Alabama Politics in
Doc’s Political Parlor
& Home of Lawn Mower Repair

Brian at Flashpoint tells us that Republican Cheryl Baswell Guthrie is contemplating a 2010 campaign for the 5th Congressional District against freshman Democrat Parker Griffith. She lost the nomination for the seat in 2008 to Wayne Parker. No indication, Brian says, that Wayne Parker wants to be the nominee for the 4th time.

I have updated the 2010 Big List accordingly.

While I’m at it, I’ll mention that I updated the 2010 House Elections Directory with several additions over the weekend.

Also, April Weaver has officially announced her campaign for House District 49 that is being vacated by Cam Ward. You may read her press release here in Word format.

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Notes…

• Democratic Congressman Bobby Bright is getting major ad support in his district from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, while the National Republican Congressional Committee is robocalling his district working the Pelosi connection again. Sixteen other House Democrats are targeted. (Click to listen to the robocall.)
• After managing Democrat Bobby Bright’s Congressional campaign to victory in an R-13 district and managing Todd Strange’s winning campaign for Montgomery mayor, David Mowery’s stock has never been higher. Now he is opening the doors on his own outfit, the Mowery Consulting Group.
• Both the 2010 Big List and the 2010 Senate Elections Directory have been updated this week. Let us know if you know of other changes that should be made to them. Both links are available in the sidebar.
• In case you are interested, the Times of India notes that an Indian-American has been named Honorary Lt. Governor of Alabama.
• “SRY BOUT THE ROSES.” Here is an automated robotic mower that will not only mow the lawn for you, but will text you if there is a problem.

I hope your Friday is a good one.

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Republican Montgomery City Councilwoman Martha Roby announced that she will run for the 2nd Congressional District seat held now by freshman Bobby Bright. The 2010 Big List has been updated appropriately.

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SurveyUSA’s latest poll of Sen. Richard Shelby’s approval rating among Alabamians shows a third straight month of decline down to 51%, his lowest rating in the four years shown online. Not sure that there is a lot to be made about that as his seat is quite safe and 51% is certainly respectable.

Just in January though he was at 60% and only two months before that he was at 64%, his highest rating in the four years shown on the chart. For that matter, his current 51% approval rating is close (within the margin of error) to the 48% of Alabamians who approve of the job Barack Obama is doing in a poll taken at the same time.

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Richard Shelby is doing as United States Senator?

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Some Dems are not at all unhappy to have Sen. Jeff Sessions as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Democrats like how this is looking.

“Sessions will help galvanize and crystallize why we need a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate,” a Democratic senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told POLITICO Tuesday.

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• Sessions to be Ranking GOPer on Senate Judiciary
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The Hill reports that Sen. Jeff Sessions struck a deal to be the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee for the remainder of the 111th Congress, and to trade that away to be the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee for the 112th Congress (all pending a vote among Judiciary Committee Republicans, as well as the Senate GOP caucus.)

The Senator could be the heavyweight some GOP’ers have been looking for in the Governor’s race, and he has been the object of a recruiting effort to play the part. At first blush, this deal involving the next Congress puts the idea to rest. However, Sessions gets now the position he prefers (Judiciary) for one later that is not as much to his liking (Budget), according to multiple observers. Might he still walk away for a chance to be Governor after his stint on the Judiciary Committee?

On the negative side, why leave a safe seat for an election that is not a sure thing? And for bigger headaches if he wins the Governorship? As my email inbox put it…

With Sessions finally building seniority in DC and now apparently moving up higher on the Judiciary Committee why in the world would he want to come back home to a term limited job that is one of the hardest in the political world? Also, on a side note if you look back at history around the country US Senators have almost never left their seat to run for governor. The reason for that is it is a step down for most of them.

On the other hand, he would be an extremely strong candidate and would bring a nice warchest to the race. Being Governor of a red state has to have more fun aspects to it than being part of a small minority in the Senate. It would be “a nice cap on a strong career,” as another reader put it.

And, fwiw, I imagine that a contentious hearing over Obama’s Supreme Court nominee would only raise his stock in Alabama.

Murmurs, murmurs, we hear murmurs. Predictions anyone?

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• Thompson on List of Potential Supreme Court Justices
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Slate.com has Alabama’s Myron Thompson listed among its Top 20 possiblities to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Will Alabama’s Sen. Jeff Sessions succeed Arlen Specter as the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and “be the party’s leading voice on the pending nomination?”

Thanks to reader M.

