Campaigns and Elections' Politics - January 2008 - (Page 46)

Reds&Blues States in the Spotlight New Jersey GOV. JON CORZINE JUST SIGNED a bill abolishing the death penalty in New Jersey. Both the state General Assembly and Senate approved the repeal by about a dozen votes, despite solid support in the state for capital punishment. Critics say the move is a political one, since legislators pushed the bill through during a lame-duck session. The state’s newly elected legislators will be inaugurated this month. “This is in many ways a moral question but it obviously has become a political question,” says Ingrid Reed, a professor at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. “I think it’s unusual that the legislature takes up an important topic in an important session, when in fact this wasn’t a topic on the campaign trail,” says Peter Woolley, a pollster at Fairleigh Dickinson University. “But I respect Senate President Dick Codey’s intuition that if he’s going to get it done, maybe now’s the time to do it.” Woolley l s year s large Woolley added that this yea ’s large legislative turnyear’s a over—33 percent of legislators reired—provided tired—provided a large margin of defense to protect a great deal of the chamber from any voter backlash. The bill makes New ersey e Jersey the ﬁrst state to repeal the death penepeal h alty since it was reint stated more than 30 tated more years ago. Maryland, Montana, Nebraska and , New Mexico tried— c but failed—to pass failed—to d similar bills in 2007. imilar i aA —Theodora A. Blanchﬁeld ﬁeld Louisiana WHAT A MONTH! Bobby Jindal will be sworn in Jan. 14 as the state’s ﬁrst non-white governor since Reconstruction. And then all eyes will be on the special election to ﬁll Jindal’s old seat in the 1st Congressional District. However, unlike the governor’s race, this contest has no clear favorite. Party primaries will be held on March 8, followed by party runoffs on April 5 and the general election on May 3. For the ﬁrst time in 30 years, the party primaries in the congressional race will be closed, although the state Democratic Party will allow independents to vote in its primary. (The Louisiana Legislature voted to abolish the open primary for federal elections in 2006, after years of complaints from Republicans and Democrats alike that the so-called “jungle” primary hurt both parties’ viability.) The 1st District is the state’s most conservative, and is likely to remain in GOP hands. The Republican candidate ﬁeld is large and includes several big names, among them former Gov. Dave Treen, state Sen.-elect Steve Scalise, state Rep. Tim Burns, Slidell Mayor Ben Morris and St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis. John Maginnis, an independent journalist and author of the Louisiana Political Fax Weekly newsletter, says that while the district is not likely to change hands, the race could still shake up the status quo. “It’s really a geographic rivalry more than anything else,” Maginnis says. “The district itself is evenly split between north of the lake [Pontchartrain] and south of the lake. The representative has always come from south of the lake. Now with the migration toward the suburbs north of the lake, 55 percent of the registered Republicans are up there, and the early betting is that you’ll have one strong candidate emerging from both sides.” Maginnis has got his eye on Davis in the north and Scalise in the south. —Jeff Crouere (Bayou Buzz) and Matthew DeLong 46 Politics January 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Campaigns and Elections' Politics - January 2008

Campaigns and Elections' Politics - January 2008 Contents GOP Retirement Woes Getting Girls to Think Politics Movers & Shakers: Karen Hanretty If I Had It To Do Over: Mike McCurry Eve Fairbanks Column Cover Story: Mike Huckabee Hopping the Pond GOP: The Next Generation 5 “Truths” About Women Voters Reds & Blues: States in the Spotlight High Road/Campaign Doc Bookshelf Dick Morris Column John Zogby Column Techbytes Playbook Coming & Going: Who's Where Campaign Sign-ups Marketplace Quips & Slips

Campaigns and Elections' Politics - January 2008

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