Time To Let The Handful Of Smart Members Of Congress Set The Agenda-- Meet Katie Porter

Only one of these people has the brains to lead

There's no foolproof test, but it's a lot easier to name the most corrupt members of Congress-- think Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Greg Meeks (New Dem-NY), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Vern Buchanan (R-FL)-- than the stupidest... or smartest. Most of the really, really dumb ones don't last that long in Congress-- exception being Alaska dimwit Don Young-- but Rand Paul is on everyone's "most stupid" list, as are 3 who are retiring this year, Sean Duffy (R-WI), Tom Graves (R-GA) and Rob Woodall (R-GA), as well as Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Joe Wilson (R-SC), David Schweiker (R-AZ), Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ). Before Trump plucked him out of Congress to make him his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) was almost universally considered the dumbest person in the House. Presumably, now he'll be the dumbest person in Northern Ireland.

But when it comes to smarts, it's much easier. First of all, the vast majority of members of Congress are certifably morons. "Despite the many advanced degrees from prestigious universities, and despite the fact that many in Congress are millionaires, the average IQ of U.S. Representatives is 101. The average IQ of U.S. Senators, is surprisingly, even lower at 98. And, it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Democrats in Congress are less stupid than Republicans.

During the last election cycle, we urged Blue America members to help elect Katie Porter, in part because she was one of the smartest people running for Congress. She won and has proven us-- time and time-- correct in our assessment. While most of the freshmen have shown themselves to be just what they looked like when they were running-- dumb as bricks-- Porter has not disappointed. She's widely considered one of the best questioners in committee and she is always coming up with solid, innovative ideas. Before being elected, the rural Iowa-born brainiac, taught law at UC Irvine, having graduated from both Yale (undergrad, where her thesis was The Effects of Corporate Farming on Rural Community) and Harvard Law, from which she graduated magna cum laude in 2001.

Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) are also widely considered two of Congress' only truly brilliant members. This morning Ro told me that "Katie is brilliant-- a towering intellect. What more is there that needs to be said!" At the same time, Jamie said, "As Elizabeth Warren’s prize pupil, Katie is the most devastating questioner we have in the House to expose corporate ripoffs and government lethargy, and everyone is learning from her tactical brilliance and clarity of expression. We’re thrilled to have her on the Oversight Committee now, and even though she’s our most junior Member sitting way down at the bottom of the list, the last shall clearly be first in our investigations. Katie has also become an outspoken and eloquent force for single parents."

In a Congress filled with lawyers, Matt Cartwright (D-PA) is acknowledged to be one of the sharpest attorneys elected to government. This morning he told us that "When a single mom gets home from work, late at night, because it’s her second job, her feet hurting and her back sore from just pushing herself all day, when she looks in on her teenage kid, just to make sure he made it home safe through the neighborhood they have to live in, when she sorts through the mail in the kitchen and sees the letter from the collection agency and the reminder about how the rent is going up next month, when she stops in the bathroom to take her heart meds and sees she’s down to her last week before she has to get the one refilled, and it’s the expensive one, and when she sets the alarm and lies down for another short night, there’s this one thing that she can’t get out of her head. Today she saw a video clip of a young Congresswoman from California questioning this smug, self-satisfied rich Wall Street banker about how regular people in this country can’t possibly make ends meet on what they’re paid, let alone get ahead. She saw that young Congresswoman just take that banker apart on national television. And, as she finally closes her eyes for the night, she smiles. Katie Porter makes me proud to be a Democrat."

On Friday, Porter was on CNN with Chris Cuomo explaining her plan to implement remote congressional voting during the pandemic. "I am calling on Congress tonight, on leaders of both parties, to adopt a remote voting procedure to ensure that if we're not able to travel, if this public health crisis worsens...we're still able to take votes... We're asking the American public to adopt public health measures and it's really important... that Congress adopt public health measures itself. Congress itself has been flatfooted during this crisis in terms of how we deal with things."

"You've seen the House floor," she continued. "It's a scrum of people. 435 members and 150 staff in close quarters using the same voting machines. We're asking American businesses, schools, non-profits, local governments to be flexible and to obey public health guidelines.

"Congress should be no exception. We should be willing here to be flexible and adopt a remote voting procedure that can be invoked if necessary. I don't think there is any excuse for us to disobey the public health guidelines and to refuse to use technology to adapt to this public health emergency when at the same time that businesses and communities do exactly that."

Pelosi has wanted to do this for weeks but denies it publicly because she doesn't want to somehow appear "weak" while McConnell keeps the Senate in session. Most people working on Capitol Hill who I've spoken with agree with Porter and say it would be OK to look bad to a shrinking number of pandemic-deniers and stay alive while older senators start dying off. Last week Tomas Pueyo answered an important question:How Can Politicians Contribute to Social Distancing?. The question politicians are asking themselves today is not whether they should do something, but rather what’s the appropriate action to take. There are several stages to control an epidemic, starting with anticipation and ending with eradication. But it’s too late for most options today. With this level of cases, the two only options politicians have in front of them are containment and mitigation.

Containment

Containment is making sure all the cases are identified, controlled, and isolated. It’s what Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan or Taiwan are doing so well: They very quickly limit people coming in, identify the sick, immediately isolate them, use heavy protective gear to protect their health workers, track all their contacts, quarantine them… This works extremely well when you’re prepared and you do it early on, and don’t need to grind your economy to a halt to make it happen.

I’ve already touted Taiwan’s approach. But China’s is good too. The lengths at which it went to contain the virus are mind-boggling. For example, they had up to 1,800 teams of 5 people each tracking every infected person, everybody they got interacted with, then everybody those people interacted with, and isolating the bunch. That’s how they were able to contain the virus across a billion-people country.

This is not what Western countries have done. And now it’s too late. The recent US announcement that most travel from Europe was banned is a containment measure for a country that has, as of today, 3 times the cases that Hubei had when it shut down, growing exponentially. How can we know if it’s enough? It turns out, we can know by looking at the Wuhan travel ban.

...If the transmission rate goes down by 25% (through Social Distancing), it flattens the curve and delays the peak by a whole 14 weeks. Lower the transition rate by 50%, and you can’t see the epidemic even starting within a quarter.

The US administration’s ban on European travel is good: It has probably bought us a few hours, maybe a day or two. But not more. It is not enough. It’s containment when what’s needed is mitigation.

Once there are hundreds or thousands of cases growing in the population, preventing more from coming, tracking the existing ones and isolating their contacts isn’t enough anymore. The next level is mitigation.

Mitigation

Mitigation requires heavy social distancing. People need to stop hanging out to drop the transmission rate (R), from the R=~2–3 that the virus follows without measures, to below 1, so that it eventually dies out.

These measures require closing companies, shops, mass transit, schools, enforcing lockdowns… The worse your situation, the worse the social distancing. The earlier you impose heavy measures, the less time you need to keep them, the easier it is to identify brewing cases, and the fewer people get infected.

