Menendez Is in Trouble

Open Secrets reports on New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez's ethics trouble:

The Washington Post reports that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) tried two different times to dispute top federal health officials' findings that one of his major donors had overbilled Medicare by nearly $9 million. As we reported last week, the donor, Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen -- who's now under investigation by the FBI -- and his family have given more than $426,000 to federal candidates since 1992. The list of recipients includes Republicans and many Florida politicians, though Menendez is clearly the favorite.

But all of those donations are just the tip of the iceberg -- Melgen's business, Vitero-Retinal Consultants also gave $700,000 to Majority PAC in 2012, the super PAC set up to support Senate Democrats. Majority PAC spent about $600,000 to back Menendez in his reelection race last fall.

And Center for Responsive Politics research has also found that Salomon and his wife, Flor, each donated $20,000 to the Fund to Uphold the Constitution, a legal defense fund that Menendez set up. The organization reported spending about $109,000 to pay law firm Perkins Coie for "campaign expenses" during the 2012 election cycle.

Menendez has been under attack for his relationship to Melgen since late October, when a conservative blog said the senator visited with prostitutes but didn't pay them during trips to the Dominican Republic that he took with Melgen. Menendez has denied the prostitution-related allegations but recently reimbursed the Florida doctor for flights on his private jet during those trips. Following the initial allegations, Menendez's legal defense fund reported paying more than $26,000 to Genova Burns, a New Jersey law firm that previously represented him in 2010 when a recall effort to unseat him was launched.

American Crossroads has set up a Menendez "resignation watch."

The Weekly Standard reports that Chris Christie would name an interim replacement if he should resign:

“If a vacancy shall happen in the representation of this State in the United States senate, it shall be filled at the general election next succeeding the happening thereof, unless such vacancy shall happen within 70 days next preceding such election, in which case it shall be filled by election at the second succeeding general election, unless the governor of this State shall deem it advisable to call a special election therefor, which he is authorized hereby to do,” New Jersey law reads. “The governor of this State may make a temporary appointment of a senator of the United States from this State whenever a vacancy shall occur by reason of any cause other than the expiration of the term; and such appointee shall serve as such senator until a special election or general election shall have been held pursuant to law and the Board of State Canvassers can deliver to his successor a certificate of election.”

American Crossroads v. Ashley Judd

Actress Ashley Judd is considering a Senate race in Kentucky against Mitch McConnell. American Crossroads is making a preemptive attack.  Steven Law, the group's CEO, once served as McConnell's chief of staff.

The Cantor Rebranding

At Time, Michael Scherer writes:

There is a single chart—three colored lines on a grid—that shapes the political reality of this country today. During the 2012 campaign, one of President Obama’s senior strategists called it “the North Star,” and started his internal Power Point presentations with it. When Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor speaks Tuesday about his vision for the future of the Republican Party, the chart’s central message will bind together his words.

 

The chart tracks as lines three economic trends over the last two decades in America, between 1992 and 2009. The first two lines are rising–productivity and per capita gross domestic product. This is the unmistakable American success story, the one reflected in record corporate profits, growing wealth accumulation and the unmatched efficiency of this country’s economy. The third line tracks median household income, as measured by the U.S. Census. It shows the story of frustration and stagnation that so many Americans long ago accepted as a reality.

The Majority Leader's office has a page for the "Making Life Work" agenda. Excerpts from Cantor's speech:

We will advance proposals aimed at producing results in areas like education, health care, innovation, and job growth. Our solutions will be based on the conservative principles of self reliance, faith in the individual, trust in the family, and accountability in government. Our goal – to ensure every American has a fair shot at earning their success and achieving their dreams.
***
In America, we do have higher expectations for our nation. Since our founding, we believed we could be the best hope to mankind. That hope led generations of immigrants to risk everything, to endure a tough journey to our shores, looking for a better future. The driving motivation for millions of immigrants passing by Lady Liberty in New York Harbor was the generation that came after them. And because of that hope, those high expectations, coupled with a determination to see them come true, every generation since has had it better off than the one before. Until now.
***
Lately, it has become all too common in our country to hear parents fear whether their children will indeed have it better than they. And for all of us parents, that is a scary thought. Our goal should be to eliminate the doubt gripping our nation’s families, and to restore their hope and confidence in being able to protect tomorrow for their children.
***
Government policy should aim to strike a balance between what is needed to advance the next generation, what we can afford, what is a federal responsibility and what is necessary to ensure our children are safe, healthy and able to reach their dreams.
***
One of our priorities this year will be to move heaven and earth to fix our education system for the most vulnerable.
***
Explaining that rising health care costs are depressing take-home pay is little consolation to a working mom. Her grocery bills are higher, her kids' school needs are more expensive, rent is up – and now, she's just trying to get by. And getting by is not the American Dream.
***
If you're a working parent, you know there’s hardly ever enough time at home to be with the kids. Too many parents have to weigh whether they can afford to miss work even for half a day to see their child off on the first day of school or attend a parent-teacher conference.
***
In 1935, the Form 1040 was accompanied by a two-page instruction booklet. Today, taxpayers must wade through over 100 total pages of instructions. Just filling out a W-2 at a new job is confusing. You shouldn’t need a worksheet to know how many dependents you have.
***
Scientific breakthroughs are the result of – and have helped contribute to –America being the world’s capital of innovation and opportunity in nearly every field. For this and many other reasons, people across the globe want to become a part of our country. We must never diminish that desire, or worse, become a place that is no longer desirable.
***
While we are a nation that allows anyone to start anew, we are also a nation of laws, and that’s what makes tackling the issue of immigration reform so difficult. We must balance respect for the rule of law and respect for those waiting to enter this country legally, with care for people and families, most of whom just want to make a better life, and contribute to America.
***
We are committed to ensuring that the next generation does indeed have it better than the one before it. Because, when we lose that promise, we lose the absolute promise of everything that has been built before us.

