What Went On Downballot Tonight

A bunch of states held primaries today, but for the most part they weren't too interesting. The biggest news by far was the defeat of White supremacist (and former Ted Cruz presidential campaign chair) Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, who was ousted by State Sen. Randy Feenstra. While this probably locks the normally solid red seat up for the GOP (unless King runs as an independent), most progressives still cheered the defeat of the most avowedly racist member of Congress.

Aside from that, though, there were very few marquee races. Incumbents won, generally quite handily. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D), who defeated former Rep. Elijah Cummings' widow in a special election a few months ago, repeated the feat in tonight's primary to win the Democratic nomination in Maryland's 7th congressional district. There was some barking by the left at targeting House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, but he crushed a progressive challenger with little trouble. Over in Pennsylvania, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, one of the few House Republicans who still can kinda-sorta gesture at being a moderate, looks like he managed to turn back a challenge from his right -- he's up 56/44 with just over half reporting (this seat will be a Democratic target come November).

So barring major action in the federal races, is there anything worth reporting further down the ballot? Potentially.

Start in Massachusetts, which had two State House special elections tonight. Democrats held the HD-37 in Middlesex, and, perhaps more importantly, flipped a Republican seat (HD-3) in Bristol. This follows on the heels of Democrats flipping two Massachusetts State Senate seats from red to blue a few weeks ago. While this has no immediate impact on the Bay State political arena -- Democrats enjoy commanding leads in both legislative chambers -- it still represents good news. The Bristol seat is one where Democrats have historically done well at the top of the ballot but have struggled in more local races; if voters of this ilk are becoming more solidly blue, that can only be a good thing.

Moving over to New Mexico, where a slate of progressive challengers sought to tackle right-wing incumbent Democrats who had joined Republicans to block reproductive rights legislation. In the State Senate, it looks like at least three Democratic incumbents have been defeated, in the 5th, 28th, and 35th Senate districts. Another two races, the 30th district and the 38th district (where the incumbent is State Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen) are too close to call. Also in New Mexico, Teresa Leger Fernandez defeated Valarie Plame to become the Democratic nominee for the third congressional district, vacated by Rep. Ben Lujan (D). I'm not sad about this result.

Montana kind of was a New Mexico in reverse, with the state GOP divided between a moderate "Solutions Caucus" wing (which has been working with legislative Democrats and incumbent Democratic Governor Steve Bullock) and a hard-line ".38 Special" group, which views cooperation as an anathema. Members of both groups faced primary challenges from the other wing, and the overall results were mixed.

Right-wing challengers targeted two moderate state Senators as well as ten state Representatives. On the Senate side, they split (ousting the incumbent in the SD-28 but falling short in the SD-10). In the House, they won in the HD-35, HD-37, and HD-68 but lost in the HD-7, HD-14, HD-21, HD-39, HD-70, HD-86 and HD-88. Meanwhile, centrist challengers took on four .38 special incumbents in the state House, defeating two. The moderates prevailed in the HD-9 and HD-75, while the conservative incumbents hung on the HD-10 and HD-11. Overall, close to a wash.

Our final stop tonight is Pennsylvania, where a bunch of Democratic incumbents appear to be in trouble, but I've yet to find a clear story as to why. Well, that's not wholly true -- in the SD-17, the incumbent is facing sexual harassment allegations, which probably has a lot to do with his troubles. But Democratic incumbents are also trailing in the SD-1 (Farnese), HD-20 (Ravenstahl), HD-182 (Sims), HD-185 (Donatucci), HD-188 (Roebuck), and HD-190 (Green). So far, I haven't found a clear through narrative for these races akin to what we're seeing in New Mexico or Montana. Of the endangered incumbents, Sims is probably the highest profile -- he recently went viral after accusing Republican colleagues of hiding a positive coronavirus diagnosis from House Democrats, placing them in danger. A lot of votes are still being tabulated because they were sent by mail, so I've been cautioned that some of the closer races (including Sims') may change.

Oh, one last thing: in Iowa, just one incumbent lost her primary race -- longtime Democratic state Rep. Vicki Lensing was ousted by University of Iowa law professor Christina Bohannan. I have no idea what these means politically, but I'm always happy to see law professors succeed in their life projects.

It's My Birthday and I'll Roundup If I Want To!

Happy birthday (actual birthday, not blog birthday) to me!

I'm actually not doing anything in particular today, though Jill and I will be going to a hockey game this weekend. In a few weeks, we're planning to invite friends over for board games. If you're wondering "why in a few weeks, David?", the answer is I just had a Super Bowl party, and in typical neurotic millennial fashion I fear it's way too soon to ask my friends to voluntarily hang out with me in a party-like setting again.

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David Roberts summarizes the Green New Deal proposal. He's pretty favorable towards it. So am I.

Weird headline aside, this is an interesting article on Israel's current state of play in Africa. In particular, Islamic extremists on the continent are starting to link their attacks to the Palestinian cause, which is in turn pulling African governments closer to Israel.

Much work needs to be done, but Israeli universities are at the forefront of supporting and integrating Israel's Arab minority, and deserve a ton of praise for it.

Partners for Progressive Israel, on the message that needs to be sent to both the right and left on Israeli and Palestinian rights

Antisemitic flyers at the University of Montana claim "Jews" are attacking the First Amendment.

