Is Tim Scott the Next Black Republican Congressman?

An African-American conservative is headed to a runoff in the Republican primary for a South Carolina congressional seat.

By Nick Baumann | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 8:54 PM PDT

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Before adultery charges were leveled against South Carolina's GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, the Republican primary in the first congressional district was probably the state's most exciting race. Nine candidates were duking it out for the GOP nod in this deep red district, including legendary Sen. Strom Thurmond's son, Paul. But it was State Rep. Tim Scott, not Thurmond, who dominated the Republican field on Tuesday night, winning 32 percent of the vote. Since the winner of the GOP primary will stand a good chance of becoming the first district's next representative in Congress, Scott could very well become the first black Republican in either chamber since former Rep. J.C. Watts retired in 2003.
Scott will still have to face Thurmond, who finished second with 16 percent, in a June 22 runoff. But Scott's strict conservatism earned him the endorsement of the far-right Club for Growth, and that support could help carry him through the runoff as well.

We're Still at War:

 Photo of the Day for June 9, 2010

Wed Jun. 9, 2010 2:00 AM PDT

The rear-gunner in a Sikorsky UH-53 helicopter watches the end of the new Mazar-e-Sharif to Termez, Uzbekistan railroad stretch into the distance. When completed, the 47-mile long line will provide a valuable commercial link between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan across the Amu Darya River. Photo via the US Army by Petty Officer 1st Class Mark O'Donald.

Which Dems Are Backing Murkowski's Attack on Carbon Regs?

— By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Jun. 9, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

— epa/ZUMAPress.com

Thursday is D-Day for a play by Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to kneecap the Environmental Protection Agency's power to curb carbon dioxide emissions. Murkowski's measure has the support of at least four Democrats, which has many environmental advocates on edge.
Murkowski has been threatening this gambit since January, shortly after the EPA finalized its conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger human health. That finding, which came in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision, compels the agency to regulate such pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
The senator is using what's called a resolution of disapproval, an obscure procedural tool that enables Congress to overturn regulations set by the executive branch. Because a resolution of disapproval requires only 51 votes to pass and is not susceptible to a filibuster, Murkowski's move presents a sizeable threat. So far, she has 40 co-sponsors, including three Democrats: Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who previously offered a bill that would have delayed EPA regulations for two years, said on Tuesday night that he'll vote for Murkowski's bill. Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia has also expressed support for her effort. Several other coal-state Democrats, like Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, have remained studiously quiet on Murkowski's bill, though they cosponsored Rockefeller's proposal.
Majority Leader Harry Reid's office has gone on the offensive against Murkowski and her Republican supporters. Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, calling the measure a "giveaway to big oil companies" in a statement Tuesday. But Reid's office hasn't mentioned the measure's Democratic backers.

Most key players in the climate debate agree that using the Clean Air Act to cut down carbon emissions is far from ideal—environmentalists, the Obama administration, even James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Senate's leading climate change denier. The Obama administration has said repeatedly that it would prefer Congress pass new legislation specifically to deal with global warming. But so far, the Senate hasn't done that (and its prospects for doing so anytime soon look grim.) And regardless of what Congress does, thanks to Supreme Court's decision and the science on global warming, the EPA is required by law to move forward with regulations.
If successful, Murkowski's resolution of disapproval would remove the only legal weapon the Obama administration has to cut carbon emissions should climate legislation fail this year. Right now, the fate of a climate bill remains in doubt, making the regulatory options even more important.
Murkowski says she's not trying to second-guess climate scientists. "This is not a resolution that in anyway pulls out the underpinnings of the science," she insisted in a press conference Tuesday. Instead, she says her goal is to "make … a statement as to whether Congress or unelected bureaucrats at the EPA should create climate policy." But while Murkowski occasionally talks a good game on climate, attesting that her state is "ground zero" for the impact of global warming, she has consistently rejected measures that would actually seek to address it.
It doesn’t help her case that the press conference she called on the measure Tuesday featured some of the Senate's all-stars of climate denial. There was Inhofe, who reaffirmed his belief that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." There was Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, who noted that, "Without carbon, my trees would die. Carbon occurs naturally." And there was Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, whose contribution was, "People are breathing out CO2 all the time. Would that be a violation of the Clean Air Act under this law?"
Murkowski's spokesman, Robert Dillon, argued that these kinds of remarks didn't undermine Murkowski's mission. "It's a big tent," he said. "I think the economic impacts is the major, overreaching theme here. Every senator is entitled to his own opinion, that's fine." He also downplayed the complaints from automakers that the resolution would cause the "collapse" of the deal they worked out last year with the administration and state governments to set new, national fuel economy and emission standards. Despite automakers' repeated pleas for a single national standard, Dillon argued that they were "forced to the table" and that the fuel economy standards should be left to the Department of Transportation.
The White House issued a statement on Tuesday vowing to veto the measure should it pass both chambers, adding that it would "undermine the Clean Air Act and hinder EPA’s ability to comply with a Supreme Court ruling on greenhouse gasses."
But the big question is why Democrats would want to lend support to Murkowski's effort to thwart the EPA—and at a time when moving to protect the environment might be less politically risky than usual. How many will jump ship? We'll find out Thursday.