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According to this memo posted at Politico.com, Alabama Democratic Congressmen Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith are among 41 Congressmen in the Democratic Party’s Frontline program for vulnerable incumbents. (I was sent the link, but I haven’t found any post about it at Politico.com.)

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Democrat Josh Segall ends the speculation and announces his candidacy for the 3rd Congressional District in 2010.  Segall was the Democratic nominee for the seat in 2008 and lost the general election to Republican incumbent Mike Rogers.

He had been mentioned as a possible candidate for Secretary of State; the 2010 Big List has been adjusted accordingly.

Lilly Ledbetter had been mentioned as a potential Democratic candidate for AL-03. That looked unlikely from this vantage point, and with Segall in that race again, it looks even more unlikely.

Here is the text of his release:

(more…)

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• Lilly Ledbetter for Congress?

Les Stanford Chevrolet Cadillac in Dearborn, Michigan seems to think Shelby-as-bogeyman might move some cars off the lot.

More here in the The Hill’s Briefing Room.

Thanks to reader E.

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U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R - Saks) drops in at Auburn University in Montgomery and says that Congressional Democrats are paying Republicans back for how Dems were treated when the Republicans were in charge.

“They don’t talk to us,” he said. “They’ve got the vote, and they can do what they want.”

[…]

“Republican leaders didn’t talk to the Democrats [when Republicans were in charge],” he said. “The attitude was ‘We have the votes on our side, let the Democrats whine.’”

Rogers said that’s a culture that needs to change if Congress wants to get more done in between election cycles.

In the process, he called Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “crazy,” “mean as a snake” and “Tom DeLay in a skirt.” Which led a friend to comment to me, “I guess Rogers has gotten all he wants out of the House.”

In the beginning, at least, Obama and Congressional Democrats tried to play ball with Republicans.

And there might be a lesson here for the Democratic majority in the state legislature: make sure you have the votes. As one state GOP legislator put it to me, the state Dems can try to be heavy-handed, but they don’t have the votes to back it up (for example, to pass a BIR vote or break a filibuster).

Glad to have South Union Street (from the Montgomery Advertiser) join Alabama’s political blogosphere.

Updated: State Democratic Party Chair responds Tuesday afternoon.

Responding to disparaging public remarks Republican Congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama’s 3rd District made about Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rogers’ remorse of a lack of bi-partisan cooperation in Congress, Alabama Democratic Party Chair Joe Turnham is making an offer to Congressman Rogers to be of assistance.

[…]

Chairman Joe Turnham announces today [Tuesday] that he is offering to assist Congressman Rogers in his quest to work together with Democrats by personally asking the Democratic Speaker to meet with him and to attend the meeting if he so desires.

Full release here.

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According to the Selma Times-Journal, Davis has hired Jessica Vanden Berg of Maverick Strategies as a strategist and eventual campaign manager while PJ McCann and Ami Copeland of New Partners Inc. have come aboard as his national fund-raising consultants.

Any word on the other candidates and their hiring?

In related news, the Selma Times-Journal also reports, former mayor, James Perkins Jr, will instead run for his old seat instead of Congress.

(more…)

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State Representative Earl Hilliard Jr. (D - Birmingham) is announcing his candidacy this morning for the Congressional seat once held by his father. In 2002, Artur Davis defeated Earl Hilliard Sr. on his second attempt but is giving up the seat to run for Governor in 2010.

It could be a crowded field:

Birmingham lawyer Terri Sewell already has announced she is running, and a host of both county and state lawmakers — including Sens. Rodger Smitherman and Bobby Singleton, Jefferson County Commissioner Shelia Smoot and former Selma Mayor James Perkins — have expressed interest in possibly making runs.

State Sen. Hank Sanders has also received encouragement to run for the seat - including from his wife. Rose Sanders was overheard at Selma’s annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee last month asking Joe Reed to talk her husband into the race to succeed Artur Davis.

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A retired GM engineer has launched boycottalabamanow.com urging a boycott of Alabama because our Republican Sen. Richard Shelby is not helping the domestic auto industry.

From the front page of the web site (at this writing):

We are starting a nationwide boycott of Alabama that will include any travel into the state well as boycotting the purchase of anything produced in any way within the state.

[…]

To those hard working people in Alabama, we apologize for the boycott and the loss of income and future employment from this boycott but please understand that it is within your power to elect a representative who has America’s best interest in mind. Many people have watched as Mr. Shelby spewed inaccurate statements during the senate hearings. It is clear that Senator Shelby has no idea of the inner workings of the Big Three, yet his title allows him to poison the air with non-truths about the domestic auto industry.

