Posts tagged ‘U. S. House’
by Downtowner, posted on Monday, July 18th, 2011 at 7:30 am
I had a theory about why Bill Foster was running for Congress again, this time in the newly redistricted IL-11. It had to do with the fact that his terminal financial disclosure statement from his stint in IL-14 showed that he’s sold out of ETC (the company owned jointly with others, including his brother who ran the business) and his wealth at that time seemed to be locked up in a promissory note, in combination with the fact that his campaign essentially owed him a million dollars – i.e. he was a million in debt. To himself.
My theory was influenced as well by persistent rumors I heard at the time of Foster’s last campaign against Hultgren, that he was rather bored in Congress, would like to return to physics, etc, etc. Not rumors I had ever passed along as, so far as I could tell, they came from no one very close to him and seemed speculative at best. But I heard them frequently enough that I was surprised to hear he was interested enough in being in Congress to decide to run in IL-11. And then there is the lack of any staff as of his first new FEC filing of this campaign – not even a professional fundraiser.
So my theory was simple: Foster had decided to run to raise enough cash to pay himself back that million dollar loan to his campaign fund, and if he won, okay, but if he lost, well that would be okay too. Now I think that theory is simply wrong.
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Tags: 2012 elections, Bill Foster, Chris Van Hollen, IL-11, IL-14, Illinois, Nancy Pelosi, New Democrat Coalition, Randy Hultgren, Steny Hoyer, U. S. House
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by Downtowner, posted on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at 8:35 am
Here’s a thing I did not see coming from my new congresscritter: Randy Hultgren has voted, along with a handful of other new tea-partiers in the House, to block the extension of three controversial Patriot Act provisions. And they succeeded in doing just that.
The motivation is actually quite consistent with tea-party logic – they see it as an unecessary intrusion on personal liberty – but the thing liberals need to think about is this: When’s the last time we saw a crack in the Repub block that resulted in blocking legislation that the Repubs wanted and the Dems did not? When? Anybody? Anybody?
The incident has me pondering two things this morning:
1. Where else can liberals find common ground with these Freshmen?
2. What would have happened if Progressives in Congress had displayed a similar unwillingness to “play ball” when the game itself violated their core convictions?
I could drive myself crazy pondering that latter ephemeral question, but the crack in the Republican block just delivered a tangible result.
So let’s be practical: What else can we do with this interesting new crack in the world?
Tags: IL-14, Illinois, Patriot Act, Randy Hultgren, Republicans, strategy and tactics, Tea Party, U. S. House
Posted in The Front Page | 1 Comment »
by n0madic, posted on Saturday, May 8th, 2010 at 6:00 am
In Red to Blue: Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Grassroots Politics
, author Sanford Gottlieb tells the story of Chris Van Hollen’s successful grassroots campaign for Congress in 2002, and the lessons Van Hollen, and others, took away from that campaign in subsequent election cycles.
Van Hollen’s district
is MD-08, located in Washington DC’s Maryland suburbs. In the primary he beat frontrunner Mark Shriver, a Kennedy cousin with a lot of money to spend and a consultant by the name of David Axelrod on his team. He then went on to unseat longtime incumbent Connie Morella in the general election that fall. Morella was a well-liked, liberal Republican who had been long thought to be unbeatable, having enjoyed more than a little bit of support from local Democrats through the years on election day. And Van Hollen pulled this off in a Republican year. This was the first congressional election to be held after 9/11. The Republicans won back control of the Senate in 2002 and added to their majority in the House. Only two Democrats unseated incumbent Republicans that year. Chris Van Hollen was one of them.
Van Hollen has brought this experience to bear in his subsequent work at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). And he was not the only one to go to school on that 2002 campaign. As Gottlieb puts it:
David Axelrod told Van Hollen in 2008 that he had learned some lessons from being on the other side of the 2002 primary. It was a really good grassroots campaign, Axelrod said, with the passion on Van Hollen’s side. Van Hollen carried the lessons learned in 2002 into the successful effort to build a House Democratic majority in 2006. Axelrod and David Plouffe may have applied those lessons in the 2008 50-state race for the White House. (Gottlieb, Red to Blue, 32)
Last week Van Hollen appeared with Gottlieb at a book event in Washington, DC and talked about his attempt to apply those lessons learned to his work with the DCCC. Van Hollen’s introductory remarks, plus the question and answer session that followed, are presented below.
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Tags: 2002 elections, 2006 elections, 2008 elections, 2010 elections, Bill Foster, Bill Owens, Chris Van Hollen, Citizens United, climate change, Connie Morella, David Axelrod, DCCC, Democrats, grassroots, IL-14, James Hansen, Johanna Berkson, legislation, Mark Shriver, Maryland, MD-08, ME-SEN, Montgomery County, Murray Hill, NY-20, NY-23, PA-12, Republicans, Scott Murphy, Special election, strategy and tactics, Tom Allen, U. S. House, U. S. Senate, volunteers, Wall Street
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by n0madic, posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 12:07 am
Last Wednesday, July 8th, Rep. John Conyers’ office brought Eve Gittelson, aka “nyceve,” a leading blogger on health care issues at Daily Kos, and Jane Hamsher, founder of the blog FireDogLake, to Capitol Hill to present a briefing on health care to congressional staff.