This is what Wuhan had to do. This is what Italy was forced to accept. Because when the virus is rampant, the only measure is to lock down all the infected areas to stop spreading it at once.

With thousands of official cases-- and tens of thousands of true ones-- this is what countries like Iran, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland or the US need to do.

But they’re not doing it.

Some business are working from home, which is fantastic.

Some mass events are being stopped.

Some affected areas are in quarantining themselves.

All these measures will slow down the virus. They will lower the transmission rate from 2.5 to 2.2, maybe 2. But they aren’t enough to get us below 1 for a sustained period of time to stop the epidemic. And if we can’t do that, we need to get it as close to 1 for as long as possible, to flatten the curve.

So the question becomes: What are the tradeoffs we could be making to lower the R? This is the menu that Italy has put in front of all of us:

• Nobody can enter or exit lockdown areas, unless there are proven family or work reasons.
• Movement inside the areas is to be avoided, unless they are justified for urgent personal or work reasons and can’t be postponed.
• People with symptoms (respiratory infection and fever) are “highly recommended” to remain home.
• Standard time off for healthcare workers is suspended
• Closure of all educational establishments (schools, universities…), gyms, museums, ski stations, cultural and social centers, swimming pools, and theaters.
• Bars and restaurants have limited opening times from 6am to 6pm, with at least one meter (~3 feet) distance between people.
• All pubs and clubs must close.
• All commercial activity must keep a distance of one meter between customers. Those that can’t make it happen must close. Temples can remain open as long as they can guarantee this distance.
• Family and friends hospital visits are limited.
• Work meetings must be postponed. Work from home must be encouraged.
• All sports events and competitions, public or private, are canceled. Important events can be held under closed doors.

Then two days later, they added: No, in fact, you need to close all businesses that aren’t crucial. So now we’re closing all commercial activities, offices, cafes and shops. Only transportation, pharmacies, groceries will remain open.”

One approach is to gradually increase measures. Unfortunately, that gives precious time for the virus to spread. If you want to be safe, do it Wuhan style. People might complain now, but they’ll thank you later.

Which members of Congress have the brains and the balls to do the right thing-- even when it is also the difficult and even unpopular thing? Remember, 83% of the members of Congress are actual morons, and one of them-- Mitch McConnell-- can keep anything and everything from moving forward at all, let alone in a timely manner.

Katie Hill, Bye-Bye

PVIs are backward looking and are rarely up to date. Take CA-25, the district represented by Katie Hill, Officially the PVI is "even" but the Santa Clarita Valley-Antelope Valley-Simi Valley district is way bluer than that would indicate. Obama won it narrowly against McCain and then lost it narrowly against Romney. Hillary beat Trump convincingly-- 50.3% to 43.6%. Blue America has been working to flip this district for well over a decade. We started when powerful GOP crook-- now lobbyist-- Buck McKeon was congressman there. He had to go but the district was much redder then, R+7 in 2006. It was a mammoth district-- biggest in California-- that did not include Simi Valley but instead crawled up the California border with Nevada, nearly as far north as Sacramento.

We jumped in to support Roberto Rodriguez, a recent Harvard graduate who hailed from a working class family in Barstow (no longer part of the district). At the time, McKeon was chair of the Education and Workforce Committee and under his stewardship-- and while he raked in over a quarter million dollars from student loan vendors, more than anyone else in Congress-- federal student loan programs were cut by $12.7 billion (the worst cuts in history) and student loan rates went up by 2.4%. Pure sleaze... but not the kind you go to prison for. Getting rid of McKeon would be up to the voters-- and the young and under-funded Rodriguez, who was running a very grassroots campaign concentrating on registering the district's Latino non-voters. McKeon spent $1,370,664 and Rodriguez spent $200,516. The only outside spending in the race was from Blue America ($5,000) and the National Education Association ($3,412) in favor of Rodriquez. The DCCC ignored the race entirely as if CA-25 didn't exist. McKeon beat Rodriguez 61-35%. The district was slowly, demographically, getting bluer but in 2008 and 2010, a vanity candidate went up against McKeon-- whose 61% backing didn't budge. In 2012 it was time to get serious about the district again.

Lee Rogers ran a strong, animated campaign, forcing McKeon to spend $1,769,400 (Rogers spent $360,091). He brought McKeon's win number down to 55% and did significantly better than any Democrat ever had in the district. The DCCC didn't care and studiously ignored the race. Blue America was the only group that spent in the district-- $39,810. McKeon heard the bell tolling and decided to retire. A glitch in the ballot left 2014 with two Republicans, mainstream conservative Tony Strickland and far right neo-Nazi Steve Knight. Though outspent $2,057,642 to $410,835, the neo-Nazi won. The district's Republicans are pretty extreme.

In 2016, the Democratic candidate was a wealthy carpetbagger, a garden variety Democrat-- Bryan Cafario with nothing to recommend him at all except that he wasn't a Republican. He managed to spend the same $1.6 million as Knight but it still came down to 54.2% (Republican) to 45.8% (Democrat). This time though, the DCCC was satisfied that Caforio was their kind of nothing-candidate who wouldn't make waves and they put $3,164,363 into the race, while Pelosi's House Majority PAC spent $242,487.

Now CA-25 was on the national radar. Katie Hill (now 32 years old) jumped into the race and first beat Caforio, massively outraised the hapless neo-Nazi, $7,156,033 to $829,932 and beat him 133,209 (54.4%) to 111,813 (45.6%), despite Paul Ryan's Congressional Leadership Fund spending $8,022,525 on Knight's behalf. (The DCCC and Pelosi's super PAC spent about $3.5 million combined, but Independence USA came in with over $5 million to combat Ryan's $8 million). In the end 61 outside groups spent independently on Hill's race! The Democrats had a slight registration advantage over the GOP and independents were eager to show their disdain for Trump. So Hill won.

Blue America was the first group to endorse her, an endorsement we quickly rescinded. A mutual friend introduced me to her over dinner a month or so before she began her campaign. I loved her energy and wanted to hear something that wasn't really there-- namely that she is a progressive. She didn't have to try too hard to convince me. But once the campaign got started in earnest I slowly began realizing that she duped me (and that I had been eager to be duped). The final straw was when she vowed to me that she would not become a New Dem and then turned around and joined the New Dems. That was blatant dishonesty-- a bad trait in any member of Congress. We quietly withdraw our endorsement.

In Congress, Katie was elected one of the co-presidents of the freshman class and she demonstrated a lot of energy and was seen as a comer. Pelosi sensed she was a leader and started inviting her to caucus leadership meetings. A New Dem, she quickly started running up a crappy voting record. ProgressivePunch has her rated as an "F" and her crucial vote score is 73.33, in the neighborhood of the other non-courageous California freshmen nervous about losing their jobs. Mike Levin's district is slightly redder (R+1) but his voting record is considerably better-- "B" with a 84.44 crucial vote score. Still, Katie is voting somewhat better than fellow New Dem freshmen Gil Cisernos (71.11), Harley Rouda (68.89) and Josh Harder (63.64).

