OF ASHES AND SASHES – Vacancy Signs Point to a Very “Special” Summer
Just as Ben Franklin assured us of two certainties in life, let the Crystal Ball assure you of two certainties in congressional special elections this year: deaths and taxpayer-funded University posts will be the cause (granted, you won’t hear us complaining too much about the latter). We’ll explain in a minute.
At the moment, to be perfectly precise, the U.S. House stands at 231 Democrats and 201 Republicans. Of course, as every Politics 101 student can tell you, the House should consist of a total of 435 members (or 437, if the body decides to grant additional representation for Utah and Washington, DC). That can mean only one thing: less than five months into the term of the 110th Congress, three districts have sprouted vacancy signs thanks to unusual developments. And a fourth (maybe even a fifth) vacancy could be on the way.
For those of you like we at the Crystal Ball, who cannot wait the one year, five months, and four days–but hey, who’s counting?–until the next regular congressional elections, the special elections created by those vacancies tide us over. Often, these mid-session races are the hardest to predict, because turnout levels can vary wildly. In plenty of cases, exceedingly low voter participation and brief campaign timetables turn special elections into friends-and-neighbors affairs in which candidates really only compete for support in their home bases.
Occasionally, these races can present a mid-cycle opportunity for a one party to steal a seat from the other side. That’s not quite the case so far this year, but sometimes even intense intra-party battles within safe districts can still offer us some insight into the nation’s political climate–and we believe the summer storms now brewing in these tiny slices of the country are in fact worth watching. To date, this year’s lineup of safe-seat vacancies is remarkable for its bipartisan symmetry of unforeseen circumstances.
Within the past few months, one member from each party–Charlie Norwood (R) of Georgia and Juanita Millender-McDonald (D) of California–has died of cancer. While our condolences go out to the family, friends and constituents of both dedicated public servants, government must go on. It’s also possible that by summer’s end, one member from each party–Kenny Hulshof (R) of Missouri and Marty Meehan (D) of Massachusetts–will have accepted top-level administrative posts at large public universities in their home states. No doubt, these politicians have discovered what the Crystal Ball has known for years: the academy is just more fun.
The contests in Democratic-held districts each feature female favorites dueling for safe open seats, an especially welcome bonus for women’s groups such as EMILY’s List that celebrated Nancy Pelosi’s swearing-in as Speaker of the House earlier this year. Crossing the aisle, the races in Republican-held districts will most likely also lack the allure of potential hostile takeover, but make up for it in the entertainment value of the campaigns the candidates will wage.
So hold on tight as the Crystal Ball reads the vacancy signs across the land on this very “special” summer road trip…