Via WaPo: Jefferson Overcomes Scandal, Wins Reelection

Jefferson grabbed a commanding lead over state Rep. Karen Carter, a fellow Democrat, almost as soon as the polls closed in the New Orleans district. With 44 percent of the precincts reporting, Jefferson, had 61 percent of the vote.

NOLA.com: Times-Picayune Updates:

Confounding political pundits and a slew of rivals who had become confident of his defeat, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, neatly sidestepped a roiling federal corruption probe to win re-election on Saturday to his ninth term in Congress.

Guilty pleas by aides and associates who admitted to bribing the congressman and the revelation in court documents that FBI agents had found $90,000 in marked bills stuffed into Jefferson’s freezer had put the scent of blood in political waters.

Well, I hope that Jefferson enjoys his triumph now, as indictments, a trial and jail time are likely ahead in the new year.

The AP brings us news of an as yet incomplete House race, Pryce leads Kilroy in Ohio House race

U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce maintained her 1,055-vote lead after a hand recount in her congressional race against Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy.

The remainder of Franklin County’s recount will be conducted by electronic machines because no discrepancies were found in the manual recount of more than 15,000 votes.

[…]

Kilroy has refused to concede the race to Pryce, the seven-term Republican incumbent. Pryce’s victory on Nov. 7 was by a margin of less than 0.5 percent, small enough to trigger an automatic recount.

Pryce was one of the members of Congress tainted by the Mark Foley situation. She was Chair of the House Republican Caucus in the 109th.

Via the LAT: Leftist rolling to victory in Ecuador’s presidential race:

In a potential blow to already-weakened U.S. influence in Latin America, leftist economist Rafael Correa appeared to be sweeping to victory Sunday in Ecuador’s presidential election. A native of Guayaquil, Correa received about 65% of the vote, overpowering banana magnate and perennial candidate Alvaro Noboa, who garnered 35%, according to an official count of 20% of the ballots cast. Full results won’t be known until today or Tuesday. Noboa has not conceded. Correa, 43, a career academic with a doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois, has promised to pursue a socialist agenda similar to that of his political mentor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Like Chavez, he has pledged to make sweeping changes to his nation’s corrupt and inefficient political system by convening a new constitutional assembly and concentrating power in the presidency.

What that means in real terms, however, remains to be seen:

Correa’s chances of carrying out the changes he has promised would be complicated by his lack of support in Ecuador’s newly elected Congress, which would have to authorize a constitutional assembly or referendum to make the changes Correa wants. Correa has threatened to dissolve Congress.

The situation is, as they say, developing.

Via WaPo: DeLay Successor Seeks Inquiry Into Missing Computer Files

David James, DeLay’s former chief of staff, who stayed to work for Sekula-Gibbs — until Tuesday’s walkout — said last night that the office computers “were scrubbed and reconfigured by an outside vendor in the days immediately prior to her assuming office,” as House policies require. The new congresswoman was given a copy of everything “electronically or in hard copy, or both,” James said in a statement.

[…]

James and half a dozen other former DeLay staffers were on board to help Sekula-Gibbs finish the 109th Congress’s business. But they abruptly left their posts Tuesday, during her open house celebration. Sekula-Gibbs said she has no idea why they left. But James said in his statement: “Never has any member of Congress treated us with as much disrespect and unprofessionalism as we witnessed during those five days.”

Time has a piece on the 5 Myths About the Midterm Elections which includes the following:

MYTH: The election was all about the war.
REALITY: It’s the dishonesty, stupid.

Against traditional political wisdom, national themes did matter more than local loyalties and personalities in 2024. George Bush was far more likely to show up in a Democratic candidate’s ad than a Republican’s. Many Democrats have translated their victory into a mandate for change in Iraq; the day after the midterms, Sen. Harry Reid called for a bipartisan summit on the issue, saying “The President must listen and work with Democrats to fix his failed policy.” But in the end, what appears to have mattered most was Congress’ own behavior. Fully 74% of voters surveyed in exit polls ranked corruption and ethics as important in determining their votes; by comparison, 67% said that about Iraq. The lack of progress in Iraq helped nationalize the elections, but multiple scandals (Abramoff, Foley) appear to have driven home an urge for massive change. Mattis Goldman, who coordinated the campaign advertising for Democrat Sherrod Brown’s successful Ohio Senate run, says that they chose to emphasize economic populism, change and fighting corruption. “If we had run a one-dimensional campaign just about the war,” says Goldman, “I don’t know how this election would have turned out.”