A couple of weeks ago I read the Red State post about the scandal and realized she was a goner. It isn't something I ever wrote about and even refused to discuss it on David Feldman's radio show when he kept asking me about it. There was no need for me to help push her off the cliff she was heading right for. I did begin feeling out potential candidates for the seat though-- something I'm still working on.

Since Hill's resignation announcement (above) late Sunday, Washington Post reporters Meagan Flynn and Michelle Ye He Lee, in separate articles, presented her story-- or the seamy side of it-- without any political context. Sunday night Lee broke the story for Post readers. "Last week, the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into allegations that Hill was romantically involved with her legislative director, Graham Kelly, a relationship that would violate House ethics rules... Her departure came swiftly after allegations surfaced about a week ago in an article on the conservative website RedState.org. The article alleged that Hill and her husband were in a consensual three-person relationship with a woman on her campaign team. The article included text messages it said were between Hill and the woman as well as intimate photos of them together. Hill is openly bisexual. The article also alleged that Hill was involved romantically with Kelly. Under House ethics rules adopted last year in response to high-profile sexual harassment claims involving members of Congress, it is against the official code of conduct for members to 'engage in a sexual relationship with any employee' who works for the member."

Presumably it was Pelosi who made the call that Hill had to resign (rather than retire and just not run for reelection), a strategy that will make it easier for a Democrat to hold the seat. Pelosi announced that Hill "acknowledged errors in judgment that made her continued service as a Member untenable. We must ensure a climate of integrity and dignity in the Congress, and in all workplaces."




Hill's claim that she did not have a romantic relationship with Kelly-- the only thing that would have broken any House rules-- is sketchy. She said "Allegations that I have been involved in a relationship with Mr. Kelly are absolutely false. I am saddened that the deeply personal matter of my divorce has been brought into public view and the vindictive claims of my ex have now involved the lives and reputations of unrelated parties." Since I know from personal experience that she's a liar, I wouldn't believe the denial for two seconds. Lee added that "In her statement Sunday, she said she is pursuing legal options against those who released private photos, saying that 'having private photos of personal moments weaponized against me has been an appalling invasion of my privacy.' ... Hill has accused Republican operatives and her husband of coordinating a 'smear campaign' amid the couple’s pending divorce."

Monday morning, Meagan Flynn built on Lee's story. "For the first time," she wrote, "a House ethics rule that forbids sexual relationships with subordinates, passed in the wake of the #MeToo movement, has forced a lawmaker out of Congress. But to many observers, rather than drive home a warning about the consequences of sexual misconduct, Rep. Katie Hill’s resignation pointed to the disturbing power of 'revenge porn.' The California Democrat’s announcement Sunday that she would resign comes after the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into allegations that she had a romantic relationship with her legislative director, which would violate House ethics rules, and which Hill denied. Hill was also accused of having a three-person sexual relationship with a female campaign staffer and her now-estranged husband, which she admitted was improper. But the allegations only came to light after a conservative news site and British tabloid published nude images of Hill without her consent-- circumstances that have led many critics to note that Hill is both accused of sexual impropriety and is a victim of sexual exploitation."

Hill herself has acknowledged both aspects of her case, previously saying she knew “even a consensual relationship with a subordinate is inappropriate,” while vowing Sunday to mount a legal fight regarding the leak of intimate photos. She has accused her “abusive husband,” with whom she is undergoing a contentious divorce, of engaging in a “smear campaign built around cyber exploitation,” saying he enlisted “hateful political operatives” for help. The nude photos were published by the conservative site RedState.org and the Daily Mail.

“Having private photos of personal moments weaponized against me has been an appalling invasion of my privacy,” she said Sunday. “It’s also illegal, and we are currently pursuing all of our available legal options.”

But fewer lawmakers have outwardly addressed the problem of revenge porn, or nonconsensual pornography. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was a notable exception. Last week, Gaetz called the House ethics investigation “absurd,” questioning, “Who among us would look perfect if every ex leaked every photo/text?” He suggested the real reason Hill was being investigated “is because she is different.” Hill is also one of the first openly bisexual members of Congress.

Jill Filipovic, an attorney who authored the 2017 book The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness, pointed out that the dominant focus in Hill’s case appeared to be on the alleged affairs rather than on the revenge porn, which she argued could deter other women from aspiring to public office.

“It’s important to have consistent standards and say that sexual relationships with underlings are not appropriate, whether the boss is male or female,” she wrote in a Medium essay last week. “But if we care about gender equality and the ability for women to fully participate in the public sphere, the sexualized attacks against Hill are the most pressing matter.”

Other critics noted that Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA) was accused by federal prosecutors in June of using taxpayer money to fund extramarital affairs with congressional staffers and lobbyists. The House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into Hunter’s conduct in September 2018, after he was originally indicted on charges of wire fraud and misuse of campaign funds. But despite pressure to resign from some lawmakers, Hunter has remained in Congress. Hunter has denied wrongdoing, and as The Post reported previously, the ethics panel has deferred taking action as federal prosecutors conclude their own probe.

The House rule that prompted the ethics panel to launch an investigation into Hill’s alleged relationship with congressional staffer Graham Kelly was passed in February 2018, during the peak of the #MeToo movement fallout. For the first time in Congress, the House resolution addressed the improper power dynamics of consensual relationships between members of Congress and their employees by banning any such relationship, while further protecting accusers who come forward with sexual harassment claims.

At the time the law passed, nine members of Congress had recently resigned or announced their looming departure amid allegations of sexual misconduct or related impropriety-- including one case that also involved leaked nude photos.

Former Texas congressman Joe Barton announced he would not seek reelection in 2018 after a nude photo of him circulated on Twitter and across the Internet, leading to revelations that the Republican, who was then married but separated from his wife, was having affairs with multiple women. In a November 2017 statement, Barton apologized for not using “better judgment,” saying he let down his constituents while acknowledging consensual sexual relationships he had had with other women.

A recording of a phone call Barton had with one woman, obtained by the Washington Post, revealed him telling the woman not to disseminate the explicit photos or else he would report her to the Capitol Police. Some argued Barton was a victim of revenge porn, while others questioned whether the nude photo he had sent was unsolicited.

But one notable difference between the Barton case and Hill’s is the fact that right-wing publications chose to release the photos, especially since they depicted “a politician of the opposing party,” Quinta Jurecic, managing editor of Lawfare, a legal blog, wrote in an op-ed.

“This is an ugly line to have crossed,” she wrote, adding: “The United States has not historically had a culture in which political media outlets publish nude photographs of opposition politicians for sport. It’s also a disappointing irony that this is taking place in a period in which legislatures are increasingly recognizing the harm of nonconsensual pornography.”

