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There Are Key Elections Tomorrow in Multiple States

Not all regularly scheduled elections happen in November. States and municipalities are free to schedule local elections whenever they please. Only federal officeholders must, by law, be elected on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Tomorrow there will be several elections around the country, some with national significance.

In short, with elections in multiple parts of the country, we might get some feeling about whether these are elections about the Musk/Trump administration or merely local elections about local issues. (V)

Louisiana Voters Reject All Four Republican-Sponsored Constitutional Amendments

If you need some more evidence that special and off-season elections are wonky, we present to you what happened in Louisiana this past Saturday. There, voters shot down all four Constitutional amendments they were offered. It is a big loss for Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA), who supported them and campaigned hard for them.

Amendment 1 would have given the state Supreme Court the power to punish out-of-state attorneys who provide services to people in Louisiana. Sarah Whittington, of the Louisiana ACLU, said: "It's really just enabling legislators to undermine our judicial system and empowering them to create kangaroo courts that are in their own best interests." It lost 35% to 65%.

Amendment 2 was a sprawling revision of the part of the state Constitution dealing with taxes and budgeting. It would have reduced the top marginal state income tax rate and corporate taxes and raised the state sales tax to make up for the loss of revenue. The basic idea was that rich people should pay less tax and poor and middle class people should pay more tax. Sounds like a good deal for some people. Another part of the amendment would have limited state spending, even if the money is available. Yet another part was to use the one-time rainy-day fund to cover the recurring loss of the recent corporate tax cut. Still another part would have eliminated three state trust funds created by the voters when the state received settlements from lawsuits against oil and tobacco companies. The money would have gone to a one-time injection of $2 billion to the teachers' retirement fund. And more. It lost, with 35% for and 65% against.

Amendment 3 would have given the legislature the power to determine the list of crimes committed by minors that would have them tried as adults. The legislature is just itching to have minors be tried as adults for more crimes. Especially Black minors. It failed 34% to 66%. In Orleans Parish (county), which is almost 60% Black, it got 9% of the vote. People there understood what it was intended to do.

Amendment 4 would have changed the timeline for special elections. This is somewhat inside baseball, but opponents said that election schedules should be made by the legislature, not locked down in the Constitution. It lost 36% to 64%.

The "No to them all" coalition was pleased with the results, namely all four being defeated in landslides. The governor was unhappy, as he had tried his best to get all of them to pass and all were crushed. He blamed the results on George Soros and the far-left liberals. Soros did not actually contribute any money to the "No" coalition, but it is possible that some money he gave to some other group in the past might have gotten into the election. What Landry didn't mention is that the remaining Koch brother, Charles, was actively involved in the election, funding a group that knocked on doors, ran phone banks, and sent out direct mail urging a "Yes" vote. It didn't work. Sometimes the side with the most money still loses. This election will surely weaken Landry's clout with the legislature and with the voters.

Is this an omen that something spectacular might happen in all the elections tomorrow? Check back on Wednesday and we'll let you know. (V)

Stocks Plummet on Inflation Fears

Donald Trump may seem invulnerable, but even he has an Achilles heel: the economy. His base doesn't care much for democracy, but it does care about the cost of milk and eggs and, for people whose future is tied up in their 401(k) account, the stock market. If the economy goes south, Trump's base will notice.

On Friday, the stock market took a tumble. The Dow Jones lost 715 points (1.7%). The S&P 500 lost 2%. The NASDAQ was hit the hardest, down 2.7%. The slide began just after the Dept. of Commerce released a report showing a year-to-year price increase of 2.5% (but 2.8% when food and energy are excluded). Core personal consumption expenditures were up 0.4% month to month, which if continued for 12 months, would be 4.8% annually.

The market noticed. Here is a graph of the S&P 500 for the past 6 months. The high point was $6,144 on Feb. 19. It closed at $5,581 Friday, down 9.2% from the high and likely still falling. Basically, the markets were flat while Trump v2.0 was gearing up, but when the administration started doing things, the market headed south.

S and P 500 for past 6 months

James Knightley, chief international economist at AIG, said: "We are moving in the wrong direction and the concern is that tariffs threaten higher prices, which mean the inflation prints [the data sheets released by the government] are going to remain hot. This will constrain the Fed's ability to deliver further interest rate cuts." And don't forget, Wednesday is T-day, when the new tariffs kick in (unless they don't).