Should Teachers' Raises Depend on Kids' Test Scores?

— Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Some states are getting serious about the idea.

— By Jessica Calefati

Wed Jun. 9, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

In late March, when Florida first-grade teacher Julie Mark first heard about a new bill that would make teachers' raises dependent on students' test scores in her state, she thought the bill's proposal sounded so outrageous that it didn't stand a chance at becoming law. "When I have a struggling student, my first thought is, 'What can I do to help this little boy or girl?'" says Mark, "not: 'What can I do to make sure this student is not the one who costs me my salary or my job?'"
But in a matter of weeks, a bill that seemed at first like an outlandish possibility was sitting on Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's desk awaiting his signature. Senate Bill 6 would have dramatically changed the methods used to evaluate public school teachers in the Sunshine State by linking their qualifications for recertification and pay increases to students' standardized test scores. Those who failed to raise their students' scores four out of every five years could have lost their license to teach in Florida, effectively ending their careers as educators. Years of experience in the classroom, advanced degrees and professional credentials would no longer have influenced a teacher's job security and salary more than their students' ability to improve their performance on standardized tests each year.
In April, after weeks of debate pitting Florida's teachers' union against the Republican legislators who supported SB 6, Crist broke from his party and vetoed the bill. But in the month and a half since Crist's veto, two additional states have proposed changes to state law that would link teacher evaluations to standardized test scores, and Colorado has made a similar bill law. New York's bill proposes using student improvement on state exams to determine 20 percent of a teacher's overall evaluation. New Jersey hopes to create a statewide student data system and use it to track students' performance on exams every quarter. Colorado's new law calls for using "value added metrics"—a measure of student test-score improvement year to year—to account for as much as 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation. Teachers whose students aren't up to snuff for two consecutive years will go on probation and lose their right to a hearing before being fired.
Why the sudden flurry of interest in changing state education policies? These four states are among a pool of nearly 40 vying for a slice of the $3.4 billion President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will distribute in September to the second-round winners of Race to the Top, a competition designed to encourage and reward ambitious education reform at the state and local level. (They doled out a total of $600 million to winners Tennessee and Delaware in late March as part of the competition's first round.) To get some of the money—which states need desperately to fill gaping holes in their education budgets and save hundreds of thousands of teachers from scheduled layoffs—applicants must play by Duncan's rules.  These rules include adopting policies that favor charter-school growth, closing failing schools, and linking teacher evaluations to student test-score gains, even though there is little evidence that these strategies will work for the country's struggling schools.

