Tag Archives: New York

The Impact of Staten Island Resident Eric Gardner’s Death on the NY-11 Special Election

The new 114th Congress will commence tomorrow with already one vacant seat in the House of Representatives headed to special election.

Despite Rep. Michael Grimm (R) saying he would not resign his US House seat after pleading guilty to one count of tax evasion in December, the man who scored a resounding 53-41 percent re-election victory only a month earlier in the face of a 20-count federal indictment will officially leave Congress.

That means New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) will call a special election once the seat in the new Congress officially becomes vacant, which will occur during the body’s first session on Jan. 6th. Under New York election law, the governor must schedule the election between 70 and 80 days from the date of official vacancy. This means the special will occur sometime between March 16 and 26, 2015. The most likely prospects are Tuesday, March 17, and Tuesday, the 24th.

Also under New York election procedure, the local political parties will choose their respective nominee, meaning there will only be one election before the voting public. For a time, it looked like former three-term Staten Island Borough president James Molinaro might enter the race as a Conservative Party candidate, but the 83-year-old former local political leader is Continue reading >

Grimm Hangs on Despite Odds Against Him; Deep South Regional Primary Concept Reportedly Gaining Traction

Happiness to all as we enter the year-end holiday period. In honor of the season, we will take a brief publication hiatus for the next few days but be back at the beginning of the new year. Thank you for a great 2014 and enjoy the time with your loved ones.

NY-11

Two days ago it was predicted that New York Rep. Michael Grimm (R-Staten Island) would plead guilty to one count of tax evasion, and then soon resign his House seat possibly as a way to avoid incarceration. The prediction proved half true.

Grimm did, in fact, plead guilty in federal court to one count of tax evasion from an enterprise occurring prior to his entering Congress. His sentencing is now scheduled for June 8, but the representative stated he does not intend to resign from office.

It is likely just a matter of time before he is forced to do so, however, either by having to report to prison or, simply because his status as a convicted felon may disqualify him from congressional service because he will no longer be an elector. Voting privileges are suspended until the completion of a sentence even if the penalty consists only of probation and paying a fine.

In any event, it appears Grimm will take the oath of office for a new term and continue to execute his duties at least until early June. This means that any special election to be Continue reading >

A Grimm Solution

Despite being under indictment for 20 counts of various financial felony charges, New York Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY-11) was handily re-elected (53-41 percent) to a third term in office last month, but he soon may be forced to resign.

Reports emanating from New York City indicate that Grimm will plead guilty to one count of felony tax evasion at a hearing later today. He obviously hopes to avoid a prison term, though a sentence of between 24 and 30 months appears highly possible.

Clearly, if he goes to prison Rep. Grimm will be forced to resign his congressional office, and most likely the felony guilty plea will make it legally impossible for him to continue even if he isn’t incarcerated. To become a congressional candidate, one must legally qualify as an elector. Since he will lose his voting privileges upon conviction, Grimm will no longer qualify to serve in Congress.

A pending resignation means Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) will schedule a special election to fill the subsequent vacancy. The 11th District comprises all of Staten Island and part of Brooklyn. Almost two-thirds of the district includes Staten Island, which gives us an indication as to why favorite son Grimm did so well in this district despite his legal problems. Ironically, despite his indictments becoming a major issue in the just-completed campaign, his 2014 performance was the strongest of his three winning efforts for the seat.
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Immigration Politics: The White House Task Force on New Americans

Fox News ran a story over the weekend quoting “Republican strategists” as saying that the new White House Task Force on New Americans is targeting specific numbers of legal non-citizen immigrants in 10 states with the underlying purpose of increasing Democratic voter registration. They complain the Task Force is fast-tracking people in this category for citizenship to make them eligible to participate in the 2016 presidential election in order to increase the Democratic Party advantage.

The Task Force’s stated goal is to help “welcome” the new immigrants and more seamlessly assimilate them into American society. The administration is emphasizing national economic benefits as the reason for making it easier to qualify the legal immigrants for citizenship. They argue that the immigrant population represents 13 percent of the national population, slightly larger than the African American share, but comprises 16 percent of the workforce, and is responsible for creating 28 percent of all new businesses. About half of those in the legal immigrant category are Hispanic, with Asians being the second largest group.

Though voting privileges will be part of attaining citizenship, the 10 states chosen – because 75 percent of the legal immigrants reside in these places – are almost exclusively not swing political states. It is clear that seven of the 10, and maybe as many as nine, are established Electoral Vote havens for one party or the other.
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Inconsistent Turnout/Voting Patterns

As more and more election data makes its way into the public domain, the less sense some key voting patterns seem to be making.

Last week we reported on the turnout patterns for all 50 states and made the observation that voter participation dropped in 35 states when comparing the 2014 mid-term election to the 2010 mid-term. At the time, 2010 was considered to have yielded a low voter model, even in a mid-term election context.

The main conclusion being drawn from the aggregate data is that we may be returning to a similar electoral pattern that we saw in the pre-Reagan era, where Republicans did well in low turnout elections and Democrats excelled when voter participation was higher. This pattern has clearly taken hold since 2006. But, we find more to the 2014 turnout model when looking beyond a cursory overview.

Senate

As we know, the Senate races dominated the political landscape in this past election and saw Republicans gain nine seats to create a new 54R-46D majority (counting the two Independents who caucus with the Democrats). One would figure that, when overlaying the aforementioned observation, the GOP victories came because turnout dropped lower than even four years ago. In fact, the exact opposite is true.
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Breaking Down the 2014 Election by CD

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families. The PRIsm Political Update will return on Monday, Dec. 1. Don’t eat too much!!

Cross Districts

The 2014 election increased the universe of federal “cross-districts”.

In the 2012 presidential election, voters in 411 congressional districts uniformly chose a US House member of the same party as they supported for president. This means only 24 CDs elected a representative belonging to the opposite party of the candidate they backed for the nation’s top office. In 2012, 16 districts elected a Republican representative while simultaneously supporting President Obama; conversely, eight CDs chose a Democratic congressman while voting for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

In 2014, we see a slightly different pattern. The total number of cross-districts rose to 31, but 404 still elected a House member consistent with the party of their previously chosen presidential candidate. Twenty-six of those CDs elected a Republican House member earlier this month, even though those casting ballots supported President Obama two years earlier. Voters in only five incoming House districts backed Romney in 2012, but elected a Democratic Representative in the current election; two Continue reading >

Already Two Open Seats for 2016

Just a week has passed since the 2014 election ended and we already have two US House retirement announcements. Representatives Charlie Rangel (D-NY-13) and Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA-8) have already made public their intention not to seek re-election in 2016.

NY-13: Before his last Democratic primary election in June, Rep. Rangel, embroiled in another close contest with state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, made a public statement that the 2014 election campaign would be his last. After his general election victory, he has now confirmed that he will not run for a 24th term in 2016.

The Democrats will keep the seat because the 13th District is one of their safest seats in the country (Obama ’12: 95 percent). Potential Democratic candidates are Espaillat, for the third time, former Gov. David Paterson, state assemblyman and Manhattan Democratic Party chairman Keith Wright, state Sen. Bill Perkins, and former assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, a former congressional candidate. In 1970, Rangel defeated Powell’s father to first claim the Harlem-based congressional district.

PA-8: Back in 2004 when Rep. Fitzpatrick was first elected to the House, he made a pledge to serve just four terms in Congress. He then was defeated in 2006, only to return in 2010. Now re-elected in 2012 and 2014, he will complete eight non-consecutive years at the end of the succeeding term. Therefore, he announced Continue reading >