Consumers are worried. The University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment reported that consumers expect 5% inflation in the coming year, the highest since 2022. When people expect high inflation, often they hoard their pennies for tough times ahead. Decreased consumer spending can tank the economy, and once these things get rolling, it is hard to stop them. The Fed can try to prevent a recession by cutting interest rates, but they hate to do that when inflation is looming. Jerome Powell may well be the right person to steer the economy, but Trump has signaled that he wants to can Powell. If he follows through and manages to do it, the markets are sure to react negatively. (V)

Tough Town Halls Keep Happening, Even in Deep-red Districts

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) is the only member of Congress born and raised in Ukraine. Her maiden name is Вікторія Кульгейко. She immigrated to the U.S. at 22. She was an accountant and a real estate broker until being elected to Congress in 2020. Some of her colleagues see her as rather flaky. She is often a thorn in Speaker Mike Johnson's side.

On Friday, she held a town hall in Westfield, IN—a wealthy, well-educated suburb of Indianapolis. She didn't have to hold a town hall. In fact, the NRCC has advised Republicans against meeting with their constituents, but she did it anyway. It was well attended by Democrats and independents. There were 500 people inside the hall and another 100 outside. They were not happy, mostly due to Signalgate.

The whole evening, Spartz's constituents yelled at her and she yelled right back. At one point, she said: "If you just came here to scream then we're not going to have a conversation." Her district is R+11, so it would take a blue tidal wave to dislodge her, but the anger was palpable. One of her constituents, Stephanie from Carmel (Mike Pence's town), asked whether Spartz would demand the resignation of the people who blew it in the chat. Spartz replied: "Resignations go to the Senate anyway, so you should talk to the senators." That shows her ignorance of the Constitution. While she didn't learn about it in sixth grade, she could have boned up on it before running for Congress. First, anyone can demand that a public official resign. That privilege is not limited to senators. Second, if the official refuses, the official can be impeached and the impeachment process starts in the House, not the Senate (which only enters the picture after an official has been impeached). Don't they give new representatives a list entitled: "Things you can now do as a representative"? Spartz did say that she would not even demand the resignations of the people involved, let alone introduce a resolution to impeach them.

Spartz also defended Co-president Elon Musk. She said he has discovered fraud, waste, and abuse. She also said he was trying to bring technology into the government.

She also defended her vote against granting $61 billion in military aid to her native Ukraine. At least she didn't say: "Even I don't care about my native country, so why should you?"

To her credit, Spartz did not storm off in the middle. She kept fighting back until the very end, and even after the official town hall was over, she stayed around and continued to answer questions from angry constituents. Voters hate congresscritters who hide from the voters, but Spartz was out there taking all the incoming flak and sending it right back out. She did not hide. (V)

Voice of America Wins Round 1

Donald Trump has tried to kill off the Voice of America, which broadcasts the truth (or did until Kari Lake took over) to millions of people around the world who don't get it from their local media. It is hard to say why telling millions of people America's side of the news and providing them with American music and culture is a bad thing, but Trump hates all media except those outlets that worship at his feet, so it had to go.

VOA started during World War II, when it broadcast stories about democracy to people in Nazi Germany. It now broadcasts in 50 languages and has an audience of 350 million people a week. Its budget ($270 million) is a rounding error in the $6 trillion federal budget.

Naturally, some of the 1,200 people who were summarily fired sued. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken ruled that Trump does not have the authority to shut down VOA just like that. He called the shutdown "arbitrary and capricious," which is a precise legal term pertaining to a government official or body who does something irrationally without even considering the consequences. Patsy Widakuswara, the former White House bureau chief for VOA, said: "We are forcing them to stop their illegal actions. They can shut down VOA but they have to go through Congress, that's how things work." Then she added: "We are supposed to tell America's story to the world. We are not telling only the president's story to the world, that is not in the charter."