Denise Jerome-Curtin told me about one student she calls her "pride and joy," a teen who worked hard in class holding down a night job at a UPS distribution facility to help support his family. But when UPS slashed its staff and laid him off, he dropped out of school and racked up three felony convictions. He eventually graduated and joined the military, but only after Jerome-Curtin coaxed him back to school as a 17-year-old sophomore and helped him graduate. "Should I be evaluated on that work or on a 65-minute test?" Jerome-Curtin asked.
Colorado's 2006 teacher of the year, Adele Bravo, points out that students' home lives can affect their performance in school dramatically. "A couple of years ago, I was quite surprised to learn I had three families who were illiterate," says Bravo, who teaches second grade. "I love my parents, and they are doing the best they can, but I have to remember that I can't expect these parents to read to their children." Bravo made special accommodations for her students with illiterate families and sent those students off with homework they could do independently, or with stories they could read to their families. But that type of effort cannot be quantified properly with a standardized test.
Bob Schaeffer serves as the public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, an organization that opposes high-stakes standardized exams and advocates other forms of teacher accountability, like students' performance in a course throughout the school year. As more bills linking teacher evaluations to student test scores become law, the results will be as damaging for students as they are unfair to teachers, Schaeffer says. Some of the many excellent teachers who consider test scores a poor measure of their performance could even leave the profession. Schaeffer says evaluating teachers based on student test-score improvement will harm teachers and students because he spends time each day trawling for the latest research on testing. So far, no definitive peer-reviewed study proves that students' test scores are an equitable measure of teacher performance, he says.
There is, however, a mountain of research showing that they don't work. A 2003 study by the RAND Corporation found that evaluating teachers based on students' year-to-year test-score improvements yields unreliable results. A 2009 study (PDF) by UC-Berkeley public policy professor Jesse Rothstein found a correlation between North Carolina elementary school students' fifth-grade classroom assignments and their fourth-grade standardized-test performance. To fairly evaluate teachers using student test scores, principals would need to assign students to classrooms randomly, but Rothstein's findings confirm what most teachers already know—classroom lists are generated using students' reading and math proficiency, their disciplinary records, and their parents' requests for specific teachers, among other factors. Teachers who instruct classes full of gifted students have a better chance at posting test-score gains than their counterparts who work with remedial learners. In his study's conclusion, Rothstein warns that tying teacher evaluations to student testing "will reward or punish teachers who do not deserve it and fail to reward or punish teachers who do."
Plans to use student test scores to evaluate teachers are still pending in New York and New Jersey. Meanwhile, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has insisted that his state's new law "is not a punitive measure, but a way to lift teachers up to a place of effectiveness." And although Colorado's chapter of the American Federation of Teachers ended up endorsing the bill in its 11th hour, the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers' union, remains opposed. Florida's plans to dramatically alter teacher evaluation died with Crist's veto, but bill author and state Sen. John Thrasher (who is also the state GOP's chair) believes nevertheless that Florida will fully implement his proposals one day.
Julie Mark worries that Thrasher's interests to evaluate teachers with student test scores might ultimately prevail, and if they do, she might find herself out of a job. She told me about one student who has severe ADHD, but whose family cannot always afford the medication that helps keep her calm and focused in class. "She couldn't sit still for more than a few minutes, and she was hypersensitive. Getting her through a day without a breakdown was a success," Mark says. "Having her sit for a standardized test would have been nearly impossible."

Taitz filed a "motion to reconsider"

Orly Taitz to Subpoena Pancake Painter

— By Stephanie Mencimer

| Wed Jun. 9, 2010 4:00 AM PDT

Just because she's spent the past few months campaigning to become California's next secretary of state doesn't mean that "birther" queen Dr. Orly Taitz has given up her many court battles seeking to prove that President Barack Obama is not an American citizen. On May 19, Taitz filed a "motion to reconsider" in her mostly failed lawsuit against Obama in DC federal court. And one basis for the motion was none other than a Mother Jones article! Yes, Taitz told the court that she has discovered new evidence of "intimidation and harassment" against her in my story on Dan Lacey, the Minnesota "Painter of Pancakes," who has painted some nude portraits of Taitz giving birth to a pancake.
Taitz told me in May that her opponents have sent copies of the painting to her children and family along with threatening emails in what she believes was an attempt to scare her into dropping her insurgent campaign to be the GOP's candidate for California's secretary of state. She suspects that one of Obama's powerful allies commissioned the painting. I asked Lacey about that and he was cagey on the subject. So Taitz wants to subpoena him to force him to out his benefactor. She writes:

"Recent article by Washington burro [sic] correspondent Stephanie Mencimer shows that “artist” Dan Lacey, who painted despicable art work series “Birther Orly Taitz”, showing Taitz nude, with her legs spread, giving birth and holding bloody placenta, which were sent to her children, posted on the Internet and a local paper, did not work on his own accord. Dan Lacey admitted, that he was commissioned, paid by someone to do this, it was a clear attempt to intimidate Taitz and pressure her to withdraw as a candidate...Lacey refused to provide the reporter Stephanie Mencimer with the name of the person who hired him, who paid him, however during the depositions and upon subpoena this information will be available and will be provided to [the] court. At this time Taitz cannot state with certainty who paid Dan Lacey, however it is common knowledge, that Billionaire George Soros, one of the biggest backers of Obama, through his organization Moveon.org, has commissioned numerous artists to promote Obama and denigrate his opponents and critics."

Lacey, for his part, has responded with a YouTube video in which he promises to reveal the identity of the "puppetmaster" behind the Pancake Birther series, pixel by pixel, as part of his new legal defense fundraising. He promises to enter the name of anyone who donates $2.37 to the defense fund into a drawing to win the new painting, which will be awarded at a "Colors of Orly" art show fundraiser in Minneapolis on July 4th. Watch the video here:



— June 08, 2010 — Wherein I promise to reveal the identity of the person or persons secretly funding my paintings of Orly Taitz giving birth to delicious pancakes.

