With the spotlight firmly fixed on next year's Senate contest, scant attention has been paid to potential House races next year.
Posted: Sunday, October 7, 2007 7:00 pm
State senators fill the speculative pool for 2008 House candidates.
With the spotlight firmly fixed on next year’s Senate contest, scant attention has been paid to potential House races next year.
All three Republican incumbents are expected to seek re-election.
Here’s a list of names currently viewed as Democratic prospects.
1st District: State Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln and state Sen. Kent Rogert of Tekamah.
2nd District: State Sens. Tom White and Steve Lathrop, both of Omaha.
3rd District: Scott Kleeb of Hastings, the 2006 Democratic nominee, and state Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton.
Jim Esch of Omaha, who won the Democratic nomination in the 2nd District last year, is not expected to be a candidate in 2008.
Maxine Moul of Lincoln, the 2006 Democratic nominee in the 1st District, is not planning another bid next year.
Reps. Jeff Fortenberry, Lee Terry and Adrian Smith appear likely to seek re-election.
Kleeb is viewed as a potential Democratic Senate candidate if both Bob Kerrey and Mike Fahey stay out of the race for the open seat being vacated by Chuck Hagel.
It’s early and all of that is speculative. For now, it’s just chatter.
Although Republicans appear to be on the defensive nationally, it’s always uphill for a Democratic House candidate in Nebraska.
Especially in a presidential election year.
Democrats haven’t won a western Nebraska seat since 1958 or the 1st District slot, which includes Lincoln, since 1964.
Omaha’s 2nd District has been more competitive with Democrats last winning there in 1992.
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Jeffrey Toobin’s new book on the Supreme Court provides an intriguing peek behind the curtains.
The blockbuster segment in “The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court” is a look at the agony that accompanied the court’s decision in Bush v. Gore in 2000.
Without regard to whether Bush or Gore was elected president, or even whether the court’s decision was valid or not, two factors changed many people’s opinions of the court forever.
The majority votes in the 5-4 decision that stopped the recount in Florida, essentially handing its electoral votes and the presidency to George Bush, were cast by justices whose decision represented a reversal of form from their judgment in similar disputes involving federal and state jurisdiction.
And, most tellingly, the majority then stated that its judicial argument and conclusion was limited to that particular case.
Bush v. Gore changed the court forever in the minds of many Americans.
In a dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens identified the real loser in the case to be “the nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law.”
Toobin’s book steps inside the furor.
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Finishing up:
* Roll Call reports that Ben Nelson met last week with “about half a dozen moderate and independent-minded Republicans” in Trent Lott’s office to talk about how they might break the filibuster-driven impasse that has frozen the Senate.
* Recognizing that “I get on the elevator every day with maybe the next president, and maybe the next four presidents,” Nelson says, he’s not going to endorse any presidential candidate.
* Hagel, decrying an off-budget supplemental appropriations process that he says produces dishonest numbers: “If we were running a corporation, most of us would be in the Penitentiary (deciding) whether we want to be in the laundry or the library.”
* Ted Sorensen introduced Barack Obama at appearances in Iowa last week.
* Although the recent media survey measuring the outlook of political op-ed columnists published in Nebraska’s daily newspapers was interesting, a study of the editorial positions of state newspapers might be even more revealing.
* Yikes! It was bad moon rising Saturday night. Haul out — or hide — those 1990s Husker T-shirts that proclaim: “Get Used to It.”
* And better order a big supply of the T-shirts that say: “Lincoln, a Drinking Town with a Football Problem.”
Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.