Not So Fast
To: Bill White, John Sharp
CC: David Dewhurst, Florence Shapiro, Elizabeth Ames Jones, Roger Williams, Michael Williams, Kay Granger, Greg Abbott, members of the Texas congressional delegation
Re: Texas Senate race
You folks might want to reconsider your decision to run for the vacancy that will be created when Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns from the Senate to run for governor. Here’s why: She may never resign. There may never be a vacancy.
The reason she may not resign is that Al Franken has pulled ahead of Norm Coleman in the Minnesota recount. A Franken victory gives the Democrats 59 seats, one short of the number necessary to break a filibuster. If that scenario comes to pass, Hutchison will come under pressure from her colleagues and from Republicans everywhere to stay in the Senate so that the GOP can have some leverage against Obama’s initiatives. Her seat would be the only thing between Obama and a filibuster-proof majority.
The Republican field that is taking shape does not have a standout candidate. In a special election, the Republicans could lose the seat. Furthermore, Hutchison knows that if she does resign to run for governor, Rick Perry will accuse her of putting herself ahead of her party and will make her selfishness an issue in the governor’s race. To keep her seat out of Democratic hands, Hutchison will have to stay in the Senate through the 2010 mid-term elections—which is also when the Texas governor’s race is on the ballot. If the Republicans do not gain seats in 2010, she may have to serve out her full term, which expires in 2012.
If Hutchison stays in the Senate, the governor’s race begins to look a lot more attractive. Nobody (except Perry) would look forward to a race against Hutchison. But Perry is vulnerable to a challenge from a Democrat. It is going to be hard for a GOP challenger, even Hutchison, to attack Perry’s conservative record. But it is easy for a Democrat; Perry has tacked so hard to the right that Democrats and independents could unite against him.
White and Sharp may have miscalculated by jumping into a Senate race that may never come to pass.
Tagged: al franken, bill white, John Sharp, kay bailey hutchison, rick perry, senate seat.
Embree Timlin says:
At least let Reggie Bashur share the byline when you post this kind of stuff.
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paulburka Reply:
December 19th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Actually, I told Reggie about this.
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Big Bopper for Congress says:
Still no post on Chris Bell’s loss?
The fact is the whole “filibuster proof” majority is an advertising gimmick. On many issues the Dems can break a filibuster with liberal Republicans like Specter, Snowe, and Collins. Additionally, the Dems will have some itrouble at times holding more conservative members like Lincoln (up in 2010) and Tester, etc together for certain votes.
Besides, the Franken race could go either way and a court case is certainly going to come up before this is settled. Maybe they could do a runoff as in GA? That would be interesting.
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Phillip Martin says:
This may be the earliest you’ve ever judged a Democrat for screwing up, Paul. A whole 23 months before the 2010 elections, and we’ve already failed? Come on.
There’s no harm in announcing early — especially this early. It helps raise their name ID, gets Democrats thinking statewide at an early stage in the game, and keeps the national attention focused on Texas. The LA Times story didn’t happen just b/c some reporter thought Texas was important — there are big name, big time national folks that want Texas to turn blue by 2012, and they know that laying the ground work in 2010 is crucial to making that happen.
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paulburka Reply:
December 19th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Turn Texas blue by 2012? I’ll take the over. This sounds like the old Republican dreams: 76 in 96. 8 in 98. Didn’t happen. Not gonna happen.
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Floozikins says:
Here’s your post on the Bell race: Chris Bell is a first class elitist asshole who has lost five races because of it. That and TLR was smart enough to inject enough money into Simmons’ campaign for her to be able to get her face out there (she is African-American) at a time when an African-American was running for President. This helped to break up the D vote, causing a run-off between a judge and an asshole. Any questions?
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Texas Grad Student says:
I don’t buy it. KBH presumbaly turned down the opportunity to be VP. She wants to be governor of Texas more than anything, and no two-bit governor with immovable hair will stop her with this fillibuster-proof majority nonsense. Couldn’t she and Rick just trade offices?