The front page of the Boycott Alabama Now site lists a half-dozen mentions that the site has received in the media, including from three TV stations.

The website urges readers to call the Business Council of Alabama “so that they know we mean business” with the boycott. (Actually, I think that, being a boycott, they mean no business, but you get the idea.)

The woman who answered the phone at BCA this morning told me she knew of no calls about a boycott, and my call was the first she had heard about it.

Related… the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has an ad that specifically shows Shelby as one of the Senate Republicans who broke the economy but doesn’t want to help fix it. The ad has a tv clip of Shelby saying, “Close’em down. Get’em out of business. If they’re dead, they ought to be buried.”

Hat tip to reader W for the website and Left in Alabama for the DSCC ad.

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Congressman Jo Bonner (R - Mobile) speaks about his vote on the TARP legislation, not running for Governor, the tanker contract, visiting the Obama White House and more in Lagniappe Magazine out today. An excerpt:

I don’t think there’s anything that could have occurred that could have done more to unite the Republican Party and conservatives in general than having a very liberal, big government president and Congress put in power.

You know again, we were dealing with – we meaning House Republicans – the lingering effects of the culture of corruption, the campaign of 2006 that was so successful run by Rahm Emanuel to remind people why they were disenfranchised, disenchanted. They were frustrated, they were mad, they were angry at Republicans and we had given them a lot of reasons.

Throw in an unpopular president, who the media was just hounding everyday. And then throw in the financial meltdown that occurred and in many respects, the bloodbath that we took on Nov. 4 could have been a lot worse.

Having said that, I had the opportunity to sit on the front row of the presidential inaugural stand by virtue of the fact that I’m the ranking member now of the Ethics Committee and when you look out and you see literally a sea of people stretched from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial as far as the eye could see and you felt the electricity and you felt the euphoria.

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No surprise that freshman U.S. Rep. Bobby Bright (D - Montgomery) should expect a stiff Republican challenge in 2010 for the AL-02 seat he wrested from the GOP in 2008. Republican state Rep. Jay Love, for one, is considering a rematch, according to The Hill.

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The Media General papers using data provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense have put together a web page that lets you search by either requested amount or requesting Congressman/Senator, what has been earmarked for Alabama.  Everything from $30 million for a “interdisciplinary science and engineering teaching and research corridor” to $47,500 for airport fencing.

The link and happy hunting

Same place but via The Eufaula Tribune.  If first link don’t work.

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Our own Richard Shelby (R) is second on the list of the Senate’s top earmarkers, behind only Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia. According to a report from Taxpayers at Common Sense (via Politico.com), Shelby brought home over $114 million of federal money to Alabama. Byrd brought almost $123 million to West Virginia.

As points of comparison, #10 on the list, Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), was responsible for over $46 million in earmarking. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) at #20 was responsible for $19.5 million in earmarked funds.

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At yesterday’s Winter Symposium for the The Blackburn Institute of the University of Alabama, a panel discussed K-12 Education in Alabama. Panelists included Congressman Artur Davis (AL-7), State Treasurer Kay Ivey, and Deputy State Superintendent of Education Dr. Tommy Bice.

Davis has announced his intention to run for Governor on the Democratic side, and the Republican Ivey has formed an exploratory committee and is expected to run for Governor also.

An attendee emailed some thoughts and observations from the symposium.

I am watching Dr. Tommy Bice, Artur Davis and Kay Ivey speak on an education panel. To a normal citizen Ivey will connect as a candidate. She is folksy.

Artur is doing a great job but is very bookish. He is making good points and on point, but says things too verbosely. He also has his media consultant, Ben, and his handler Anna Ruth with him. He and Ivey are basically ignoring each other on the panel.

Very interesting. We are in QA now.

__

Davis is advocating training principals for school admin and forgiving loans for people going into education. Interesting idea.

Ivey is advocating stronger discipline. She agrees better principals are needed but refuses to say she and Davis share ground.

__

Davis just said he and Kay will probably be vying for the same job in the future. She didn’t deny it.

__

Davis just said that seniors in HS are not as literate as they should be. “You could take a Birmingham News and put it in front of a senior, and this paper is written for an 8th grader, that level. An 8th grade Republican. And they couldn’t understand it.” He took a swipe at Repubs and the paper and the audience laughed and clapped and Ivey didn’t even smile. Not happy.

Were there other readers in attendance who want to chime in on what they saw and heard?

Update: This post has been edited to remove parts based on a misunderstanding.

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Since, everybody is talking about the two, his thoughts on the matter are at the Clarion Caller blog of the Opelika-Auburn News.  In brief, he’s for it but its a “state issue”.