According to the Cyber Civil Rights Institute, 46 states and the District of Columbia have revenge porn laws-- and California, Hill’s home state, is among them. Reps. Jackie Speier (D-CA) and John Katko (R-NY) also reintroduced bipartisan legislation in May that would federally criminalize sharing sexually explicit images of someone without that person’s consent. Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA), a Democratic presidential candidate, has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

Mary Anne Franks, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law who assisted in drafting the first law against nonconsensual pornography, urged the passage of the bill, known as the SHIELD Act, and spoke out in support of Hill on Twitter.

“One of the many terrible effects of nonconsensual pornography is how it can be used to drive women out of politics,” she wrote. “As we at [Cyber Civil Rights Institute] have been emphasizing for years, ‘revenge porn’ very often serves as a tool of abusive partners and a means to silence women.”

Names being bandied about on the Democratic side are Secretary of State Alex Padilla (who represented the 20th Senate district east of CA-25), Assemblywoman Christie Smith (who made it official already! and appears to be the DCCC fave), Bryan Caforio and Lee Rogers (the most progressive name out there). On the Republican side there are over a dozen either in or talking about it-- from Russia-Gate jailbird George Papadopoulous to ex-L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, probably the strongest potential GOP candidate. Lancaster City Councillor Angela Underwood-Jacobs has already announced, as has Mike Garcia, who the NRCC was supporting when he was viewed as a sacrificial lamb. Now they will dump him as fast as they can find someone more electable. Steve Knight has told friends he's going to probably run.

Are There Any Districts With Democratic Incumbents Where Trump Will Have Coattails?

There are 22 congressional districts that Trump won in 2016 that turned around and elected a non-incumbent Democrat two years later. None of the 7 California freshmen are included:

• CA-10- Josh Harder (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 48.5% to 45.5%
• CA-21- TJ Cox (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 55.2% to 39.7%
• CA-25- Katie Hill (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 50.3% to 43.6% [see below]
• CA-39- Gil Cisneros (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 51.5% to 42.9%
• CA-45- Katie Porter (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 49.8% to 44.4%
• CA-48- Harley Rouda (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 47.9% to 46.2%
• CA-49- Mike Levin (B)-- Hillary beat Trump 50.7% to 43.2%

Unfortunately most of the Democratic candidates were picked by the DCCC and are weak, flawed and are open to defeat in a non-wave cycle. Each candidate's ProgressivePunch score follows their name. (Katie Porter, who beat the terrible DCCC preferred candidate, is an exception and has been a much better member of Congress than the others.) My guess is that, with the exception of scandal-rocked Katie Hill, they will all be returned to Congress in 2020, largely because of Trump's presence at the top of the ticket. 2022 could proven deadly for the weakest of them, especially Cisneros, Rouda and Harder. The only 2020 rematch with a former incumbent-- at least scheduled so far-- is between Cox and David Valadao.

The bigger problem for Democrats, of course, are the 22 seats in districts Trump won. Most of the new Democratic incumbents are weak and uninspiring. Chosen by the DCCC to appeal to Republicans, few of them can get much positive enthusiasm from the Democratic base and, of course, they don't actually appeal to Republicans, just to imaginary centrists who don't exist in the real world. Most of them are likely to be safe next year with Trump leading the Republican change, even though this were Trump 2016 districts and anti-Trump 2018 districts,

• GA-06- Lucy McBath (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.3% to 46.8%
• IA-01- Abby Finkenauer (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.7% to 45.2%
• IA-03- Cindy Axne (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.5% to 45.0%
• IL-14- Lauren Underwood (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.7% to 44.8%
• ME-02- Jared Golden (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 51.4% to 41.1%
• MI-08- Elissa Slotkin (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.6% to 43.9%
• MI-11- Haley Stevens (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 49.7% to 45.3%
• MN-02- Angie Craig (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 46.5% to 45.3%
• NH-01- Chris Pappas (B)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.2% to 46.6%
• NJ-02- Jeff Van Drew (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.6% to 46.0%
• NJ-03- Andy Kim (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 51.4% to 45.2%
• NJ-11- Mikie Sherrill (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.8% to 47.9%
• NM-02- Xochitl Torres Small (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.1% to 39.9%
• NV-03- Susie Lee (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 47.5% to 46.5%
• NY-11- Max Rose (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 53.6% to 43.8%
• NY-19- Antonio Delgado (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.8% to 44.0%
• NY-22- Anthony Brindisi (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 54.8% to 39.3%
• OK-05- Kendra Horn (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 53.2% to 39.8%
• SC-01- Joe Cunningham (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 53.5% to 40.4%
• UT-04- Ben McAdams (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 39.1% to 32.4%
• VA-02- Elaine Luria (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.8% to 45.4%
• VA-07- Abigail Spanberger (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.5% to 44.0%

Writing for Politico Sunday, Sarah Ferris and Ally Mutnick note that ousted Republicans are plotting rematches as impeachment revs up and that former GOP lawmakers think having Trump on the ballot is their ticket back to the House, particularly during the polarizing impeachment debate." Keep in mind, that although nationally impeachment numbers are high and growing, in some districts won by Trump in 2016, the pro-impeachment numbers are lower. Ferris and Mutnick start with NY-22, where an especially bad far right extremist, Claudia Tenney, lost her seat to a really bad conservative Democrat, Blue Dog piece of crap Anthony Brindisi. He beat her last year 127,715 (50.9%) to 123,242 (49.1%). Brindisi won in the two biggest counties-- Oneida and Broome, where voters are looking for a real Democrat, not a Republican-lite Democrat. Brindisi is about as far right as you can go without being an actual Republican. He has the worst voting record of any Democrat in the House, tied with fellow Blue Dogs Joe Cunningham and Jeff Van Drew at 20.00%, which is a worse score than Republican John Katko (in the district next door), in fact worse than 3 Republicans and former Republican, now Independent Justin Amash (32.86).

[W]ith Trump back on the ballot in 2020, Tenney and her supporters see a chance to make her comeback.

“I think it’s going to be a good year,” Tenney said in an interview. “In a presidential year, I think we’ll be able to get some of those gains back.”

And she’s not the only one. A series of ex-Republican lawmakers who lost narrowly in Trump strongholds in 2018 are plotting rematches next year with dreams of riding on the president’s coattails.

Particularly amid an impeachment debate that has polarized the country, the former lawmakers think a juiced-up Trump turnout will lift them past their Democratic opponents and potentially help Republicans win back the House.

Former GOP Rep. David Young is running against freshman Democrat Cindy Axne in a district that includes Des Moines, Iowa-- a repeat of the tight 2018 race. Former GOP Rep. Karen Handel is seeking a rematch against Rep. Lucy McBath, a Democrat representing suburban Atlanta.