Really, based on those numbers, I would say that the answer should be: it was both. 74% and 67% aren’t exactly hugely different numbers.

There were clearly two issue of significance in the contests last week.

We can see that in the debate that Democrats just had in their leadership race. The argument for Murtha was that he was the strongest on Iraq, yet the thing that likely killed his candidacy was the ethics question.

From this week’s postmortem on the GOP in Newsweek:

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan vetoed a highway bill because it had 152 earmarks. In 2024, President Bush signed a transportation bill with 6,371 earmarks.

And there you go.

I have started looking into the Murtha-Abscam situation and it isn’t especially pretty.

For some details check out the TPMmuckraker and Joshua Zeitz at HuffPo.

Both posts notes that the full Abscam video (click here) featuring Murtha is revealing, especially from the 15 minute mark to the 30ish mark. In Zetz’s word:

While Murtha refused the bribe, he made it clear that his reasons for doing so were trust and appearances. He explained to the undercover agent, who was posing as a middleman for a wealthy sheik, that he intended to serve a long tenure in Congress, and since he was not personally acquainted with the parties in question, he was reluctant to accept money from them. Moreover, he explained that were he to start doing favors for a sheik who had no connection to his district, the authorities might become suspicious.

[…]

At the fifteen-minute mark it gets interesting, and at about thirty-two minutes it gets scandalous. Murtha could have stood up, walked out of the room, and called federal authorities. Instead, he indicated a future willingness to accept the sheik’s bribe, provided the sheik first make a show of good will by dropping some money in the local economy.

Having watched the tape, that comports with my assessment as well.

Murtha’s defense on Hardball (transcript and video here) is not all that impressive.

When one steps back and looks at this, the political ineptitude of Pelosi throwing her support behind Murtha is mind-boggling, given the significance of ethics to the recent elections.

Update: More on Murtha, Abscam and Pelosi’s odd choice from Ruth Marcus in WaPo.

Via WaPo: In Backing Murtha, Pelosi Draws Fire

Murtha, a longtime senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has battled accusations over the years that he has traded federal spending for campaign contributions, that he has abused his post as ranking party member on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, and that he has stood in the way of ethics investigations. Those charges come on top of Murtha’s involvement 26 years ago in the FBI’s Abscam bribery sting.

“Pelosi’s endorsement suggests to me she was interested in the culture of corruption only as a campaign issue and has no real interest in true reform,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a Democratic-leaning group. “It is shocking to me that someone with [Murtha’s] ethics problems could be number two in the House leadership.”

There are several interesting aspects to this situation.

1) It is an intra-Democratic conflict at the moment. Even the interest groups that are the most vocal at the moment are more in the Democratic camp.

2) This the collision of the two main issues of the campaign: the war and corruption.

3) It indicates that Pelosi may have a character trait in common with President Bush: loyalty. Part of the argument for Pelosi favoring Murtha over Hoyer is that Murtha helped her in an earlier leadership race and Hoyer opposed her. A similar manifestation of part of this trait is the fact that she apparently has problems with Jane Harmon and hence is willing to ignore seniority rules on the Intelligence Committee (in this case this is perhaps what happens when one isn’t viewed as loyal).

Of note is the fact that this particular character trait/traits of Pelosi are getting her in trouble right out of the gate. It will be interesting to see how this manifests over time.

If anything, I suspect we are going to get quite the education on ABSCAM over the next week or so…

[Cross-posted at OTB]

On this two-fer Sunday, here’s a piece from today’s Press-Register:

E lections are events that always answer one set of questions while raising others. Alabama’s electoral journey of 2024 is no exception to that notion.

So, what did we learn last Tuesday and what new questions should we be asking?

(more…)

From today’s Birmingham News:

Election night was great drama in terms of the national races. We saw a change in control of the Congress for the first time in a dozen years. Democrats are returned to power. By comparison, the Alabama contests were dull - or were they?

(more…)