On the antisemitic roots of the "Jews controlled the slave trade" canard.

Egregious Professor Roundup

I got an email from an academic in Italy addressed to "Egregious Professor David Schraub." Apparently, that's a common issue because "egregio" has a meaning closer to "excellent" in Italian. Nonetheless, I kind of want to change my Twitter handle to "Egregious Professor."

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This is a from last year, but Jacob Levy gives a qualified defense of "safe spaces" in the academic context that is really fantastic, and well-worth a read.

Fifteen Jewish extremists arrested in Israel for threatening Arabs, including the notorious Bentzi Gopstein.

The Montana Republican Party is the sort of place where, if you bodyslam a reporter, you'll have to fend off criticism -- from those who say you should have shot him.

Kevin Williamson has an interesting piece on the pathologies of poor White communities. I don't necessarily endorse it, but it is a rare example of someone taking the way we talk about poor Black communities and earnestly applying those same standards to Trump-backing Whites.

Bezalel Smotrich is a dick in every single possible aspect, so his remarks on the "me too" campaign are entirely on-brand.

Remember how I said "Not Knowing "Zio" is a Slur is an Indictment, Not a Defense"? Yeah, same thing applies to not knowing that portraying George Soros as tentacle-monster encircling the globe is antisemitic.

Appeal to Procedure

Some of you may have heard that a Montana judge imposed a thirty-day sentence in a statutory rape case where s teacher slept with a 14 year old student. Some of you may have then read that the judge was planning to revisit that sentence. And then finally some of you may have read today's headline, which states that "Montana high court blocks hearing on resentencing rapist of girl". And you might have every right to be upset -- except this headline is misleading.

The ruling here does not necessarily mean that the original sentence will stand. Rather, it is a very mundane point of procedure: the trial court can't revisit the sentence at this stage; rather, the remedy is for the appellate courts to review the sentence. As both the prosecution and the defense argued, allowing the trial court to redo its sentencing would dramatically muddy the legal waters on appeal and make it far harder for the appellate courts to provide a full and fair review of the original (or revised) sentence.

So boo to misleading headlines, but everybody else take a deep breath. You may need to save your outrage for later, but at least keep it in the pocket for now.

Red Hot Veto

Montana is so much cooler than the rest of the country (well, its governor is, anyway).

A Jewish German Shepherd

A very cute story about the Montana Jewish community and the local police force's bomb-sniffing German Shepherd. The dog was trained in Israel, and thus only responded to Hebrew commands. Though the police officers got flashcards when they received the dog, they had trouble with pronunciation, and the dog wasn't responding.

Fortunately, one of the officers came across a Hasidic rabbi at this years Channukah candle lighting ceremony, who helped get the Hebrew straight, and now the dog is doing fine.

Via.

Montana Purple?

Kos has gotten a hold of a poll which seems to indicate Montana is in play -- at least if Obama is running:

General Election, 4/6. Likely voters. MoE 4.5%

John McCain 48%
Barack Obama 43%

John McCain 56%
Hillary Clinton 36%

Now, normally I'd consider a poll like this akin to those ones which say Obama might lose Massachusetts in November -- just one of those quirky but utterly unfeasible things that pop up when you poll six months out of election day. But here, I actually see a there there. Democrats are experience a bit of a resurgence in the Big Sky state. Tester's upset Senate victory followed Brian Schweitzer's rise to the governor's mansion, where he has enjoyed a wildly popular reign in office. And Obama has shown real drawing power in the sparsely populated plains and rocky mountain region.

Ultimately, I don't think he'll win Montana, because to do so would require an investment of time and resources not worth its three electoral votes. But just the fact that it is even on the map shows how Democrats are expanding the playing field -- and exploiting a very favorable national climate.

The (Im)perfect Crime

I'm irrationally excited that someone actually tried the "perfect crime" argument after committing a felony in the Montana portion of Yellowstone National Park (via Is That Legal).

The Perfect Crime is an article by Brian Kalt published in the Georgetown Law Journal two years ago, that I actually read when it came out. Basically it notes a loophole in jurisdictional law relating to Yellowstone National Park, which is primarily in Wyoming, but has small portions in Montana and Idaho. Federal law places the entire park under the jurisdiction of the district of Wyoming. But the Sixth Amendment of the constitution requires that juries in criminal cases be made up of citizens from the "state and district" where the crime was committed. In other words, if you commit a crime in the Montana portion of Yellowstone, your jurors theoretically must be drawn from people who live in both the state (Montana) and district (District of Wyoming) of the alleged act. In the case of Montana, that's 40 residents. If you hop on over to Idaho, you're in even more luck--the overlapping population there is zero.

Anyway, someone actually committed a crime in the Montana portion of Yellowstone, and seriously made the "perfect crime" argument to try and get his case dismissed--citing to Kalt's article. (Un)fortunately, the judge rejected the claim, calling the article "esoteric" and saying that applying its reasoning would create legal "no-man's land" in the relevant areas (which was the point of the piece--Kalt advocated closing the loophole). The plea agreement meant the argument can't be appealed, but Kalt says that the question is still open and eventually the 10th Circuit will have to answer it.

So, who's up for a killing spree in Idaho to do some constitutional beta-testing?