Tag: U.S. Senate

Cook: Clinton Wins and Dems Take Senate

Buck Banks

There is a food fight un­der way among many of those do­ing pres­id­en­tial-elec­tion mod­el­ing… It’s not my style or ex­pert­ise to put a spe­cif­ic per­cent­age on Clin­ton’s chances of win­ning, but, suf­fice it to say, it’s a really big num­ber. … The Sen­ate is tough­er to call. The strong like­li­hood of a Clin­ton vic­tory means that the Demo­crat­ic tar­get is 50 seats, a gain of four, with Vice Pres­id­ent Tim Kaine cast­ing a tie-break­ing vote if ne­ces­sary. Right now, I think the odds are highest for a four-seat gain, next likely would be five seats.

— Charlie Cook

Rubio Says Women Don’t Need the ERA

Trish

Good news, ladies! You might not have noticed it, but your rights in America are totally equal. Your protections are the same as men. Discrimination based on gender is over. Feels good, huh?

Apparently that’s what Sen. Marco Rubio thinks. When he was asked at a rally before he quit his race for president earlier this year if he would support the Equal Rights Amendment, Rubio guffawed. “That old thing?” he seemed to say in a newly released video. “That’s so 1979!”

In fact, efforts continue to this day to enshrine equal protection of rights for women in the United States Constitution.

Now Rubio is back in Florida, running for the U.S. Senate seat he virtually abandoned because he was so convinced America would elect him their president in November. Yet even as he campaigns, he won’t commit to serving the full term, lest he again decide America wants him more than Florida does. How Rubio has any support in his state, and any votes among those of us paying pink taxes is a mystery.

Being a Senator Is Now a Part-Time Job

Buck Banks

110 days

“The U.S. Senate is on track to work the fewest number of days since 1956, a fact that Democrats seized on Wednesday to attack the chamber’s Republican leadership,” McClatchy reports. “Senators returned last week to Washington after a seven-week break. Another recess could come as early as the end of this week or next, freeing embattled senators to return to the campaign trail in their states.”

The Ten Senate Races Democrats Are Most Likely to Win in 2016

Jon Ponder

Feingold
Feingold
We’re not yet halfway through 2015 but the 2016 race for control of the U.S. Senate is starting to take shape. This week The Hill ranked the 10 most competitive races — and since then there has been a development in the race The Hill listed as likely to be the easiest pickup for Democrats.

Yesterday former Sen. Russ Feingold, the Democratic incumbent who was unseated by current Sen. Ron Johnson in 2010, announced he was entering the race. Johnson, a tea partyist, won by 5 percentage points in the tea party’s anti-Obamacare wave election after spending millions of his own money. The Hill quotes him as saying he won’t self-fund this year — which only means he’ll rely on his wealthy cronies to spend unlimited money anonymously to fund his campaign. The Hill cited a poll by PPP taken before Feingold’s announcement that found Feingold with 50 percent support against Johnson’s 41 percent. Wisconsin has voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential cycle since 1984.

Within hours after Feingold’s announcement, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts endorsed him, according to an email sent by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

The Hill’s other nine most-competitive races are:

[…]

Obama Supports Ending Senate Filibuster

Buck Banks

Probably the one thing that we could change without a constitutional amendment that would make a difference here would be the elimination of the routine use of the filibuster in the Senate. Because I think that does, in an era in which the parties are more polarized, it almost ensures greater gridlock and less clarity in terms of the positions of the parties. There’s nothing in the Constitution that requires it.

— President Obama, telling Vox the U.S. Senate should eliminate the filibuster.