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John Robert BEHRMAN says:
Increasingly, Texas politics will be between parties, not personalities simply because the GOP is still the party to beat and they think in terms of party solidarity and discipline.
Free lances like White and Sharp are obsolete, sources of money for Austin consultants, to be sure, but not sources of strenght for what needs to be a competitive, actually governing, rather than collaborative, mostly just concession-tending, Democratic Party.
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Anonymous says:
I am pretty sure that 60 is still needed to break a filibuster, even with 99. 59 members can only end a filibuster when the chamber is down to 98. So, if the concern is KBH leaving a vacancy would lower the threshold, I don’t believe it does.
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paulburka Reply:
December 19th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
The scenario I brought up was (a) 59 D’s, 41 R’s; (b) Hutchison resigns to run for governor; (c) a Democrat wins the special election. This results in 60 D’s and 40 R’s.
If Hutchison resigns, giving the Republicans a 59-40 advantage, the Democrats cannot break the filibuster. This is from a Senate web site:
If three-fifths of the entire Senate membership (60 of 100) votes in the affirmative, cloture is invoked and the Senate is subject to post-cloture procedures that will eventually end the debate and bring the clotured question (a bill, amendment, or motion, for example) to a vote.
So there have to be 60 hard votes for cloture, regardless of how many Republicans are present and voting.
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paulburka Reply:
December 20th, 2008 at 8:49 am
I meant “giving the democrats a 59-40 advantage” — too many times the fingers work faster than the brain.
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Anon says:
Anonymous @ 5:46
I can only imagine Burka is referring to a scenario where the Dems finish one two in a special election because of the diluted field. Such a scenario would bring the Senate to 60 Dems.
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Anonymous says:
Ah, that was what I was thinking right after I hit ’submit’
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texun says:
What difference would it really make if she resigned, tomorrow or later? Governor Vacuous would appoint a Republican successor, who would almost certainly win the seat in the next general election. I suspect that the RNC would pay for the new senator’s bus ticket to get him or her to DC promptly.
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Drought Conditions says:
Hm. I don’t think a Franken win would affect it. Even without a standout Republican candidate and even in a special election, I’d say a Dem winning statewide in 2010 is still enough of a long shot that KBH would see it as worth the risk.
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pollabear says:
Here is a post on Chris Bell’s loss… a bright spot.
http://pollabear.org/2008/12/29/chris-bell-looses-but-jefferson-county-does-not-remain-silent.aspx
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Texas Democrat says:
Perry will NOT go to the Senate anytime soon-period.
Besides, he can still pull a Pete Wilson and win reelection to a 3rd full term in 2010 as governor (remember the ‘94 CA Gov race between Wilson and then-State Treasurer Kathleen Brown ?).
We’ve got 3 previous Texas governors who served 3 terms:
1. Allan Shivers (D), 37th Governor from July 11, 1949-January 15, 1957: as Lieutenant Governor, ascended to the governorship upon the death of Gov. Beauford Jester (D); elected in 1950, reelected in 1952 and 1954.
2. Price Daniel (D), 38th Governor from January 15, 1957-January 15, 1963: elected in 1956, reelected in 1958 and 1960, lost bid for 4th term in Democratic primary in 1962.
3. John Connally (D), 39th Governor from January 15, 1963-January 21, 1969: elected in 1962, reelected in 1964 and 1966.
Two other former Texas governors tried to join this club in their 3rd term bids, but fell short:
1. Preston Smith (D), 40th Governor from January 21, 1969-January 16, 1973: lost reelection bid for 3rd term due to the Sharpstown Scandal in 1972’s Democratic primary and anti-incumbent sentiment as a result.
2. Dolph Briscoe (D), 41st Governor from January 16, 1973-January 16, 1979: from what I hear, Briscoe alienated pretty much everyone during his 6-yr. governorship, which killed any chances of a 3rd term in 1978.
Perry can still win this thing in 2010, remember the comeback in 1994 from then-California Governor Pete Wilson (R) when everyone called him dead-meat.
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