More specifically, as Conyers legislative assistant Joel Segal put it, Eve was there to “talk about her perspective as a blogger. What she hears day in, day out, from people about what they want to see in a
national health insurance program. What are their concerns, what are their problems?” And Jane was there to discuss organizing strategies, what she thinks the American people want, and what the role of congressional staff and Members of Congress is in putting a good bill through. She was also there to talk about a project she’s engaged in, seeking to get forty members of Congress to go on record on video saying that if there’s no public plan like Medicare, then there will be no health care reform this year.
Rep. Conyers himself joined the briefing as well, leading a Q&A session that turned into an initial planning session for a prospective hearing on the health care crisis, perhaps to be held on Capitol Hill during in August recess.
Eve and Jane’s remarks, as well as more on the Q&A session, after the jump.
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Tags: Eve Gittelson, health care, insurance, Jane Hamsher, John Conyers, legislation, nyceve, reform, U. S. House
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by Downtowner, posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 1:58 am
In a move that surprised me (because I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with his spokesperson Shannon O’Brien and have been unable to get a definitive answer) Bill Foster signalled his support for a strong public option, without triggers, when he signed a letter from 22 members of the New Democrat and Blue Dog coalitions to Nancy Pelosi last Wednesday.
A copy of the letter is posted here on Firedoglake.
There’s more…
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Tags: Bill Foster, health care, IL-14, Illinois, insurance, legislation, reform, U. S. House
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by Downtowner, posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
While n0madic has been pondering the mystery of whether or not Foster will be running again in 2010, Foster has been busy brewing a mystery for me to ponder.
Foster has signed on as a co-sponsor of Barney Frank’s internet gambling bill.
I don’t claim to be very familiar with this issue, but I can’t help but be aware that at least two large employers in IL-14, the casinos in Elgin and Aurora, are potentially threatened by the legalization of internet gambling.
So, yes, all other potential ethical questions related to gambling addictions, etc, aside, I’m more than a little surprised that Foster would sign on as a co-sponsor.
I asked for a statement regarding his co-sponsorship, and Shannon O’Brien, his spokesperson, has replied tonight by e-mail with this:
No, we have not made a public statement on this subject.
Best,
Shannon
So the mystery of why it seems like a good idea to Foster to put jobs in IL-14 in possible peril in these tough economic times abides.
UPDATE: 2,332 jobs to be exact
Tags: Barney Frank, Bill Foster, gambling, IL-14, Illinois, jobs, legislation, revenue, U. S. House
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by Downtowner, posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Someone at Foster’s office must have noticed this comment in n0madic’s post about Foster’s intent to run in ’10, because I received an e-mail from one of his senior staffers today informing me that his office in Dixon is indeed still staffed. Specifically, the staffer says:
We have two people working in Dixon (1 full timer and 1 part timer) who also staff Geneseo on Thursday. We will post our hours on the website. We actually work longer hours than most Congressional offices. We are here in Batavia from 8-6 M-F.
Thank you to Foster’s office for the clarification.
Tags: Bill Foster, IL-14, Illinois, U. S. House
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by n0madic, posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 10:08 am
When Ethan Hastert officially announced he was running for Congress a few weeks ago, a number of the stories made passing reference to Bill Foster’s intentions. Or perhaps I should say lack of intentions, because the impression that was initially given was that maybe Foster hadn’t decided yet whether he was going to run for re-election. Which seemed odd, because why on earth wouldn’t he? He just got the job, what, a little more than a year ago?
And yet, the first story I saw, in DeKalb’s Daily Chronicle, stated that “Foster said this afternoon that he hasn’t decided if he’ll run for re-election.”
The next story I saw, in the Kane County Chronicle, said Foster wasn’t undecided at all: “Foster is planning on running for re-election, according to a spokeswoman who released a statement Monday in response to Ethan Hastert’s announcement.” But all the statement itself had to say about whether Foster was or was not planning on running was this: “he is not thinking about elections right now,” which didn’t seem to unambiguously support the claim that he was indeed planning on running again. Washington Wire, a Wall Street Journal blog, quoted that same line from the official statement, but said nothing to indicate that he was nevertheless going to run again.
That Daily Chronicle story seemed pretty unambiguous. “Foster said … he hasn’t decided.” Where was the Kane County Chronicle‘s certainty coming from? Was it possible that some of these media outlets were running only a part of the statement that Foster’s office had released? “What’s the deal, here?” I wondered.
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Tags: 2008 elections, 2010 elections, Bill Foster, Department of Energy, Edward Jung, Ethan Hastert, Fermilab, IL-14, Illinois, Intellectual Ventures, Nathan Myhrvold, patent reform, U. S. House
Posted in The Front Page | 5 Comments »
by Downtowner, posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Laesch had it first, but the Daily Herald is now reporting that Ethan Hastert is exploring a run in IL-14.
Lovely. We can now look forward to a run by a guy whose two greatest claims to fame are:
a.) being the son of the Speaker-from-hell who presided over the gutting of the checks and balances that we should expect from the People’s House in order to serve instead as the Cheerleader in Chief for a criminal administration
b.) working for the only person, Scooter Libby, actually convicted from that administration
Just charming.
UPDATE (already)
Andre Salles at the Beacon has it here.
Tags: 2010 elections, Bill Foster, Dennis Hastert, Ethan Hastert, IL-14, Illinois, U. S. House
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