Some election night results

Live Election Results

Source: AP

Key: * Incumbent | Winner

More Races »

Haley in runoff; Lincoln holds slight lead

Chris Cillizza | The Fix19 mins ago

Despite early attacks and a double-digit lead against opponents, Rep. Nikki Haley narrowly missed the Republican gubernatorial nomination outright. She and Rep. Grisham Barrett will advance to a June 22 runoff.
Read Full Article

Why so many Dems don't like Blanche Lincoln

Shailagh Murray

After years of cautious maneuvering, the Democratic senator committed a series of blunders that riled labor unions and other liberal groups.

Harry Reid takes a backseat to Bryce Harper in Nevada

Paul Kane

Move over Harry Reid -- the Senate majority leader may no longer be the most important Silver State resident hitched to the nation's capital. Stretched across four columns, Harper's draft selection dominated the front page of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Don't forget Utah

Amy Gardner

Utahns are getting ready to pick the Republican they want to replace Sen. Robert Bennett, the three-term senator from Salt Lake City who was ousted at the state convention last month.

What to watch: race by race, hour by hour

Chris Cillizza | The Fix

The marquee race of the night is the Arkansas Senate runoff between Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D).

Tea Party candidates see setback in Virginia

Ben Pershing

Republicans in Northern Virginia decided Tuesday to create a rerun of 2008, nominating Oakton businessman Keith Fimian to face Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D) for the second straight cycle.

Boxer, Fiorina launch preemptive strikes

Perry Bacon Jr. | 448:22 p.m. ET

California-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and former Carly Fiorina, the front-runner for the GOP Senate nomination, have already started launching attacks.

Reporting from the Women Deliver conference

Monday, Jun 7, 2010 18:45 ET

New commitments from the United Nations and the Gates Foundation at the largest maternal health conference ever

By Joan Walsh

Women Deliver video screen shot

I'm taking a break from my normal work to attend a conference sponsored by Women Deliver, an organization that pushes for more funding and better programs to advance maternal and child health globally. It's a global convening, bringing 3,500 speakers and participants from 140 countries.
I've been writing about these issues for a while, and it's thrilling to see how much progress has been made in just the last few years. First, on the messaging front: The Women Deliver pitch -- that investing in the health, education and workforce training of women has a multiplier effect, lifting up families and communities -- has become accepted by hundreds of groups who work on these issues, as well as global political leaders, and the United Nations. U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon opened the conference with a call to push funding for maternal and child health to the top of the global agenda.
And there has been progress: An estimated 526,000 women died of complications relating to childbirth in 1980; that's down to 342,900 in 2008. Those numbers, though, mask a lot of global variation: There was only a small drop in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where maternal mortality is highest. Secretary General Ban told a small round table of journalists this afternoon that of the U.N.'s eight "Millennium Development Goals," adopted at the dawn of the new century to encourage progress in reducing poverty, hunger, illness and AIDS, as well as maternal and child mortality, the world has made the least progress on the two MDGs related to the health of mothers and children.

• Continue reading

Ban and Melinda Gates appeared together to announce a new $1.5 million Gates Foundation initiative in the field. Gates was surprisingly (to me) blunt in a lunchtime speech: "Frankly, policymakers have acted as though the lives of women and children matter less than the lives of men."
Although there's near consensus on the message of Women Deliver, the field is not without its divisions. Lancet editor Richard Horton asked Ban and Gates whether they were pushing for more funds for "safe abortion services," since, according to Horton, an estimated one in seven maternal deaths are actually the result of unsafe abortions. Ban said the U.N. pushes to make sure that "wherever abortion is legal, it is safe" -- that's almost exactly the language of Women Deliver, which backs "safe abortion, when and where legal" -- and Gates said the foundation's money isn't going to abortion services.
But one of the things I admire about this global movement is its ability to focus on areas where there's consensus, on saving as many lives as possible, and (mostly) putting aside issues where there's a lot of disagreement, leaving individual groups to pursue their own separate agendas as well. There's also a little tension about focusing on women primarily as mothers, rather than as autonomous individuals. I understand those reservations, but I've always felt you make progress where you can: It's hard enough to get investment in women as mothers. Let's win that fight and move on to others down the line. (I'm moderating a panel on the language used by movement advocates on Wednesday, where I'm sure all these issues will come up.)
Anyway, it's an inspiring group of people. I'll pop in with more later in the week.

BIG OIL ACCOUNTABILITY!

Contact Alaska Senator Murkowski and Senator Inhoff today! Don’t let them block big oil accountability! The Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act would have spiked the maximum liability for oil companies from a pitiful $75 million to $10 billion—making sure that BP paid for the current man-made catastrophe. But unbelievably, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) opposed the bill and blocked it from even coming to a vote.

Who Really Owns the Gulf of Mexico?

MAP: A sobering look at how oil and gas companies view our coastal assets.