Intraparty Tensions

A number of posts have described intraparty GOP tensions. At The New York Times, Jennifer Steinhauer writes of the Senate:

The willingness of Republicans to skewer one of their own became increasingly apparent on Friday as more and more members of the party peeled away from Mr. Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense, saying they would not vote to confirm him after Mr. Hagel melted like chocolate on a dashboard under combative questioning from Republicans.
...
There were other moments as well. Earlier in the week, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, took to talk radio to refer to a Republican colleague, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, as “amazingly naïve” for his proposals to overhaul the nation’s immigration system. Mr. Rubio did not choose to respond or question the judgment of Mr. Vitter, whose phone number once appeared in a client list of a Washington madam.

As Politico reports, however, there was a response from somebody on Team Rubio:

Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) associates, furious about fellow Republican Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) calling the Floridian “nuts” and “naïve” over his immigration reform efforts, are hitting Vitter where it hurts.

“David Vitter has done some nuttier things in his life,” a source close to Rubio wrote in an unsolicited email to POLITICO.

That’s a not-at-all subtle reference to Vitter’s 2007 admission that his phone number appeared on a client list of a Washington, D.C. madam. A New Orleans-based prostitute and madam have also, separately, accused Vitter of being a client, but he has denied those charges.

Asked for comment about the jab, Vitter’s press secretary didn’t respond to two emails. A receptionist at Vitter’s Washington office said the press staffer “must be away from his desk.”

In a number of posts, and in After Hope and Change, we have discussed frustration with the president among congressional Democrats.  Politico also reports that the frustration still smolders:

President Barack Obama and his top advisers have declared that they’re done playing “the inside game” in Washington, but one crucial Democratic constituency — his former colleagues in Congress — say the president shouldn’t deep-six a strategy that he only half-heartedly tried in his first term.

As Obama prepares an aggressive public lobbying campaign for his ambitious second-term agenda, Democrats on Capitol Hill are bluntly warning him that he has to do more to engage them if he expects his congressional allies to take a series of politically tough votes.

Interviews with dozens of members of Congress and senior aides reveal frustration and in some cases exasperation that a president who came from the Senate has no apparent appetite for cultivating relationships on Capitol Hill.

These Democrats say they almost never hear from Obama personally, haven’t been to the White House since Rahm Emanuel was still chief of staff and are mystified that the president passed over a popular legislative affairs aide for the job as top congressional liaison. One high-profile Democrat who recently spoke to a group of Hill Democrats came away stunned at their anger toward a president they hardly know.

Conservative Victory Project

The New York Times reports on a new super PAC designed to remedy the Todd Akin problem:

The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the Senate.
.
The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races.

“There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” said Steven J. Law, the president of American Crossroads, the “super PAC” creating the new project. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”

Politico reports on some negative reaction:

Both the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund – two of the most prominent groups that have boosted candidates on the right – mocked the new initiative as yet another hapless establishment-side attempt to muzzle the GOP base.

Matt Hoskins, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, branded it the “Conservative Defeat Project.”

“The Conservative Defeat Project is yet another example of the Republican establishment’s hostility toward its conservative base. Rather than listening to the grassroots and working to advance their principles, the establishment has chosen to declare war on the party’s most loyal supporters,” Hoskins said. “If they keep this up, the party will remain in the wilderness for decades to come.”

Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller essentially responded by pointing to the scoreboard in recent primaries in which conservative insurgents have prevailed and emerged as influential GOP leaders.