Another former Republican congressman, Rod Blum, could be eyeing a challenge to freshman Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer in northeast Iowa; he protested outside Finkenauer’s office this month at a Trump campaign-sponsored event to condemn impeachment. And former Republican Rep. Mike Bishop has yet to publicly rule out a run against Democrat Elissa Slotkin in Michigan.

“It was a tough year, just not a great environment for Republicans,” Tenney said of 2018. “I think the environment now is different.”

But Tenney and other the congressional alumni may not be able to count on Trump. His approval ratings are near historic lows for presidents heading into a second term, and freshman Democrats have worked hard to win over independents and moderate Republicans.

Public support is also growing for impeachment, with 45 percent of independents now backing it, compared to 32 opposed, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week.

Still, Trump holds a grip over the Republican base that seems unshakable, even amid the ongoing investigation into alleged efforts by the president to withhold military aid unless Ukraine publicly investigated his political rivals.

Trump’s most ardent supporters have already begun organizing in Brindisi’s district, more than a year out from the next election. Pro-Trump groups staged protests outside the freshman Democrat’s office and at some of his public events-- including a town hall here in October-- to rally local support in New York’s 22nd Congressional District.

Many of those who have picketed, including Mount Vernon, N.Y. resident Gilda Ward, have focused squarely on Democrats’ impeachment push. And it doesn’t matter to them that Brindisi, one of the most vulnerable freshmen, remains one of seven holdouts in his caucus who oppose the impeachment inquiry.

If he did come out in favor, Ward predicts, “It would be a death knell.”

“I am totally opposed to any kind of impeachment,” she said in an interview after attending a Brindisi town hall. “It really bothers me, and it bothers many of us who voted for Trump.”

Tenney-- an enthusiastic Trump supporter who appeared alongside the president and his family at campaign events in 2018-- plans to once again embrace the president. The former congresswoman said that since announcing her campaign in late September, she’s gotten calls from Republican friends who say Trump is happy she’s running again.

Brindisi’s campaign is eager to zero in on his House opponent and avoid the presidential politics.

“This district has long turned the page on Claudia Tenney, who delivered for late night TV more than she ever did our district,” said Luke Jackson, a Brindisi campaign spokesperson.

Republicans are betting that if Trump remains popular with the GOP base, he could significantly ramp up turnout-- clawing back seats that were lost in the 2018 wipeout.

That includes the district where Tenney and Brindisi will battle it out next year. Trump won nearly 160,000 votes in the district in 2016. Turnout plummeted two years later when Tenney got less than 124,000 votes.

GOP campaign operatives are looking at the same math for Trump-backed districts across the country that are now held by Democrats.

Young said in an interview he is working to find Trump voters who stayed home in 2018 through a “data deep dive” as he plans his rematch against Axne. He added that he senses an energy from voters in his Des Moines-based district that are frustrated by Democrats’ “obsession with trying to remove the president.”

Trump won nearly 193,000 votes in Iowa's 3rd District in 2016. Young won just under 168,000 when he lost to Axne by 2 points two years later. Activists on both sides are motivated, Young said, but he argued Democrats neared their high-water mark in 2018. Axne came close to matching Hillary Clinton's 2016 vote total but Young won far fewer votes than Trump.

“In November 2018, the Democrats had high voter turnout, almost presidential levels,” Young said. “I think to some extent they may have peaked or are getting close to peaking, but Republicans have so much more room to grow.”

In the midterms, dozens of Democratic candidates outperformed Clinton in their districts. But it’s not clear if they achieved those margins because Trump voters stayed home. Those candidates likely owe their victories in part to two other factors: their ability to persuade Trump voters to back a Democrat for Congress as well as their skill at turning out Democratic voters who typically sit out the midterms.

Rob Simms, a top strategist for Handel, who is seeking a rematch with McBath in suburban Atlanta, blames her loss on high Democratic turnout caused by Democrat Stacey Abram's narrow loss for governor.

“The Democrats, really the Abrams campaign, did a tremendous job at bringing out voters who would not typically vote in an off year elections,” said Simms, a former executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Georgia will be more of a battleground in 2020, he said, and Republicans will be ready.

But particularly in suburban districts with highly-educated voters like Georgia's 6th, the momentum is moving away from the GOP and there may be a large chunk of persuadable voters up for grabs. Mitt Romney won the seat by 24 points in 2012 but Trump carried it by 1 point.

Fundraising appears to be an early advantage for McBath, too. The Georgia Democrat outraised Handel nearly 2 to 1 in the last quarter, and has a fundraising war chest of $1.3 million, compared to Handel’s roughly $630,000. Handel also has to clear a GOP primary before she can challenge McBath again.

Meanwhile, few ousted GOP lawmakers seem eager to try again in districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. (Former California Republican David Valadao is a rare exception, as he tries to reclaim his Central Valley-based district that Trump lost by 15 points.)

Two Republicans who once represented suburban districts are running again in different, more GOP-friendly spots, an indication that they still view the climate as unfavorable in their old seats.

Republican Pete Sessions who lost a Dallas-area district is now running 100 miles south in Waco. And Darrell Issa, who retired in 2018 from a Clinton-won seat, is running in a neighboring San Diego district held by embattled GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter.

Still, Republican strategists see a path back to the House majority through the 31 Democratic-held seats that Trump won in 2016.

“The dynamics in ’20 are going to be much different,” Simms said of GOP chances in suburban Georgia. “We have an incumbent president. We have an incumbent senator who’s going to be on top of the ticket. Their campaigns are already organized and functioning and working in the state today.”

Tenney is not intelligent and made a big mistake calling Brindisi a leftist; she's doing the same thing again

I spoke with an old friend who's active in the Broome County Democratic Party, which was Brindisi's best county in 2018 and performed at a solid D+13 level for him. The county voted to reelect Kirsten Gillibrand as well, but turned against Andrew Cuomo, who lost to a little known Republican candidate, Mark Molinaro. Molinaro only scored 36.2% statewide but managed to beat Cuomo 50.7% to 43.6% in Broome. My friend pointed to Cuomo-hatred as a place where Brindisi is heading. "People here were eager to defeat Trump and Tenney last year. No one I know cared who the Democrat was. Brindisi represented an Assembly district far from here and few people knew how conservative he was; Tenney, of course, tried to paint him as a socialist. Now people are disappointed in Brindisi's conservatism and his lack of political courage. He may win next year because Democrats will be out in force to vote against Trump. But when Trump isn't on the ticket, he'll be in trouble." So, whose perspective is right, the Broome County party official or crackpot and obviously mentally ill Gilda Ward from Mt. Vernon?