By Michael Mechanic | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 12:34 PM PDT

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Who owns the Gulf of Mexico? That's a question you have to ask while perusing Offshore [1] magazine's 2010 poster of the Gulf—downloadable here [2] as a large PDF, but well worth checking out. Where most people look at the Gulf, they see a vast marine ecosystem, wetlands, and, until recently, gorgeous beaches.
What energy executives see is a massive grid, tangled with scores of oil and gas pipelines and rival fields with macho names that sound like heavy metal bands, black-diamond ski runs, and weapons systems. (See "Quiz: What Do BP and Kurt Cobain Have in Common? [3]") Here's a small detail, slightly blurry, but you get the point. (Red lines are gas pipelines and pink are gas fields, green lines are oil pipelines and green blurbs are oil fields.)

How energy execs view the Gulf: Black dots are Fourchon (left), and Grand Isle, Louisiana
Next, here's another map detail from farther offshore. I circled the site of the ongoing BP Deepwater Horizon spill in yellow.

Map detail: Mississippi Canyon; BP spill site circled.

What these maps really show is the degree to which the Gulf has played host to a feeding frenzy by big energy interests that snap up drilling leases on the cheap. Each of these numbered squares represents a lease site. As you can see from this Offshore magazine chart, the highest bid for a lease this year was about $53 million. Which, when you consider the value of the oil coming out of the Gulf, is chicken feed.

You'll also note that bids are way down from their peak in 2007-2008, but making a strong comeback. As Offshore notes here [4] (scroll down), 77 companies put in 642 bids on 468 tracts totalling more than 2.4 million acres. But the next lease sale, slated for August 18, is unlikely to go so swimmingly.
You can find all of our breaking coverage of the BP disaster here [5].
Follow Michael Mechanic on Twitter [6].



Links:
[1] http://www.offshore-mag.com/index.html
[2] http://www.offshore-mag.com/etc/medialib/platform-7/offshore/maps-and_posters.Par.36859.File.dat/0110 GOM OS Map-ADs.pdf
[3] http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/06/quiz-bp-spill-gulf-oil-gas-fields-kurt-cobain
[4] http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/2980608907/articles/offshore/volume-70/issue-50/departments/gulf-of_mexico.html
[5] http://motherjones.com/../../../../../../../category/primary-tags/bp
[6] http://www.twitter.com/MichaelMechanic

Taxes and the Rich

By Kevin Drum | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 8:55 AM PDT

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Felix Salmon notes Jeff Sachs's suggestion that tax rates on the rich should rise substantially, and demurs: [1]

I don't think this is possible, politically, in either the US or the UK. In the US, the middle classes are implacably opposed to tax hikes on people making more money than they themselves will ever make. I'm not entirely clear on the reasons for this, but I suspect it has something to do with the American Dream of becoming incredibly successful: no one wants to reach that gilded land only to find it full of taxes.

Someone — a journalist or an academic, I'm not sure which — should consider this an assignment desk piece: Why are Americans so unsympathetic to higher taxes on zillionaires? Does it really have something to do with an unfounded optimism about themselves someday becoming rich? I've heard this explanation a thousand times, but there's really never any evidence for it except for one thing: an old poll (which I can't locate just at the moment) showing that 19% of Americans think that someday they'll be millionaires. The problem is that (a) it's just one poll and (b) it's still only 19%. If that were really the reason Americans were opposed to taxing the rich, we'd still have about 80% of the country in favor.
So what is the reason? The "American Dream" answer is one possibility. Generic anti-tax fervor is a possibility. A principled sense of justice (i.e., no one should have to pay more than half their income in taxes, or some such) is a possibility. Widespread delusion about how much the rich currently pay in taxes is a possibility. There are lots of possibilities. But which of these are actually the prime motivators? Someone should try to find out.

Senators Intro Bill to Give Oil Spill Panel Power of Subpoena

By Kate Sheppard | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 11:59 AM PDT

