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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Pelosi’s intelligence problem: Is Sanford Bishop the solution?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi has decided against naming Alcee Hastings of Florida to the chairmanship of the powerful House intelligence committee. He’s been handicapped by the 1988 impeachment that drove him from a federal judgeship.
But neither will she name Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the committee.
The Washington Post has named three alternatives.
First is Silvestre Reyes of Texas. Next comes Norm Dicks of Washington state. But third is “Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), a conservative African American with Intelligence Committee experience.”
The clam chowder-she crab soup connection
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Mitt Romney has scored a significant coup in South Carolina. Warren Tompkins, one of the key Republican strategists in the South, has signed on as Southeastern senior advisor to the ’08 GOP presidential hopeful’s Commonwealth PAC.
Tompkins grew up with Lee Atwater, was former Gov. Carroll Campbell’s chief of staff and played a big role in both the elder and younger Bush’s presidential campaigns.
He hasn’t been so chummy with Gov. Mark Sanford, who supported Sen. John McCain in the tumultuous 2000 South Carolina Republican primary. McCain has made strides in consolidating his position in South Carolina since that defeat, but this announcement signals that this key ’08 contest is far from a done deal.
If at first you don’t succeed, try again. After that, pack the court.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Having failed twice to oust incumbent justices on the seven-member Georgia Supreme Court, Republicans are apparently ready to try a Roosevelt-era tactic — expanding the court by two more seats.
And possibly to require candidates, currently non-partisan, to pick a Democratic or Republican label.
Morris News Service has the story today.
The article has Shannon Goessling, executive director of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, confirming that the conservative group has been asked by unnamed members of the “legislative leadership” and by national organizations — again unnamed — to look into ways of reorganizing the court.