UPDATE: Katie Hill

And if that isn't bad enough, look who already is getting ready to toss his Russian sailor's cap into the race, a genuine Trump jailbird/coffee-boy:

Conservative Dems Join Republicans To Take Out Katie Hill

Katie Hill-- a target for right-wing Republicans AND right-wing Democrats

When I met Katie Hill for the first time-- a month or so before she officially decided to run for the seat occupied by generally unpopular GOP incumbent-- I was really excited. She said all the right things. Problem, of course, is that everybody has his or her own definition of what "progressive" means. Even Pelosi claims to be a progressive. And from life-long conservative Democrat Joe Biden-- "I'm the most progressive candidate in this race"-- to every slimy Blue Dog with a progressive opponent, it's easy enough to claim your'e a progressive without it even meaning anything substantive. Katie Hill, who presented herself to me as a progressive, was quick to join the Wall Street-backed New Dems; that's not what progressives do. Her ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 70.0%, a solid "F."

That said, she's been an effective member of Congress for the district, a hard worker and a good organizer. The district has turned blue-- even if none of the numbskulls at the DCCC or EMILY's List understand-- and if they stopped scaring her with there idiotic theories about how Democrats in swing districts have to vote GOP-light-- I suspect she'd be voting better.

On Friday, Ryan Grim and Aída Chávez reporting for The Intercept that the nonpartisan-- but general very anti-progressive-- With Honor PAC, funded primarily by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Howard Schultz-- through the For Country Caucus, is targeting Hill for political extinction. Fellow New Dems-- primarily co-chair Jimmy Panetta (CA), but also Seth Moulton (MA), vice-chair Chrissy Houlahan (PA), Gil Cisneros (CA), Jason Crow, (CO), Elaine Luria (VA), Max Rose (VA) and Mikie Sherrill (NJ)-- are members of the caucus, which is helping conservative Republican Mike Garcia run a campaign against her. Anyone hear a denunciation from Pelosi or Cheri Bustos yet?

"House Democratic leadership," wrote Grim and Chávez, "crafts its entire political and legislative strategy around protecting front-liners like Hill, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently chastised the caucus for criticizing vulnerable front-liners, suggesting they hit her instead. Note-worthy is that all the Republicans in the caucus, particularly co-chair Don Bacon are through and through Trump enablers and Republican Party partisans helping the NRCC target a prime target (Hill). None of the Democrats in the caucus are savvy enough to figure that out. Last cycle the PAC contributed $5,000 to Hill's Republican opponent, Steve Knight. The caucus and its PAC are front groups for the NRCC and for the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and keeps Pelosi and Bustos out of their hair by contributing to the DCCC and directly to Pelosi as well, while they attack Democrats at will.

In 2018 primaries, Crow, Luria, and Cisneros faced progressive primary opponents and won with the weight of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee behind them. They are now linked up with a PAC working in direct opposition to the interests of the DCCC.

...In March, caucus members and the affiliated PACs repeatedly denied the two had anything to do with each other. In an email to The Intercept, the With Honor PAC said they hoped members have the “courage to collaborate across the aisle” and one of the ways they can do that is with a “cross partisan caucus,” adding, “we’re supportive of them doing that, but like I stated, there is no With Honor caucus.”

“The caucus is folks that focus on, among other things, working on policy that promotes public service and just members of the caucus have agreed to a civility pledge to commit to working with integrity, honesty, and drive to find common ground across the aisle. But this is not, this doesn’t have to do with With Honor,” a Panetta spokesperson said at the time. “That’s separate.”

They’re so separate, in fact, that the For Country Caucus is now featured prominently on the website of With Honor Action, which directs visitors to donate to the With Honor PACs.

They keep their membership list hidden from the public but these are the 2018 crucial vote scores for the members we have (along with their grades from ProgressivePunch):

• Michael Waltz (R-FL)- 0 (F)
• Don Bacon (R-NE)- 2.50 (F)
• Jared Golden (D-ME)- 32.50 (F)
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- 35.00 (F)
• Conor Lamb (D-PA)- 40.00 (F)
• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog, NJ)- 52.50 (F)
• Chrissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA)- 60.00 (F)
• Max Rose (Blue Dog, NY)- 65.00 (F)
• Jimmy Panetta (New Dem-CA)- 67.50 (F)
• Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)- 67.50 (F)
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- 70.00 (F)
• Seth Moulton (New Dem-MA)- 71.43 (F)

Will The Climate Crisis Be The Deciding Factor Of 2020?

The 10 most recent polls that measured the public's feelings about voting for Congress next year all came up with the same conclusion-- that the Democrats have this one. The polling average is about 6 points in the Democrats' favor with a Morning Consult poll from this week showing the Democrats ahead by 12 points, enough the flip the 50 seats we're looking for. Going all the way back to January, there have been 63 polls asking this question and only one showed a tie. The other 62 showed the Democrats ahead.

In part this is being pushed by an expected voter-turnout tsunami. If Bernie is the nominee... what's bigger than a tsunami? Other than Bernie, Trump fuels the eagerness for voters-- in this far out-- to get to the polls. And most have only one goal: to vote him and his Republican enablers out of office.

Most Democrats have nothing to offer other than "Trump is bad; we're not as bad." Conventional wisdom journalist Ron Brownstein reported in The Atlantic that "signs are growing that voter turnout in 2020 could reach the highest levels in decades-- if not the highest in the past century-- with a surge of new voters potentially producing the most diverse electorate in American history... In a recent paper, the Democratic voter-targeting firm Catalist projected that about 156 million people could vote in 2020, an enormous increase from the 139 million who cast ballots in 2016... [A]s many as two-thirds of eligible voters may vote next year. If that happens, it would represent the highest presidential-year turnout since 1908, when 65.7 percent of eligible Americans cast a ballot, according to McDonald’s figures. Since 18-year-olds were granted the vote, the highest showing was the 61.6 percent of eligible voters who showed up in 2008, leading to Barack Obama’s victory. And since World War II, the highest turnout level came in 1960, with John F. Kennedy’s win, when 63.8 percent of voters participated... [T]he clearest sign that high turnout may be approaching in 2020 is that it already arrived in 2018. In last year’s midterm, nearly 120 million people voted, about 35 million more than in the previous midterm, in 2014, with 51 percent of eligible voters participating-- a huge increase over the previous three midterms. The 2018 level represented the largest share of eligible voters to turn out in a midterm year since 1914, according to McDonald’s figures. Catalist estimated that about 14 million new voters who had not participated in 2016 turned out two years later, and they preferred Democrats by a roughly 20-percentage-point margin."

OK, now here's the important part:

The nature of the population eligible to vote is evolving in a way that should indeed help Democrats. McDonald estimates that the number of eligible voters increases by about 5 million each year, or about 20 million from one presidential election to the next. That increase predominantly flows from two sources: young people who turn 18 and immigrants who become citizens. Since people of color are now approaching a majority of the under-18 population-- and also constitute most immigrants-- McDonald and other experts believe it’s likely that minorities represent a majority of the people who have become eligible to vote since 2016.