One of the reasons Trump is out to get VOA is that during Trump v1.0, its version of the pandemic was not his version of the pandemic. Its version was based on facts and the view of Anthony Fauci, who is not one of Trump's favorite people. (V)

President of Columbia University Resigns after Groveling in the Dirt

Even giving in to all of Donald Trump's blackmail is not enough to save your job if you are a high-profile university president. On Friday Columbia's Katrina Armstrong resigned, effective immediately. She is the second Columbia president to resign in the past 12 months, as her predecessor, Minouche Shafik, resigned last August. Columbia will now have to search for a new president, but it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to be a university president now. It is a thankless job.

A week ago, Armstrong groveled in the dirt in an attempt to have Trump not cancel $400 million in contracts and grants to which the university has a legal right by dint of having negotiated and signed agreements to do certain work for a certain payment. That didn't save her. Nothing could have. Trump is angry because there were pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments at Columbia last year—aimed at Joe Biden, not at him. But at this point, the content of the demonstrations isn't the issue any more. What he wants is to ban all demonstrations and all political speech except things he approves. The idea is, once he starts to allow free speech, heaven knows what people might say, so better to clamp down on all speech than take a chance. The message here is plain. The time of free speech is over. Get used to it.

For the president of Columbia or any high-profile university, all options are terrible. If Armstrong had stood tall and sued Trump, the $400 million would simply not show up in the university's bank account and there would be no money to pay people, buy supplies, fund travel, and generally run a large part of the university's operation. Tuition covers only a tiny fraction of what big research universities do. But by caving to Trump, she infuriated the faculty and students, who wanted Armstrong to tell Trump where to go and sue. They weren't thinking about how she was going to meet the payroll next month. So she was put in an impossible situation. Do what Trump wants and everyone at the university is furious with her or stand up to Trump and not have the money to pay professors, researchers, staff, and the cleaning company next month. She couldn't handle it and just gave up.

Given the multiple victories some law firms and others have won in court, she could have sued and hoped that a judge would order Trump to continue payments until the case could be fully adjudicated up to the Supreme Court. That would be a gamble because not all judges care about the law, unfortunately. Some are more interested in currying favor with Trump in the hopes of getting a promotion (looking at you, Aileen Cannon). It would be a huge risk, in part because the legal system works so slowly. As Trump pulls this stunt with other universities, it will be interesting to see what lessons they take from Columbia. (V)

Michael Bennet May Run for Governor of Colorado in 2026

Is it better to be a senator or a governor? Which job is more powerful? It is a question politicians ask themselves all the time. In general, being governor of a big state (like California, New York, Texas, or Florida) is a more powerful position than being one of 100 senators. On the other hand, being a national politician in the Senate is better than being governor of a low-population state with little money and little power like, say, Idaho or Vermont. The problem is most acute for the states in the middle.

Colorado is one of those. It's probably a toss-up there, though it is very rare for a senator to give up what could be a lifetime job to run for a job that is at most for 8 years. Still, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) is seriously thinking about running for governor of Colorado in 2026, when Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) will be term limited. Bennet is up for reelection in 2028, so if he runs for governor in 2026 and loses, he can continue as a senator and then run for reelection to the Senate in 2028. His run will not cost the Democrats a Senate seat since if he wins, he will resign from the Senate in Jan. 2027 and then as the newly sworn in governor immediately appoint his successor, who will have to run for a full term in 2028. If Bennet resigns from the Senate in order to spend more time campaigning, Polis will appoint the new senator, but senators run for other offices (typically for president) all the time without resigning.

Bennet is not some random school superintendent from Denver who decided to get into politics, he was appointed to Ken Salazar's seat when Barack Obama picked Salazar to be secretary of the interior. He is the son of Doug Bennet Jr., who was an aide to Sens. Thomas Eagleton (D-MO), Hubert Humphrey (DFL-MN), and Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT), and later assistant secretary of state. Michael Bennet's grandfather, Douglas Bennet Sr., was an economic adviser to FDR. So young Michael was well versed in politics from an early age. He even grew up in D.C. so he knows the city better than he knows Colorado.

Bennet (60) is popular and Colorado is a blue state, so he could stay in the Senate for another 25-30 years, eventually becoming chairman of the Finance Committee or Intelligence Committee, both of which he serves on. So why might he want out? He is frustrated that the Senate simply does not function anymore. He is also furious with Joe Biden's selfishness and the consequences thereof. If Biden had announced "I'm out" in Jan. 2023, Bennet might have run for president again in 2024, as he did in 2020, although his brand of moderate centrism got him nowhere then.

