Free Republic

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday approved next Tuesday for the runoff election in District 23, putting controversy surrounding the date to rest. After Gov. Rick Perry scheduled the runoff, the League of United Latin American Citizens sued, attempting to move the election to Dec. 19. The group argued that fewer Hispanics would turn out to vote because next Tuesday is a religious holiday for Mexican Catholics. But two compromises added three days of early voting, which now ends Saturday, in the contest between Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla and Democrat Ciro Rodriguez. That prompted LULAC to drop its suit —...

A clear majority of Ohioans who voted in the Nov. 7 election preferred a Democratic congressional candidate. So did Franklin County voters, where Democratic House candidates drew in excess of 10,000 more votes than Republicans. The result? While Democrats won nearly 53 percent of the congressional votes statewide, only about 39 percent of Ohioans will be represented next year by Democrats in Congress. That’s the biggest so-called "wrong winner" disparity in the country from the 2006 midterm elections, says the nonpartisan FairVote.org. Aided by gerrymandering — the drawing of districts to favor one party — Republicans captured 11 of the...

Even though there's no guarantee Utah will get a fourth congressional seat anytime soon, lawmakers are meeting today in special session to approve a new redistricting map for the state. "We're doing our part to keep the momentum going on this important issue," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s spokesman, Mike Mower, said. The governor called the Legislature into special session to come up with a map in time for the lame-duck Congress to take action. But congressional action is becoming increasingly unlikely given the amount of other issues Congress has to tackle in the coming days. Still, Huntsman has said a...

The runoff election for the Congressional District 23 seat was expected to bring out only hardcore voters, but early numbers show the race is an important one to many San Antonio residents. There's no real way to compare the turnout to previous races, because at least as far back as anyone remembers, Bexar County never had to have a runoff election after the general election. Over the weekend, more than 3,200 people showed up to vote on the first two days of early voting. Also, over 4,000 ballots have been mailed to the Bexar County Elections office. So far this...

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives wastes no sympathy on defeated members. So at the beginning of this week, Jim Leach of Iowa sat in an office almost devoid of furniture, the walls stripped bare of the mementos of his 30 years of service — with just a few hours remaining before the painters moved in to prepare his domain for its new occupant. Leach, who once had been chairman of the Banking and Financial Services Committee, would have been in line to head the Committee on International Relations in the next Congress, had Republicans maintained their majority and had...

WASHINGTON — Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders are pouring thousands of dollars into Ciro Rodriguez's bid to unseat Rep. Henry Bonilla and expand a Democratic majority in Congress. The help from Pelosi, D-Calif., comes after Texas Democrats and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pledged cash to Rodriguez and his uphill fight against a better-funded Bonilla. "The speaker-designate has made a personal decision to get involved in this race," said Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesman in Washington. Hammill said help to Rodriguez would be "largely a financial involvement," but he didn't rule out a possible Pelosi appearance for the San...

(LOUISVILLE) -- Thursday was an intense day filled with attacks in the 3rd district Congressional race. According to Republican incumbent Anne Northup, Democrat challenger John Yarmuth lacks the ethics and trustworthiness to be a congressman. WAVE 3's Jeff Tang spoke with both candidates on a muddy day along the campaign trail. ... Northup also accused her challenger of failing to pay taxes on his employees, and said he misled voters by lying about where and how he printed campaign flyers. John Yarmuth is a congressional scandal waiting to happen. He has broken the laws all through this campaign. ... Yarmuth...

This week's Democratic response to the president's weekly radio address will come from an unusual source -- this time a candidate, not a member of Congress, will speak. Joe Sestak, 54, is running for Congress in the 7th Congressional District in Delaware County. His opponent is ten-term incumbent Republican Curt Weldon, whom Democrats believe can be beaten in the fall. Sestak says he was surprised by a phone call Wednesday evening from House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi: "She said, 'Joe, I'd be honored if you would speak for the party on national radio, and with your background and how well...

WASHINGTON — Dogged by scandal, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay intends to withdraw as a candidate for Congress, a Republican strategist said today, a step that would allow the party to field a write-in candidate in hopes of holding his seat. The development came one day after Texas Republicans lost a court battle in their bid to name a replacement candidate for DeLay on the November ballot. The strategist described DeLay's intentions on condition of anonymity, saying the former majority leader intended to make his own announcement. DeLay resigned his Houston-area seat in June and said he was switching...

Here's the referenced House race report: http://www.cookpolitical.com/races/report_pdfs/2006_house_comp_jul19.pdf We keep hearing that the House is up for grabs and polls show republicasn in trouble. We hear this from so-called experts like Charles Cooke. I looked at the Congressional race in the 20th District of New York and I can tell you that Cooke os TOTALLY WRONG AND UNIFORMED. And, if he is as uniformed about other races he's putting in the toss-up or "lean" column no wonder people are believing his nonsense. CASE IN POINT: He has my Congressman John Sweeney in the "lean" column. I can tell you multiple polls...

