on bond on the condition he have no contact with Casada.
- He’s obeyed the order and hasn’t set foot in the capitol since.
- But Casada’s then-chief of staff, Cade Cothren, seemed to reeeeeeeally want to take away Jones’ freedom.
- Why else would he have shared a copy of an email with the DA purporting to show that Jones sent this email to Cothren and copied Casada after he’d been released on bond, thus violating the no-contact order?
- The thing is, Jones has a copy of his original email, and that email shows that it was sent before this arrest or the subsequent no-contact order.
- Confronted with evidence of the doctored date on the email shared with the DA’s office, the speaker’s office claimed there was a lag in terms of when the email was delivered versus when it was sent due to “a security issue.”
- Thankfully, the DA has stopped trying to throw Jones in jail over this.
Wow, that’s lousy, you’re thinking. But wasn’t there more?
Oh yes.
- Enter one “former acquaintance,” an unidentified person with whom Cothren and Casada had been exchanging text messages for years.
- He (the nature of some of these messages makes it clear we’re talking about someone who identifies as a dude here, so I’m gonna run with that pronoun) decided to share texts from Cothren with a Tennessee TV station—texts that demonstrated Cothren’s outright racist sentiments, signaling that he’s totally the type of a-hole who’d lie to get a black man thrown in jail.
- Cothren first tried to claim the texts had been fabricated.
- Then, when Cothren was confronted with texts from that same acquaintance in which the staffer bragged about snorting cocaine in his legislative offices, he admitted they were real.
- Casada stood by his man at this point, claiming Cothren came to him about his personal struggles—including a drug problem—a few years ago and is working towards “redemption.”
- But that “former acquaintance” was extremely not done.
- Still more incriminating texts surfaced.
- In these texts, the speaker’s top aide:
- Solicited nude photos and oral sex from an intern
- Sought sex with a lobbyist
- Referred to various women in demeaning or sexually explicit ways
- And so forth, and so on.
- And Speaker Casada—who was married at the time (can’t imagine why didn’t last)—participated in some of these text exchanges, making disgusting comments about touching and intercourse with women.
- After an article on these texts ran in The Tennessean, Cothren fell on his sword and resigned.
- But pressure on Casada continued to build.
- His own caucus turned on him, and when Casada declined to resign, GOP House members voted 45-24 (not even close—ouch) that they no longer had confidence in his ability to lead the chamber.
- Then, finally, finally, Casada announced he’d be resigning his post as speaker (but not his seat in the legislature).
- This was all back in [[checks calendar]] May.
- And guess what? Dude’s still Tennessee House speaker.
- Casada finally announced he’d be stepping down as speaker on Aug. 2, which just happens to be his 60th birthday.
So, yeah, Casada’s about to no longer be speaker, but he’s sticking around the state House.
- … which gives opportunities for fun news stories like this one to pop up:
- It seems that Casada tried to bribe a House member to flip his vote on a controversial school voucher measure in April.
- The bill—a huge priority for GOP Gov. Bill Lee—had failed on a 49-49 initial vote.
- So Casada starting bringing members, one at a time, to an “outside balcony” situated behind the speaker’s dais to, ah, discuss their vote.
- One lawmaker overheard Casada suggest that Democratic Rep. John Mark Windle would get promoted to general in the state’s National Guard (Windle’s currently a colonel) if he’d be so kind as to flip his no vote.
- Windle later confirmed this account himself.
- Windle did not, in fact, switch his vote.
- Rather, Republican Rep. Jason Zachary ended up flipping from Nay to Yea—but only after the biggest county in his district was specifically exempted from the legislation.
- Other lawmakers have come forward with accounts of Casada offering them funding for projects and other rewards in exchange for their vote on that voucher bill.
- And at least one lawmaker says Casada threatened to support a primary challenge against him if he failed to vote for the bill.
But another Tennessee Republican has (unrelatedly) gone ahead and thrown in the electoral towel.
- Rep. Bill Sanderson—a notorious “family values” Republican who’s voted repeatedly in favor of anti-LGBT legislation—abruptly announced his resignation this week.
- Sanderson claims he wants to spend more time tending to his winery (he also blames his time in the legislature for the loss of a peach crop …? You know those anarchist peaches, always finding ways to stick it to people who make laws).
- Also his son has throat cancer, which, like, legit sucks and I know we all wish the lad a full and speedy recovery.
- But the real story behind his departure may have something to do with a report claiming that Sanderson has spent his time in the legislature openly soliciting sex with young men via Grindr.
So, Tennessee Republicans are continuing to have a normal one.
Can’t wait to see how the vote goes to choose a new speaker next week!
Welp, that’s a wrap for this long overdue missive. Thanks bunches for your patience. In fact, you’ve been so gracious that I think you deserve to knock off early and get a jump on your weekend. You deserve to be good to yourself. Self-care and stuff. Just print this out and show it to your boss, I’m sure she won’t mind.