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A group of 10 Democratic senators introduced legislation on Tuesday that would grant subpoena power to the oil spill commission that President Obama appointed last month. The power of subpoena would allow the panel to force witnesses to testify or produce evidence for the investigation.
"Subpoena power is absolutely necessary to make sure that all responsible parties provide us with the information and evidence we need in order to prevent an economic and environmental disaster of this magnitude from ever happening again," said Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), one of the bill's cosponsors.
John Kerry (D-Mass.), another sponsor of the legislation, said that without subpoena power, "a commission is just window dressing."
Obama announced the formation of the panel on May 22, appointing former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham and former Republican EPA administrator William K. Reilly as the two co-chairs. The panel is charged with investigating what happened to lead up to the explosion and spill from the Deepwater Horizon, and how to move forward with offshore drilling. Additional members will be added to the panel in the coming weeks. The president, however, cannot grant the commission subpoena power, which would allow it to access crucial information -- documents, videos, witnesses and anything else that might be needed for the investigation.
In addition to Kerry and Shaheen, the bill's sponsors are: Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mark Begich (D-Ark.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).
The commission is expected to issue a report on the Deepwater Horizon spill and recommendations for future of offshore drilling to the president by the end of the year. But as of last week, Graham said it still hadn't talked to BP [1]. Meanwhile, some have criticized Reilly's ties to the oil industry [2] as possibly affecting his ability to preside over the panel.
UPDATE: The White House issued a statement noting that while the president can't give the commission subpoena power, he "has committed the full cooperation of the federal government to the Commission and its mandate," said spokesman Ben LaBolt. "The President looks forward to working with Members of Congress to ensure that the Commission has the tools and resources it needs to get the job done and that nothing slows down the efforts to get the Commission up and running as soon as possible."

Nikki Haley jumps to double digit lead in SC-Gov race

South Carolina state Rep. Nikki Haley jumped into a double digit lead in the early returns in the Palmetto State governor's race, an early indication that personal attacks aimed at her in the final week of the campaign had backfired.
With 30 percent of all votes counted, Haley stood at 48 percent while Rep. Gresham Barrett took second with 23 percent. State Attorney General Henry McMaster and Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer lagged behind.
Unless she breaks 50 percent of the vote, Haley and the second-leading vote-getter will tangle in a June 22 runoff although her current margin suggests she would be a considerable favorite in that contest.
The South Carolina seat, which is being vacated by scandal-plagued Gov. Mark Sanford (R), drew national attention in recent weeks as two men came forward to say they had conducted extramarital affairs with Haley. She denied the allegations, ran TV ads featuring her husband and children and watched as her poll numbers soared.
The South Carolina race was one of a slew of competitive contests across the country as 12 states headed to the polls today.
In Virginia's 1st, 2nd and 5th districts, Reps. Rob Wittman, auto dealer Scott Rigell and state Sen. Robert Hurt -- all of whom enjoyed establishment support -- cruised to victories over candidates with the support of the tea party nationally.
And, in Georgia former state Rep. Tom Graves won a special election runoff to serve the remaining months of the term of former Rep. Nathan Deal (R) who resigned the seat to run for governor.
The other major national race on the docket tonight is in Arkansas where Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) faces a battle for her political life in a runoff race against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.
Lincoln hoped to avoid joining an ignominious list of incumbent Senators to lose intraparty fights this year. Utah Sen. Bob Bennett (R) and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (D) have already lost their renomination bids.
Lincoln's political fate is very much up in the air heading into tonight's vote as organized labor has spent millions against her -- seeking to punish her for opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act and the inclusion of the public option in the health care bill.
She has countered with former President Bill Clinton who has been all over the television airwaves in the final days of the runoff to cast Lincoln as the best choice for the state's voters. Clinton, both sides acknowledge, is extremely popular in the Razorback State -- dating back to his time as governor during the 1980s.
In Nevada, Gov. Jim Gibbons, who has been in an ethical cloud since winning the office in 2006, was expected to lose in a Republican primary to former U.S. District judge Brian Sandoval. Former state Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, a favorite of the tea party movement, was seen as the likely winner of a contest Republican primary for the right to face Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) this fall.
In California, free spending businesswomen Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, and Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard executive, are the GOP favorites for governor and Senate, respectively.