The generational contrast in the eligible voting pool is also stark. States of Change, a nonpartisan project studying shifts in the electorate, projects that Millennials (born, according to the organization’s definition, from 1981 to 2000) will constitute 34.2 percent of eligible voters next year. Post-Millennials (born after 2000) will make up another 3.4 percent. That means those two groups combined will virtually equal the share of eligible voters composed of Baby Boomers (28.4 percent) and the Silent and Greatest Generations (another 9.4 percent).

These shifts have enormous implications because of the generational gulf in attitudes toward Trump and the parties more broadly. His approval rating has consistently lagged among the more racially diverse, socially tolerant younger generations. Though Trump and the GOP have shown some signs of weakness recently among seniors, he has generally polled much better among voters older than 50, in part because a much larger share of Americans in that cohort are white.

But it isn't just racial diversity and social tolerance that's working against conservatives. Among Millennials, the existential danger of Climate Change is the single most important issue and they're aware that Republicans-- and to a lesser extent conservative Democrats-- are not paying attention-- or worse-- to a world hurtling towards disaster. Earlier today we looked at the elections between 1928 and 1936, where Republican majorities in the Senate (56 Republicans to 39 Democrats) and House (270 Republicans to 164 Democrats) flipped to 74 Democrats, 17 Republicans and 4 Democratic allies in the Senate and an astonishing 334 Democrats and 88 Republicans and 13 Democratic allies in the House. In 4 consecutive election cycles the House Republicans went from 270 seats to 88 seats. That's when the Democrats knew who they were and what they were offering voters, long before they decided to go with flaccid, meaningless non-leaders like Pelosi, Hoyer, Bustos, Luján, Jeffries, Schumer and the rest of the garbage the Democrats have calling the shots.

The Green New Deal inspires millennial voters the way the turgid and lesser-of-two-evils Democratic Party couldn't hope to-- at least not under the geriatric and visionless leaders now guiding it. Pelosi is so clueless that she is openly fighting it-- as are the most clueless of the presidential candidates. That video up top was made by Action Network. Lauren Windsor was ta the Democratic Party State Convention a couple of weeks ago, interviewing politicians of all stripes about banning fracking and ending spending on fossil fuel infrastructure. "Democrats," she wrote, "historically have embraced the so-called 'bridge' fuel as a middle-ground approach to solving climate change, but methane leaks wipe out the emissions advantage over coal, and fracking pollutes water tables and causes earthquakes... Natural gas is a bridge fuel to nowhere in terms of solving the climate crisis."

First up was the easiest-- Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who is 100% there. Second looked like he might eb trouble. Adam Schiff is a Blue Dog who turned New Dem and who has been a career-long conservative... but one who has been moving with the times. Schiff told Windsor exactly what he's been telling his constituents. He signed on as an ordinal co-sponsor of AOC's Green New Deal Resolution and he supports a ban on fracking, which he said he "strongly" opposes. Cory Booker avoided the question clumsily but Katie Hill, reticently admitted she supports all the right anti-fracking measures. Mike Levin was more aggressively anti-fracking and "absolutely" agreed that we're in a climate crisis which he was comfortably able to expound upon. Same for Ro Khanna. It's interesting to watch politicians who are comfortable talking about the topic-- like Khanna and Levin and Hill once her handler got out of the way and let her be herself-- as compared to politicians less sure of themselves on the topic. It's kind of wonderful when you don't have to pressure politicians to do the right thing because they want to do the right thing. Her last interview was with the only real asshole she had to deal with Colorado's ex-Governor John Frackenlooper. "John Hickenlooper, she told me today "is known as 'Frackenlooper' by environmental activists for his love of natural gas as a bridge fuel. He once drank fracking fluid to prove that it was safe. Now that he’s running for president-- and climate change has become a focal point of the race due to the Green New Deal-- he’s tap dancing around that position by supporting essentially an 'all-of-the-above' energy strategy."

Pelosi Is Just Plain Wrong About Impeachment

I understand why she's not moving forward. She thinks impeachment will cost her party House seats-- that a dozen members who rarely vote with the Democrats anyway could lose in swing districts. She's wrong about that and even if she were right, why should anyone give a crap about "Democrats" like Joe Cunningham (SC), Xochitl Torres Small (NM), Ben McAdams (UT), Anthony Brindisi (NY), Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Kendra Horn (OK) and Josh Gottheimer (NJ)? They may-- or may not-- be pleasant company at lunch, but they don't vote with the Democrats more than half the time anyway. The party is better off without them. And-- as we saw earlier in the case of Van Drew-- they undermine the party's values and brand.Borrowing from Paul Rosenberg's Salon piece (see below), the argument that impeachment will hurt House Democrats in swing districts next year "is premised on a number of false assumptions: That impeachment will necessarily be seen as partisan; that public opinion won’t change in response to new information; that everyone who voted for Trump in a swing district is part of Trump’s base; that voters will punish a principled stand, rather than respect it (see, for example, the standing ovation Amash received at his recent town hall); and that members of Congress can't articulate fact-based, nonpartisan arguments for impeachment, just to name some of the most obvious ones.

We’ve already seen initial evidence, both from Amash and from a few swing-district Democrats, indicating that all these assumptions are questionable at best. “We were getting about two to one in terms of the number of calls opposing impeachment and telling us to stop the investigation,” Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., told Chris Hayes last week. “Now we’re getting three or four to one saying, we need to be moving forward. This is getting too out of hand.” Hill is a self-described moderate who narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Steve Knight last fall.

Another newly-elected California Democrat, Rep. Katie Porter-- who unseated GOP incumbent Mimi Walters in an Orange County district Democrats had never won-- said she had seen “a real turning point” at her town hall, NBC reported. “Porter told voters here that while she did not run for office to impeach the president and never mentioned it on the campaign trail, ‘I will not shirk my duties if the time comes.’”

Democrats must certainly conduct a careful deliberative process along the lines of the Watergate hearings, as one participant in that process, former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, has argued. “Rather than dividing the country, the impeachment process brought it together-- most Americans agreed that more important than any president or party were the rule of law and the Constitution,” Holtzman writes. “Nixon was permanently disgraced-- and the Committee’s work has never seriously been challenged.”

The key to this success was a transparently fair process, and swing-district representatives like Hill and Porter can play important leadership roles in advocating for such fairness and transparency, with little political risk-- provided that Democrats not only deliver such a process, but vigorously defend it as well.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post published a piece by Mike DeBonis, Rachael Bade and Paul Kane, Inside Democrats' Divisive Impeachment Debate. Why are the House Democrats dragging their feet on impeaching Trump? All the considerations at the top are nakedly, disgustingly partisan and the leadership is not considering its constitutional duty to hold the criminal fake president accountable. Even their partisan considerations are wrong; they are further wrecking whatever is left of the party's good name. "Many," wrote the trio, "feel caught between party leaders fearful that impeachment will spark a political backlash and a growing sense that history will judge harshly those who chose not to act in the face of a norm-smashing president many Democrats believe has abused his power and broken the law."