10. Steve Chabot (98%) – Liberals want Chabot’s seat. He’s in an evenly split district (Bush got 51% against Kerry), but that hasn’t weakened his exceptionally strong voting record. 9. Joe Pitts (99%) – A Vietnam veteran, Pitts has quietly attained a very conservative voting record in a state that continues to lurch leftward because of its increasing RINO congressional representation. 8. Sue Myrick (99%) – She’s part of the celebrated Class of 1994 who continues to fight for limited government even after 12 years in Washington. 7. Todd Akin (100%) – Akin was one of the 25 brave fiscal...

Top 10 Pro-Growth House Members Posted Aug 04, 2006 Ranked by The Club for Growth. 10. Steve Chabot (98%) – Liberals want Chabot’s seat. He’s in an evenly split district (Bush got 51% against Kerry), but that hasn’t weakened his exceptionally strong voting record. 9. Joe Pitts (99%) – A Vietnam veteran, Pitts has quietly attained a very conservative voting record in a state that continues to lurch leftward because of its increasing RINO congressional representation. 8. Sue Myrick (99%) – She’s part of the celebrated Class of 1994 who continues to fight for limited government even after 12 years...

Charles Rangel, the dean of New York's congressional delegation, said yesterday he'd resign his seat if Democrats don't take control of the House in November.

The 2006 midterm elections will be a disaster for the Republican Party -- unless a "cataclysmic event" saves the day. That's the dire warning from political analyst Charlie Cook, who predicts in his "Off to the Races" column that the GOP's expected misfortune will result from a perfect storm of three factors:

While the latest performance of Albany lawmakers was breathtakingly destructive on its face, the damage is even worse when compared to fiscal policies in other states. Rarely inclined to remember - or even to care - that the Empire State must compete economically with 49 other states, New York lawmakers have once again failed to improve the state's attractiveness for taxpaying individuals and businesses. Little wonder why New York is losing more residents than any other state - and why businesses are fleeing, upstate especially. Other states are only too happy to woo New Yorkers and New York businesses... Albany...

Boston, as well as the state, has been losing population in the past few years. If those numbers are confirmed by the 2010 federal census, Massachusetts could lose up to two congressional seats, as well as federal money for highway, education, and development programs that are tied to population. Responding to concerns raised by the state's congressional delegation, local mayors, and Secretary of State William F. Galvin, lawmakers included $100,000 in the $25.7 billion state budget last week to pay a University of Massachusetts think tank to start researching the numbers to make sure that as many residents as possible...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Rep. Chris Cannon, the five-term Republican facing a stiff primary challenge here over his stance on immigration, has lost a comfortable lead and heads into tomorrow's primary in a statistical tie, according to the latest poll by the Salt Lake City Tribune. The survey of 400 voters found that 44 percent of "likely" Republican primary voters prefer the incumbent Mr. Cannon, compared with 41 percent who prefer developer and political newcomer John Jacob, who promises to crack down on illegal immigration. The three-point gap is within the poll's five-percentage-point margin of error.

Steve Stockman won’t be running as an independent in the race for retired former congressman Tom DeLay’s District 22 seat. Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams ruled Thursday that although Stockman had gathered more than 600 signatures in petitions aimed at putting him on the ballot, fewer than the required 500 signatures were valid. Stockman is a one-term Republican congressman narrowly defeated by Democrat Nick Lampson in 1994. Lampson went on to serve three terms in Congress, then was defeated by Republican Ted Poe, a former judge from Harris County, after Lampson’s district was dramatically altered in a 2004 redistricting....

You've got to hand it to Jeff Crank. It's a gutsy publicity stunt, even in conservative El Paso County, to launch a "Stand by the President Campaign" —when 32 percent of the American public currently approve of the job George Bush is doing. But somebody must have thought it was a good idea, and so last week Crank, who is running for Congress, announced his "Stand-by" campaign, complete with a Web site featuring a photo of him and his wife standing next to President Bush and the First Lady.

I write to you today with a message of extreme urgency: this year’s Congressional elections are just a few short months away, and the House of Representatives is up for grabs! Democrats everywhere are building confidence, and without immediate action, Republicans - and all American citizens - stand to lose. Democrats, for all their complaints about “incompetence” and a “culture of corruption”, have shown that they cannot be trusted with the federal government. For example, just take a look at the No. 2 Democrat in the House, Rep. Steny Hoyer. Hoyer has made a career of writing taxpayer checks to...