Nikki Haley: 10 things you didn't know about the S.C. Republican

By Philip Rucker
The past few days on the campaign trail, South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley liked to joke that she went from "Nikki Who?" to a near-permanent spot on the front pages of the Palmetto State's newspapers.
If the 38-year-old state representative becomes the Republican nominee for governor, she also instantly becomes one of the national GOP's most promising rising stars. She's smart and serious about policy, and a charismatic campaigner who dresses stylishly and can deliver barbed attacks with a smile.
So we interviewed Haley and her advisers and scoured local news archives to bring you 10 things you may not know about her:
1) She's a dragon slayer. This is not the first time Haley has upset her party's political establishment. In 2004, at age 32, she challenged state Rep. Larry Koon (R), a 30-year veteran and the state's longest-serving representative. Koon's family settled in the Lexington County district in the 1730s; Haley had lived there for five years. But she waved to commuters at subdivision entrances, passed out coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts in neighborhoods, and won a runoff over Koons by collecting 54 percent of the vote.
2) She is married to a National Guardsman. Haley's husband, Michael, is a full-time employee with the Army and as an officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard. When they met, his name was Bill, but Nikki made him start going by his middle name, Michael. As she told one of her campaign advisers, "He didn't look like a 'Bill.'"
3) She's an accountant. At age 13, Haley began keeping the books at her parents' business, a women's fine-clothing boutique called Exotica in Lexington, S.C. She went on to Clemson University, where she majored in accounting, and has held finance and accounting jobs and has served on the Lexington County Chamber of Commerce board.
4) She's the daughter of Sikh immigrants from India. Haley's parents, Dr. Ajit and Raj Randhawa immigrated from Amritsar to the tiny town of Bamberg, S.C. (population 3,733). Nikki was born there and grew up with a sister, Simran, and two brothers, Mitti and Charan. Mitti was an active-duty officer in the Army for 20 years and fought in Desert Storm. Haley could become only the second Indian American governor in the country, joining Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R).
5) She shortened her name. Haley's full name is Nimrata Randhawa Haley, but when she entered politics, she went by Nikki Haley. She dropped her maiden name because, as she once told the Charlotte Observer, "It wouldn't fit on a yard sign."
6) She converted to Christianity. Although Haley was raised a Sikh, she married a Methodist and is raising her two children, Rena and Nalin, as Methodists. Haley has said she attends services of both faiths, but has converted to Methodism and often speaks about her faith in God on the campaign trail. Nikki Haley became the first descendant of the Sikh religion elected to any state legislature in the United States.
7) She is being advised by Mark Sanford's political team. When Haley entered the state legislature, Gov. Mark Sanford (R) singled her out as a protegee. They both were conservative reformers, advocating fiscal restraint and smaller government. Sanford groomed her to be his hand-picked successor, and she began working with one of his longtime political consultants, Jon Lerner, who also advises the conservative Club for Growth. After Sanford became entangled in personal scandal last year, Haley kept her distance from the tainted governor, but Lerner continued to advise her campaign and Haley won the endorsement of the governor's popular ex-wife, Jenny Sanford.
8) She holds a concealed-weapons permit.
9) She is cheap. Haley ran her governor's campaign on such a tight budget, an adviser said, that she could not afford to pay for lawn signs. She still ordered thousands of signs, but her campaign sold them to supporters for $5 apiece. She ended up making a profit off the lawn signs.
10) She's celebrating more than an election. Tuesday was also the 12th birthday of her daughter Rena.

Few Show Up for Wacky Maine Race

— By Andy Kroll

| Tue Jun. 8, 2010 5:12 PM PDT

Tonight's Democratic and Republican gubernatorial primaries in Maine are about as wide open as these kinds of elections get. Here's what I reported yesterday on Maine's comically diffuse primaries:

On the blue side, the frontrunner by the slimmest of margins is state Sen. Libby Mitchell with 13 percentage points, followed by former state attorney general Steve Rowe (12 points), businesswoman Rosa Scarcelli (7 points), and Maine conservation department commissioner Patrick McGowan (6 points).
In the Republican primary, the field is even more fragmented. Businessman (and former Boston Red Sox vice president) Les Otten leads the way with 17 points—a 7-point gap over his nearest competitor, Paul LePage, mayor of Waterville. Rounding out the rest of the Republican slate, all with single-digit support, are state Sen. Peter Mills, education executive Bill Beardsley, businessman Bruce Poliquin, and Matt Jacobson, who heads a Maine job creation organization. Whew.
Perhaps the most telling statistic is this: The undecided comprise 62 percent of Democratic primary voters and 47 percent of GOPers. When Maine voters show up tomorrow, there's no telling who'll take the nominations.

Now, with the polls closed, the latest news in Maine's primaries is that voter turnout is expected to—not surprisingly—be quite low. Maine's secretary of state told the Associated Press he's expecting a turnout of just 20 percent. That throws the results of today's Maine primaries further into flux, with so few votes spread across an array of challengers, each separated by a few percentage points in the polls. When the votes are all counted later tonight, whoever does come out on top will likely do so by squeaking out the narrowest of victories.