Political Money in California

Steve Harmon writes at The San Jose Mercury News that California Democrats owe the unions, big-time:

Labor's heavy lift on two campaigns paid big dividends last fall.

While the wealthy Munger siblings famously poured a combined $83 million into losing causes, labor unions flexed their financial muscle to capture two campaigns with about the same amount -- $85 million, according to the final round of the 2012 campaign finance reports, which were released late Thursday.

Labor went all in, spending $65 million to defeat Proposition 32, which would have stripped their political clout by outlawing the collection of union dues for political campaigns. That money enabled unions to put together a field program with volunteers blanketing the state, creating what union leaders say was a ripple effect that led to the stunning victory by Gov. Jerry Brown's tax-hike measure, Proposition 30.

Labor added more than $20 million to the Proposition 30 campaign and claim that the fervor behind those two campaigns helped Democrats capture super majorities in the Senate and Assembly.

In California, state legislative campaigns costs as much as statewide campaigns in much of the country. The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports:

Last year’s campaign in Riverside County’s 31st Senate District consumed more than $9 million, making it the deepest political money pit of any California legislative contest in 2012, final reports show.

The second-most expensive legislative race last year, the Sacramento-area 8th Assembly District, racked up almost $8.4 million in total spending. Right behind it was the campaign in the Stockton-to-Modesto 5th Senate District, which burned through more than $8.1 million, according to end of-year campaign finance statements filed this week.

Lawmakers earn a base salary of $90,526, plus living expenses when the Legislature is in session.

“I had no idea it was going to cost as much as it did,” said state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, a Riverside attorney and first-time candidate who survived a bruising June primary campaign and went on to defeat Republican Jeff Miller, a state assemblyman, in the 31st. The seat includes Corona, Riverside, Moreno Valley and Perris.

Republicans Aren't Dead Yet

From left and right, some clarity emerges about the recent past and near future.

At The American Prospect, Paul Starr says that Democrats exaggerated the impact of Obama's victory:

But if you step back now, look at government as a whole, and think about the likely course of politics in the next several years, things look different. In what was a bad year for Republicans, they emerged with enough power to stymie major Democratic legislative initiatives and to advance key items on their own agenda through the arms of government that they continue to control.

...

The fiscal-cliff legislation severely limits domestic policy for the rest of Obama’s presidency. With income-tax increases off the table, most of the focus in the coming rounds will be on spending cuts, particularly in Social Security and Medicare. However those issues are resolved, spending on discretionary programs as a percentage of gross domestic product will be virtually certain to fall back to levels last seen in the 1950s. If any Eisenhower Republicans are left, they should be smiling.

Meanwhile, Republicans have considerable power to set the nation’s direction through other arms of government. Chief Justice John Roberts’s decision to vote with the liberals last June to uphold the Affordable Care Act should not obscure the reality that the Court remains in conservative hands. Even the “Obamacare” ruling represented a doctrinal victory for conservatives in two crucial areas—the limitation of the interstate commerce clause and congressional spending powers—and this year Roberts appears poised to lead his fellow conservative justices in decisions declaring affirmative action and critical provisions of the Voting Rights Act to be unconstitutional.

The other critical base of conservative power lies in the states, where Republicans have one-party control of 24 states, compared with only 12 for the Democrats. The GOP made the most of its victories in 2010, seizing the chance to gerrymander state legislative as well as congressional districts and positioning itself to dominate those legislatures as well as the U.S. House for the rest of the decade.

At The Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove writes:

Yes, there will be fewer whites and more minorities in the future, and Republicans will have to adjust. But the situation is more complicated than that.

Start with the obvious: If demographics were determinative, then Republicans shouldn't have gained 63 seats in the House of Representatives in 2010—the largest midterm shift since 1938—while also taking 30 governorships.

When presidential re-elections yielded realignments in the past, the winner earned a bigger share of the vote than he had in the past. FDR won 60.8% of the vote in 1936 after winning 57.41% in 1932. But Mr. Obama won 51.06% in 2012, down from 52.87% in 2008. Over the course of his first term, his support dropped among young people (a swing of 2.4 million net votes to Mitt Romney), women (a net swing of 1.6 million votes to Mr. Romney), and African-Americans (a net swing 945,000 votes).

And while Mr. Obama may believe he can ignore moderate and conservative whites, congressional Democrats would disagree. Mr. Obama won Florida by a razor-thin 74,309 votes (0.9% of the total), yet Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson won re-election by 1,065,184 votes, or 13%, many from white voters. In North Dakota, Democrat Heidi Heitkamp won a Senate seat by less than 1% while Mr. Obama lost by 20%, and in West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin won re-election by 24% while Mr. Obama lost by 27%. Such Democrats from swing states or districts will be uncomfortable with Mr. Obama's strategy of playing to his party's left wing.