A few weeks ago Katie Hill was "on the verge" of calling for impeachment. The Post keeps referring to her district as "Republican leaning," even as they report that calls to her office were 20 to 1 for impeachment. And, despite lazy reporters assertions, CA-25 is not Republican-leaning. The district has been turning bluer and bluer for years. The Democrats now have a registration advantage. Even as weak a candidate as Hillary beat Trump in 2016, by 7 points. And in 2018 Katie Hill ousted GOP incumbent Steve Knight 133,209 (54.4%) to 111,813 (45.6%). The demographics are totally on the side of the Democrats and as long as the party doesn't do too much to disincentive the base, Republicans will never win in CA-25 again. There is a reason Hill "is drowning in calls urging her to press for impeachment" and it is not because she's in what the DCCC keeps telling journalists to refer to as "Republican leaning."

What's the DCCC got to do with it? Plenty. DCCC chair and reactionary Blue Dog Cheri Bustos has instructed the committee's staff to use scare tactics on freshmen about impeachment. Bustos didn't like hearing Hill say she "was willing to lose her seat if impeachment were the right thing to do" and "after Hill appeared on CNN last month and said her 'red line' on impeachment was Trump defying a court order to comply with congressional investigations, her office got a call from a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official, who cautioned her staff about Hill speaking in such definitive terms, according to an individual familiar with the warning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the conversation." Bustos is spreading her anti-impeachment poison everywhere. Trump couldn't have a better congressional advocate.

Mueller’s statement last month on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election has pushed many lawmakers closer toward supporting impeachment. The former special counsel said his office could neither clear nor accuse Trump of obstructing his investigation, citing a long-standing Justice Department opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

Since then, freshman Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) said she has noticed an increase in the volume and intensity of pro-impeachment calls and emails to her office.

“There are many people who said, six months ago, ‘It’s harmful to the country.’ And today they’re saying, ‘It’s harmful to the country but for a very different reason.’ So there definitely is momentum,” said Hayes, who added: “We have to do something. I don’t know what that something is.”

Grappling with what to do, freshman Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) has reached out to pro-impeachment Judiciary Committee members to ask whether an inquiry would actually help Democrats obtain documents and testimony they have sought through the courts. Levin huddled with [Dan] Kildee and Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-MD), a Judiciary panel member and former constitutional law professor, on the House floor last month, and Raskin told him impeachment would speed the process.

“Ultimately if [Judiciary members] believe that that’s what they need in order to most effectively conduct the investigations, then I would support that decision,” Levin said.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) is moving in the opposite direction. Even though Hillary Clinton carried his district with 84 percent of the vote and he voted for impeachment articles in the last Congress, he isn’t certain he would do the same now. [In the primary it was in Gomez's district that Bernie had his strongest showing. Bernie won the district in 2016 and will win the primary next year as well.]

“It has to be ironclad, and it has to be a mountain of evidence,” said Gomez, who favors launching an inquiry. “It’s too serious of a step, and it can’t be done willy-nilly just because people want it.”

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who was first elected in 1998 and hails from a liberal district, is balancing a pro-impeachment constituency with her longtime loyalty to Pelosi.

Pro-impeachment calls to her Washington office spiked from 130 the last week of May to more than 160 the first week of June, Schakowsky said. And during a recent meeting with senior Democrats, Schakowsky challenged Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL), head of the campaign committee, and her claim that voters don’t seem to care about impeachment.

But while she has “absolutely no doubt that [Trump] has committed high crimes and misdemeanors,” Schakowsky said she is not there yet. “I think there may be just a bit more that we can do to make sure that we are traveling with the American people to that destination.”

Sunday, Newsweek reported that Michael Gerhardt, who teaches constitutional law at the University of North Carolina, in his summary of Congress’ view of impeachment, explained that "Impeachable offenses encompass serious abuses of power, breaches of trust, and serious injuries to the Republic." Other than conservative Kool Aid drinkers is there anyone in Congress who doesn't see that fitting Trump? Gerhardt added that those offenses must include two elements of misconduct-- 'bad intent or bad faith,' and 'bad acts.'" Who's going to argue-- other than miscreants like Gym Jordan and Matt Gaetz-- that that doesn't fit Trump to a T?

Newsweek also reported that Judiciary Committee member and pro-impeachment advocate Jamie Raskin said that "Trump's activities mirror President Nixon’s, but then go way beyond. Certainly, we can see the same kind of obstruction of justice, we certainly see the same kind of contempt of Congress, and we certainly see the same kinds of abuses of power."




Beto told the ABC News audience yesterday that "If we do not hold the president accountable, we will have set the precedent that some people in this country because of their position of power are in fact above the law and if we do that, we will lose this democracy forever. So regardless of the popularity of the idea or what the polling shows us, we must proceed with impeachment so that we get the facts and the truth and at the end of the day, there is justice for what was done to democracy in 2016."

Paul Rosenberg, writing for Salon this past weekend, noted that there are 11 things Pelosi has wrong about impeachment and that her "position no longer makes any coherent sense... If one ignores the threat of democratic backsliding, then it could be rational, pragmatic and even principled to be guided by fears of a political downside to impeachment, and to view everything through that lens. But that’s a threat one cannot ignore: Even if you view the argument in Pelosi's terms, the political downside of refusing to impeach is potentially far greater than the downside of impeachment itself." Here are the 11 points she's wrong on:

Pelosi believes that the American people don’t support impeachment, and that pursuing it will prove disastrous for Democrats. She’s focused on the downside of impeaching, while ignoring the downside of not doing so. This is clearly her overriding concern, and it’s fundamentally mistaken... 1) Trump wants impeachment, and is deliberately luring Democrats into it; 2) Impeachment will divide the nation, and 3) We don’t have enough facts to know whether impeachment is warranted.

• Mistaken Argument 1: Trump wants impeachment
• Mistaken Argument 2: Impeachment will divide the nation
• Mistaken Argument 3: We don't have enough facts
• Mistaken Argument 4: Impeachment will hurt House Democrats in swing districts next year
• Mistaken argument 5: Impeachment will distract from the Democratic agenda
• Mistaken Argument 6: The people don't want impeachment
• Ignored Argument 1: An impeachment inquiry is primarily about informing the public
• Ignored Argument 2:  There's a serious potential downside for Republicans, even if Trump is acquitted by the Senate 
• Ignored Argument 3: House Democrats' primary need is to demonstrate their seriousness
• Ignored Argument 4: Democrats have no reason to wait
• And one last thought on her strategy: It "neglects what may be the shrewdest political calculation of all: Putting Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate in the position of acquitting a president the House has calmly and deliberately proven to be a criminal. To repeat Adam Jentleson's formula, 'The decision not to impeach is not a decision to focus on other things, it is a decision to cede power, control, and legitimacy to Trump.' Surely Nancy Pelosi is too smart to do that."

Oh? We'll see about that, won't we?