Former Congressman Glen Browder did point a way forward on the issue.  Has there been any follow through?

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Our Sen. Richard Shelby got national attention (here and here, for example) for a comment reported on the Cullman Times website yesterday about Shelby’s appearance in Cullman:

Another local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama’s U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.

“Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.”

Ill-advised quip off-the-cuff? Or is Shelby a card-carrying companion of the conspiracy crowd with Alan Keyes?

Ben Smith at Politico.com gets a statement from Team Shelby indicating that the matter of Obama’s citizenship is put to rest as far as it is concerned. From the statement:

At the town hall meeting in Cullman, Sen. Shelby laid out the Constitutional qualifications for the Presidency and said that, while he hasn’t personally seen the President’s birth certificate, he is confident that the matter has been thoroughly examined.

What’s left for us is to gauge the size of the headache this is going to cause Shelby. He’ll catch it from some on the left for the original comment, from the Alan Keyes crowd for backing off of it, and this can hardly do him any favors with the administration.

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One of the more interesting rumors rattling around in Democratic circles is that Lilly Ledbetter might run for AL-03 against Republican incumbent Mike Rogers in 2010. Interesting to think about, unlikely to happen, one reason being that she is over 70 years old. While several have heard the rumor, no one could tell the Parlor where it might have started.

Democrat Josh Segall challenged Rogers in 2008 and is said to be strongly considering another run. Another name in the mix on the Democratic side could be Calhoun County Commissioner Robert Downing.

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Terri Sewell, formerly of Selma, has announced for the 7th Congressional district seat.

The Birmingham News has an article giving details about who else will be/may be running in this race.

In the special election to fill the vacant 22nd district state senate seat, Alan Baker, has announced he will not be running.

In the 1st Congressional district, Peter Gounares has announced his plans to oppose incumbent, Jo Bonner, for the Republican nomination.

edit: fix spelling of Sewell’s name and add web site.

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AEA leadership is not happy with Alabama’s Democratic freshmen in Congress, Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith. Below is the article and caricature from the front page of AEA’s latest newsletter. (Click to see it larger.) Something about the poses assigned by the cartoonist is amusing. I guess that is… shame? Maybe defiance on Bright’s part?

Phillip Rawls of the Associated Press has the story.

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Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions looks to be in line to be the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee if Sen. Judd Gregg is confirmed as President Obama’s Commerce Secretary, according to CQ Politics today.

Sessions said that if he becomes the lead Republican on the Budget panel he would probably dial back some of the partisan rhetoric he has used in the past.

“When you’re sort of a backbencher and you’re not a ranking member or chairman, you tend to be more aggressive,” he said. “When you have the responsibility of being a ranking member, it’s harder to do.”

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Congressman Jo Bonner (R - Mobile) tells the Press-Register today that he will not run for Governor of Alabama in 2010.

Many were surprised he considered it as hard as he did given his plum role on the House Appropriations Committee.

Who will be the GOP frontrunner?

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For those interested, Stimulus Watch, has taken the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ list of shovel ready projects suitable for funding as part of the economic stimulus package, broken them down by state and invites discussion and rank ordering of them. Alabama’s list of city projects is available. Everything from starting a cold case squad to sewer pumps and road projects.
Has anyone seen a list of county and state level projects? There is one for state highways.

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RollCall this morning mentioned a long list of candidates lining up to run for Alabama’s 7th Congressional District if/when current seat-holder Artur Davis makes the announcement that he is running for Governor in 2010. (Look for an announcement from Davis in the first half of February.)

According to RollCall, candidates may include state Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. (son of the former Congressman ousted by Davis in a 2002 primary), state Rep. Merika Coleman, state Sen. Rodger Smitherman, state Sen. Bobby Singleton, Birmingham attorney Terri Sewell, and Jefferson County Commissioner Shelia Smoot - all Democrats.

All but Sewell were already listed among potential candidates for the seat on our 2010 Big List.

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For those who haven’t been following the news, Lilly Ledbetter, of Jacksonville was present when President Obama signed a bill revamping equal pay for women provisions.

Reaction locally from the Clarion Caller blog (and no doubt others, please don’t hesitate to leave a link in comments) and from Gail Collins of the New York Times.

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I would be remiss if not to mention the Clarion Caller’s post on Robert Gibbs late of Auburn in his first appearance as White House Press Secretary.  Video available among other places, CNN of the conference.    Better links would be appreciated, for some reason, this AM, my browser acts like it needs a recompile.

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