Nikki Haley, Gresham Barrett advance to SC-Gov runoff

South Carolina state Rep. Nikki Haley (R) weathered a series of personal attacks to narrowly miss winning the Republican gubernatorial nomination outright tonight. She will advance to a June 22 runoff as a clear favorite for the GOP nod.
Haley stood at 49 percent of the vote with more than 90 percent of precincts reporting, well ahead of Rep. Gresham Barrett who took 22 percent. The Associated Press called a runoff shortly before 10 pm eastern time, however, concluding that Haley would not break 50 percent of the vote. State Attorney General Henry McMaster and Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer lagged far behind.
On the Democratic side state Sen. Vincent Sheheen easily won the nomination and will await the GOP nominee.
The South Carolina GOP primary to replace scandal-plagued Gov. Mark Sanford (R) drew national attention in recent weeks as two men came forward to say they had conducted extramarital affairs with Haley. She denied the allegations, ran TV ads featuring her husband and children and watched as her poll numbers soared.
Elsewhere in South Carolina, Rep. Bob Inglis faces a runoff with Spartanburg solicitor Trey Gowdy in the 4th district -- creating the very real possibility that Inglis could be the third House incumbent to lose a primary fight this year.
South Carolina was one of 12 states -- from Maine to California -- to host races today.
The other marquee contest of the night is in Arkansas where Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) faces a battle for her political life in a runoff race against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.
With 27 percent of precincts reporting, Lincoln held a 52 percent to 48 percent edge over Halter.
Lincoln took 44.5 percent to Halter's 42.5 percent in the May 18 primary but both sides were expecting a very close race tonight.
Lincoln hoped to avoid joining an ignominious list of incumbent Senators to lose intraparty fights this year. Utah Sen. Bob Bennett (R) and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (D) have already lost their renomination bids.
Lincoln's political fate is very much up in the air heading into tonight's vote as organized labor has spent millions against her -- seeking to punish her for opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act and the inclusion of the public option in the health care bill.
She has countered with former President Bill Clinton who has been all over the television airwaves in the final days of the runoff to cast Lincoln as the best choice for the state's voters. Clinton, both sides acknowledge, is extremely popular in the Razorback State -- dating back to his time as governor during the 1980s.
In Nevada, Gov. Jim Gibbons, who has been in an ethical cloud since winning the office in 2006, was expected to lose in a Republican primary to former U.S. District judge Brian Sandoval. Former state Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, a favorite of the tea party movement, was seen as the likely winner of a contest Republican primary for the right to face Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) this fall.
In California, free spending businesswomen Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, and Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard executive, are the GOP favorites for governor and Senate, respectively.
Earlier in the night in Virginia's 1st, 2nd and 5th districts, Reps. Rob Wittman, auto dealer Scott Rigell and state Sen. Robert Hurt -- all of whom enjoyed establishment support -- cruised to victories over candidates with the support of the tea party nationally. In the northern Virginia 11th district, which Republicans believe is a potential pickup opportunity this fall, 2008 nominee Keith Fimian bested Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity.
And, in Georgia former state Rep. Tom Graves won a special election runoff to serve the remaining months of the term of former Rep. Nathan Deal (R) who resigned the seat to run for governor.

Dominant, SC's Haley Heads To Runoff

The scandal-plagued gubernatorial candidate almost secures guaranteed victory.

By Andy Kroll | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 7:32 PM PDT

---

Suspiciously timed allegations of extramarital affairs in the weeks before tonight's primary couldn't stop Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley. Endorsed by Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin, Haley all but swept aside the salacious claims of infidelity made by a conservative blogger and South Carolina political consultant, and scored a dominant victory [1] tonight. Forty-nine percent of Republican voters chose her, while the next highest vote-getter, Rep. Grisham Barrett, received less than half that, with 22 percent support.
But would Haley have reached or surpassed the 50 percent mark without the affair allegations? If she'd cleared this hurdle, she would've surpassed the threshold requiring a run-off vote against the number two candidate in the primary. Instead, Barrett will challenge Haley, a Barrett aide tells [2] Politico, in a June 22 run-off to decide who gets the South Carolina GOP's nomination for the fall election.
Obviously, Haley would've rather won outright in today's primary and avoided a few weeks of intraparty battling. Worse yet, the 14 days between now and the Haley-Barrett face-off will give the second-place candidate more time to harp on the allegations that dogged Haley in the past two weeks. Then again, if Haley had surpassed 50 percent, she'd likely face similar questions from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen, who won today's primary with 59 percent of the votes.
On one hand, Haley's victory is a high-profile win for female candidates on a night in which we'll likely see victories from California's Meg Whitman, a GOP gubernatorial candidate, and Carly Fiorina, a GOP US Senate candidate. Both powerful executives turned Republican politicians, Whitman and Fiorina entered today's primaries leading in the polls, and have a good shot at claiming their respective GOP candidacies.
On the other, as National Governors Association director Nathan Daschle has said (via Real Clear Politics [3]), Haley's victory is just as much a win for Democrats: "Democrats are the clear winner in both tonight's primaries. The divisive, ugly GOP primary has done nothing but turn off voters who are tired with politics-as-usual. The next two weeks promise a race to the bottom as Nikki Haley and Gresham Barrett battle it out for the nomination."