Justin's Political Corner

Ann Callis also announced at the meeting that she is stepping down to run for a seat in the new 13th Congressional District. She will make a formal announcement on Monday. Hylla, who was elected chief judge this week after a vote by the other circuit judges, has chaired the circuit’s Mediation Committee that focuses on medical malpractice reform. He is also co-chair of the Mental Health Task Force.

Hylla became a judge in 2006, running on a slate with Callis, and judges Barb Crowder and John Knight. The four were up for retention last November and faced pressure from a grass-roots group known as Citizens for Judicial Integrity. All four were retained.

Also running for the Dems in IL-13: George Gollin.

h/t: The Edwardsville Intelligencer

EDWARDSVILLE - Chief 3rd Circuit Judge Ann Callis plans to resign soon to begin a run for Congress in 2014, sources say.

The decision would place her as a potential Democratic challenger to incumbent U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, a Taylorville Republican who was elected from Illinois’ 13th Congressional District in November.

Callis declined to comment. The Illinois Judicial Code of Conduct requires a judge to resign office upon becoming a candidate for a non-judicial office, either in a primary or general election.

She briefly had considered a run in the 12th Congressional District last fall before party chairmen nominated Bill Enyart of Belleville, who went on to win election.

Callis is a former assistant state’s attorney in Madison and St. Clair counties. She was an associate judge from 1995 to 2001 and has been a circuit judge since 2001.

Her legal career began as a prosecutor in the state’s attorney’s offices in both Madison and St. Clair counties.

In 2002, she became the first woman ever elected a circuit judge in Madison County and primarily has worked as a criminal court judge, hearing dozens of major criminal cases. In 2006, she became the first woman elected chief judge of the circuit. She now is in her fourth term as chief judge.

She was retained by the voters last November.

H/T:  The Alton Telegraph

Emergency room physician David Gill is considering a fifth House bid — and worrying Democrats who believe he’s had his turn to run.

“I haven’t ruled anything in or out either way,” Gill said in a Tuesday phone interview. “I think it was a good campaign we ran last time.”

Gill narrowly lost to GOP Rep. Rodney Davis in the competitive 13th District last November. Gill’s interest creates a potentially messy situation for Democrats, who are trying to recruit Madison County Circuit Court Chief Judge Ann Callis to run for the seat.

Democrats fêted Callis in Washington, D.C., during inauguration weekend, according to multiple sources who saw her there.

Callis did not return a message left at her chambers seeking comment. Last year, Callis considered a bid for the neighboring 12th District but eventually declined.

h/t: RollCall.com

SALEM, Mo. • Like job applicants clutching résumés, more than a dozen Republican candidates for Missouri’s 8th Congressional District seat paraded before an auditorium full of Ozarks-area voters, touting fiscal conservatism, gun rights and pro-life credentials.

There was little disagreement on those or other topics among the 12 men and one woman who participated in a forum Thursday night as they seek to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau.

But both the questions and answers in the event, organized by the GOP congressional committee that will choose the Republican candidate for the post, were telling.

If some national Republicans are suggesting moving the party toward the middle on guns and other hot-button issues, no one here got the memo.

“Here in the Ozarks, most of us have and use guns. This level of freedom is something to be thankful for,” moderator Joyce Karnes told each candidate as part of the pre-set list of six questions. “… We want to know without a shadow of a doubt that (the eventual candidate) would vote to keep that freedom if it comes to that.”

All the candidates said they oppose new gun restrictions.

“Our gun rights are under attack as they’ve never been under attack,” responded candidate Bob Parker of Raymondville, before shouting to the audience, “I need more than 10 rounds to protect my freedom!”

National gun control debate since the recent massacre of children in Connecticut has focused in part on calls to limit semiautomatic ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.

The flood gates that opened after U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned from his seat last November closed on Monday with 22 people filing to represent the 2nd Congressional District.

With the crowded field of 17 Democrats and five Republicans, some candidates were baring their fund-raising credentials to set themselves apart from the pack.

The cadre of candidates is competing in a special primary election set for Feb. 26.

On Monday, onetime state representative Robin Kelly, who resigned from Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s staff last month, announced she already raised $200,000 just since December.

Last week, state Sen. Toi Hutchinson announced she raised $130,000 despite December being “traditionally the most difficult fundraising month of the year.” Both Kelly and Hutchinson lauded their fund-raising prowess as a sign of widespread support within the sprawling district that includes the South Side of Chicago, south suburbs and runs down to Kankakee and Will counties.

One-term former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, who lost against Jackson in a primary last year, didn’t disclose her total, saying she hadn’t added up the numbers yet. But Halvorson said she doesn’t have to work as hard at raising money to run ads because she’s already gone through the initial introduction to the district.

