Democrats. Another week, another redistricting-themed Down for Democrats. 36 Pa. House Dems voted for the Republican-drawn congressional map – the one that makes it drastically less likely that their party will gain a seat in 2012. Was it a failure of vote whipping? Was it the influence of incumbent Dem congressmen who favored the map? Who knows. But the activist base of the party has every right to feel outraged.
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Eugene DePasquale. The plucky York lawmaker racked up a ton of endorsements for his Auditor General bid this week; over 100 in total with more coming in. He has the inside track for state committee support. That said, party activists particularly in southeast Pa. are likely to be pretty upset with his vote in favor of the GOP’s redistricting plan.
Tim Holden. The Congressman will likely face his most serious challenge yet from the left in his new, more Democratic, more NEPA district. That’s the down. The up is because we hesitate to bet against the Congressman this time around. Why? PoliticsPA called Holden a loser of the redistricting process way back in 2001, and we were dead wrong. He ended up overcoming long-time GOP incumbent George Gekas and has cruised ever since. This is not his first rodeo.
Bob Casey and Allyson Schwartz. Democrats in Congress scored a win this week as the House GOP backed down from the payroll tax cut extension confrontation. The Senator and Congresswoman got a profile boost when they were chosen to join the conference committee to hammer out the details of the final product. Let’s hope this works out better than the supercommittee.
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Jim Christiana. The Beaver County lawmaker announced this week that he will not run for Congress. At the end of the day, he enjoyed several weeks of good press, got his name out there for future runs, and left a clear path for anyone else who may want to run…
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3 Responses
Brady may have been telling Montco Dems that they suck, but the Montco Dems in the House responded by sucking it up. Only Shapiro voted for the D alternative map and against final passage of the R map. Shame on Briggs, Gerber, Bradford, et.al. for “sucking.” They all want tp be considered great Dems and great progressives. Yeah right.
Would love to hear their lame excuses. What did they get in return for this betrayal? Something in the drawing of their own districts perhaps??
A down arrow for a Democrat in favour of the Congressional plan that passed should go to US Rep Bob Brady. He helped make Meehan’s district what it became through a deal that gave him some whiter areas of Delaware County up into Media in order to discourage future primaries. Pennsylvania needs a second Afro-American Congressman and the sooner that Brady retires, the better. For that matter, he probably should have stepped down as Philadelphia Democratic chair once elected to Congress, and definitely when he ran for mayor in order to avoid a conflict of interest.
Re: Dems – It was Bob Brady sending a message to suburban Dems that he thinks they suck. Feeling’s mutual, Bob.