Another thing that bothers Bennet is that in the past, ordinary senators had real power. Now the majority leader calls all the shots and the other 99 senators are just there for decoration. For someone who wants to be a senator in order to pass laws, this is very frustrating, even more so since now, even Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has no real power. He is just there to execute whatever orders Donald Trump gives him. This makes the Senate a pointless place, even for senators in the majority party.

One other thing that might have influenced Bennet is that although his father was never a senator, he was a powerful player behind the scenes in the Senate. Nevertheless, he quit and later ran NPR and was president of Wesleyan University. In other words, Bennet knows there is more to life than the Senate.

Going from senator to governor is unusual. Usually it is the other way. Bennet's Senate colleague from Colorado, John Hickenlooper (D-CO) was Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) for 8 years before running for the Senate.

If Bennet jumps in, that would be a huge shock. AG Phil Weiser is already running. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold is thinking about it. There are also a couple of representatives who are thinking about running for governor. Bennet's entry would shake up everything. He would be the instantaneous front runner and he might even clear the field, with everyone else sticking with their current jobs. (V)

New Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Wants to Change Direction

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has a new chair, a 35-year-old Texas millennial: Greg Casar. He thinks the Democratic Party has lost its working-class roots and needs to get back to them. He also thinks it is too cautious and boring and has a tendency to take unpopular positions. He wants the party to be first and foremost known as the party for working people.

This is a huge break from what the progressive wing has been shouting for years, like "defund the police" and "abolish ICE." These have not only not been winners, they have been extremely counterproductive. The progressive wing has also demanded ideological purity on everything. If an otherwise good candidate failed to support one of the many litmus tests the CPC has—some of which are very unpopular with the voting public—that person is rejected as unacceptable. It is a package deal. You have to take all of it. There is no à la carte menu where you can be with the caucus on climate, abortion, and taxing the rich, but not on DEI. It is all or nothing.

Casar wants to change that. He said: "I believe that progressives need to make sure that we are connecting our causes to the broadest base of people possible." In particular, he wants to focus on economic issues, where he thinks most Democrats agree and the public is largely with them. De facto, that means he will downplay more divisive issues, especially those where the public is not with them.

One issue Casar wants to push is protecting Social Security. He even went on Fox last week to attack Elon Musk for trying to gut it. On Saturday, he went into the R+13 district of Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) to defend Social Security. He believes if the Democrats become known as the party that wants to protect Social Security and the Republicans become known as the party that wants to destroy it, that will pay off in elections for years to come. He made a point of saying: "Republican officials have figured out how to elevate social issues that impact only a small number of people and make them the dominant issues in elections."

He also noted that after knocking on thousands of doors in Texas in his badly gerrymandered very skinny TX-35 district that runs from Austin to San Antonio paralleling the I-35, he never encountered a voter who said: "Thank God you're here. I want to talk to you about the appropriate level of testosterone for somebody to compete in the NCAA [sports]." But if he talks about protecting Social Security, everyone listens. This is an implicit message that talking about trans people is an electoral loser, and the Democrats need to focus on economic issues like Social Security, jobs, wages, taxing the rich, and poverty. Mark Longabaugh, a longtime strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), agreed. He said: "There are some cultural issues that we're going to confront that not everyone is going to agree on, but what are the core things we agree on? Everyone ought to make a living wage, everyone should have health care, ending poverty. Instead, we get into a conversation about bathrooms."

A good story needs a musky villain, and Casar has one in Elon. He harps on the fact Musk makes $8 million a day off government contracts paid for with your hard-earned money. And what is he doing for all that money? Trying to kill your Social Security and Medicaid. It's a good story. Here is Casar at a House committee meeting:



Some progressives see Casar as the next generation of working-class leaders, along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). One Democratic consultant said Casar doesn't come off as a "college professor in a sweater and horn-rimmed glasses." He also said: "If Democrats have to spend all their time having to talk about why we shouldn't deport dangerous criminals, if boys should play in girls sports or whatever the social issue of the day Republicans are forcing us to talk about, then we're not talking about what is driving Americans, which is survival, bringing down costs." It sounds like Casar is a younger version of Bernie. He could be what the Democrats need. (V)


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