“People are very sick and tired of the amount of emails they’re getting from all these candidates. I’ve got the luxury of not having to do that,” Halvorson said on Monday. “We’re able to go back and just shore up … We don’t have to start from scratch where a lot of candidates are in now.”

The wave of candidates interested in the seat came after Jackson resigned from his position in Congress. In his resignation letter, Jackson for the first time admitted he was under federal scrutiny and was in plea negotiations with authorities. Jackson was absent from Congress beginning in June after he said he suffered from bipolar depression.

Longtime political analyst Don Rose said not only will money be important in the race to replace Jackson but how a candidate spends it will be critical.

“There’s no question that fund-raising is important,” he said. “Nobody has a district-wide reputation so they simply [have] to get their message out. Money is a substantial part of the ballgame.”

Rose qualified that, however, pointing out that U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley was far outspent when he ran in a special election in 2009, and he won with about 22 percent of the vote.

Rose said Halvorson is the only candidate to have a district-wide name, having run in the primary and agreed she probably didn’t need to fund raise as much as other candidates.

Other Democrats who have filed by the Monday deadline include Ald. Anthony Beale; ex-con and former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds, of Dolton, who was replaced by Jackson; Victor Jonathan (formerly Victor Onafuye), of Country Club Hills, a South Side pastor; Clifford Eagleton, of Harvey, Gregory Haynes, of Lynwood; Charles Rayburn of Dolton; Anthony W. Williams of Dolton; Fatimah Muhammad of Chicago; Ernest Fenton of Markham; John Blyth of Chicago; Larry Pickens of Chicago; Patrick Brutus of Chicago.

Republican candidates are: McAllister, James Taylor Sr. of Bradley; Eric Wallace of Flossmoor; Paul McKinley of Chicago and Beverly Reid of Chicago.

h/t: Chicago Sun Times

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder is officially angling to become the GOP nominee for the Show-Me State’s open 8th District seat, a local media outlet reports.

PoliticoMo, a widely read political website in Missouri, reports that Kinder has begun seeking the nomination of the district’s GOP committee, which will choose the party’s nominee.

The seat is poised to become open when Republican Rep. Jo Anne Emerson’s resignation becomes official.

Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon will call a special election once that happens. The district’s party committees will choose their nominees — there will be no primary special election.

The 8th District is a safe Republican seat, but Democrats wasted no time in sniping at Kinder, who faced a rather unique scandal in 2011 involving a photograph of him with a woman at a bar that promoted pantless parties.

“After the dysfunction of the last few weeks in the Republican Congress, the next step is no surprise: having Pants Party Pete as their standard bearer,” said Jesse Ferguson, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

h/t: Roll Call

CHICAGO — An Illinois state lawmaker who was a frontrunner to replace former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. says he’s ending his candidacy because he doesn’t want the felony gun charges he faces to detract from the district’s important issues.

Donne Trotter was arrested Dec. 5 when security screeners at O’Hare International Airport found an unloaded .25-caliber Beretta handgun in his bag.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who left public life two years ago after mysteriously disappearing to visit his then-mistress in Argentina, is poised to re-enter the political arena.

Acknowledging reports that he is seriously weighing a congressional bid for the seat he once held,Sanford wrote in an email late Saturday: “To answer your question, yes the accounts are accurate.”Sanford promised “further conversation on all this” at a later date.

The two-term governor was a rising Republican political star before he vanished from South Carolina for five days in 2009. Reporters were told he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but he later tearfully acknowledged he was visiting Maria Belen Chapur, a woman he called his soul mate at a news conference announcing his affair. The two were engaged earlier this year.

The opening for Sanford comes after Rep. Tim Scott was appointed to fill the remaining two years of Sen. Jim DeMint’s seat. DeMint announced earlier this month he was resigning.

News that Sanford, 52, may be interested in the seat comes days after his ex-wife, Jenny, appeared to be dipping her toe into the state’s political waters.

She was reportedly on Gov. Nikki Haley’s short list of candidates to fill the seat that went to Scott.Jenny Sanford later said she would think about a run for Scott’s seat representing the coastal 1st Congressional District, the seat her ex-husband is now considering.

“I’d be crazy not to look at the race a little bit,” she said Tuesday, before reports about Mark Sanford surfaced.

Mark Sanford knows the 1st District well. Elected to the seat in 1994 — Jenny Sanford managed his first campaign and was a close adviser for most of his career — he served three terms before voters elected him governor in 2002.

The former governor would bring name recognition and money to the race — two things especially important due to the short campaign season and wide-open field.

Whether voters are ready to welcome Sanford back to politics is another issue.

“It’s absolutely absurd. He just has so much baggage. He was such an embarrassment to the state, we don’t need that,” said Gloria Day, a retired attorney in Charleston.

He avoided impeachment but was censured by the Legislature. He also had to pay more than $70,000 in ethics fines — still the largest in state history — after AP investigations raised questions about his use of state, private and commercial aircraft.

Scott will be sworn in Jan. 3 to replace DeMint, who announced his resignation earlier this month to lead The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Scott, who would have to seek election in 2014, will become the state’s first black U.S. senator and the first black Republican U.S. senator from the South since Reconstruction.

Candidates for Scott’s seat must file by the end of January. Primaries will be held in March, with the general election in May.

State GOP Chairman Chad Connelly said as of Friday, 14 Republicans had expressed interest.

“Gov. Sanford getting in would certainly alter the dynamics. That list would go down significantly,” he said.

Based on name recognition alone, Sanford’s chances would be good in a runoff, he said.

Sanford has $1.2 million left in his state campaign coffers.

John Dietz of Daniel Island said the affair wouldn’t affect his vote.

“He said he found his soul mate, and at one point in my life that’s exactly how I felt. I empathized,” said Dietz, a retiree who characterizes himself as a moderate.

Dietz said he was disappointed that Sanford could not work with his fellow Republicans in the Legislature.

“I did not necessarily agree with a lot of things he did politically,” he said. “I’m very much neutral at this point.”

Retired Presbyterian minister Dick Giffen of Mount Pleasant said he wouldn’t support Sanford, but added that it was unrelated to the affair.

“He wasn’t able to bring people together and get action done,” Giffen said. “He didn’t produce anything. … I really wasn’t impressed with him.”

Sanford’s contentious relationship with legislators seemed to worsen with each year of his tenure.

But longtime Republican activist and donor John Rainey, who convinced Sanford to run for governor after leaving Congress, said Sanford’s last six months in office, following his tearful press conference, were his most effective.

h/t: Yahoo! News

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) is expected to run for the state’s 1st Congressional district, currently being vacated by Rep. Tim Scott who is replacing Sen. Jim DeMint in the Senate, CNN reports:

“He’s looking all but certain to do it,” said a former top aide to Sanford, who did not want to be identified while prematurely revealing the plans.

A formal announcement will come soon, the source said.

Sanford’s ex-wife, Jenny, is also reportedly considering a bid for the seat.

h/t: TPM LiveWire

It’s our second resignation of the 113th Congress—and the 113th Congress hasn’t even begun yet. Veteran GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson says she will depart the House in February to take a job as head of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, a lobbying organization for rural utility companies. Democrats are trying to frame Emerson’s departure as the loss of yet another “moderate” Republican lawmaker, but to call Emerson a “moderate” shows just how far to the right her party has lurched. She’s departed from conservative orthodoxy on a few occasions but has otherwise been a reliable vote for the GOP. And yet, just given trends over the last couple of decades, we’re likely to wind up with a replacement even further to the right.

So what happens next? Emerson’s resignation will trigger a special election, of course, and in Missouri, nominations for specials are handled by a committee of party leaders—there’s no primary. That’ll give Emerson a chance to influence who her successor is, but who might that be?

The Great Mentioner has already kicked into high gear regarding possible replacements for Emerson: Analyst Jeff Smith thinks  Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, former Treasurer and failed 2010 Senate candidate Sarah Steelman, outgoing state Sens. Jason Crowley and Kevin Engler, and state party executive director Lloyd Smith could all make a go of it. Nathan Gonzales offers the same list, adding state Rep. Todd Richardson but also saying that Kinder and Smith look to have the inside track. (Both have ties to the Emerson family: Smith was Emerson’s former chief of staff, and Kinder worked for Emerson’s late husband Bill, whom she succeeded in Congress.) Joshua Miller tosses on a couple more: state Reps. Jason Smith and state Sen.-elect Wayne Wallingford.

And if you were wondering, I wouldn’t hold out much hope for an upset possibility: We haven’t crunched the most recent election results yet, but the 8th District went 60-38 for John McCain in 2008, which means it’s extremely red territory. Emerson did draw a well-funded challenge from Iraq vet Tommy Sowers in 2010, but despite spending $1.6 million, he took less than 29 percent of the vote. If anything, I’d guess the 2012 numbers were worse for Team Blue, so this is really going to be a GOP-only affair. No matter what, though, we’ll be following future developments here closely—because we always do!

H/T: David Nir at Daily Kos Elections

The Illinois House of Representatives on Wednesday voted unanimously to move the special election to replace outgoing Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) to April 9, the Associated Press reports.

After the special election was tentatively planned for March 19, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) made it clear earlier this week that he preferred to have it coincide with municipal elections already scheduled for April 9 in order to save the state money. The Senate must now approve the date change.