Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and the committee's ranking Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, said Sunday they don't have a deal yet on the financial regulatory reform bill - but said they were on the verge of one.
"We're getting there, we're close," Dodd said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I think Richard and I have a pretty good understanding of where we are on the bill."
"We're closer than we've ever been," Shelby said, adding that there are "two or three things" that need to be resolved, singling out efforts to end "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions.
The two men and their staffs planned to meet later Sunday, but Shelby said they needed more time to get a deal. The Republican also said that Democrats "will not get cloture" when they try to break a GOP filibuster to bring a bill that passed the Banking Committee to the Senate floor Monday evening.
"Will we get a bill tomorrow?" Shelby said on the same program. "I doubt it."
Both men suggested they were still negotiating how to deal with provisions that would wind down troubled institutions and attempt to ensure that taxpayers won't be on the hook for future bailouts.
Dodd said they were "down to the point of whether Congress should be involved" on the matter. But Shelby said the bill would still give too much flexibility to the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to help distressed financial institutions.
Shelby said the Dodd bill "now as constituted" will not pass the Senate. But both senators were optimistic that they could get a deal sometime this week.
Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd may like the Obama’s administration’s new bank proposals, but he’s not happy about the roll-out.
Dodd chastised the White House for announcing its latest salvo against the Wall Street mere days after Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate special election, saying the perceived politics of the move has made it difficult to sell the measures to his colleagues.
“The idea that the administration made such a major point a week or so ago seemed to many to be transparently political and not substantive. And it’s adding to the problems of trying to get a bill done,” Dodd lectured Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin and, to a lesser extent, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who appeared before Dodd’s committee Tuesday.
Dodd’s candid remarks came at the end of a lengthy hearing in which Dodd and other Democrats endorsed the bank proposals. But his lecture warned the White House that there’s no guarantee he can get the new measures into the Senate bill – and if they don’t, it’s at least partly the administration’s own fault.
Dodd said he knew that President Barack Obama had settled on the proposals weeks before the Massachussetts election. "[But] the way sometimes these things are announced doesn’t help. And I make recommendations and so forth as to how to do this stuff and then it falls on deaf ears,” Dodd said, suggesting he warned the White House not to announce the proposals when it did. “So we end up in the situation where I'm grappling around here trying to convince people there's a substantive idea here.”
Dodd declined to elaborate further on what advice the White House had ignored, when asked by POLITICO after the hearing.
The failure of the Senate to include the new bank proposals would be a major blow to Obama’s effort to harness voters’ populist anger to Democrats’ advantage.
The measures in question certainly sound like winning political issues: One would ban commercial banks from engaging in high-risk investment activities – the so-called “Volcker rule” since the former Fed Chairman is its architect; the other seeks to curb the size of the nation’s biggest financial institutions.
And at least initially they appear to appeal to a bipartisan desire to reign in the size of the financial behemoths whose risky behaviors triggered the financial crisis.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), for instance, has introduced legislation with Democrat Maria Cantwell that is similar to the Volcker rule, seeking to restore the Depression era wall between commercial and investment banking. McCain said he hasn’t looked at the details of the White House proposals, “but I’m in agreement … we ought to take measures to prevent institutions from being too big to fail. That’s certainly the opinion of my constituents in Arizona.”
But, as Dodd scolded the White House Tuesday, the new proposals come late in the game and in a way that makes Republicans immediately suspect the motives behind them.
The House passed a financial reform bill in December. Dodd introduced a discussion draft in November. The round of bipartisan talks that started after Dodd’s draft have been going on for months, too, and Dodd wants to wrap things up in time for an early March markup. To that end, he has asked the bipartisan working groups that are negotiating key portions of the bill to submit to him their language by mid-February.
“I don't want to be in a position where we end up doing nothing because we tried to do too much at a critical moment,” Dodd said.
And Dodd sent his strongest signal yet that he’s committed to making tough compromises in order to get a bipartisan bill – a stance that means key White House priorities – including the Volcker rule – could get cut in order to get that deal. Also at risk is the adminstration’s proposal to create a stand-alone Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
“I don't want to go to the floor of the United States Senate begging for a 60th vote. I'm not going to do that,” Dodd said at the end of the hearing. He reiterated the point to reporters afterward, saying he doesn’t think the Senate could withstand another knock-down, drag-out fight.
It’s also clear that the lack of detail hasn’t helped the administration’s case on Capitol Hill. Industry lobbyists and lawmakers alike complain that they can’t judge the new proposals without detailed language from Treasury – language that Treasury officials still can’t say when they’ll be able to provide.
“When we call down and say, ‘How does it work?’ and specifically what you had in mind, I expect answers to the questions,” Dodd told Wolin. “We've made the calls and we're not getting good answers.”
Nonetheless, none of the committee’s Republicans outright rejected the proposals Tuesday. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who has the most influence among Republicans over the final shape of the bill, he is “willing to consider any proposal that will strengthen our regulatory framework and help our economy — including the president’s latest recommendations.”
But he, too, tweaked the timing of the measures’ release. “I hope … that this is not an indication that the administration intends to substitute thoughtful analysis with whatever polls well on a given day,” said Shelby, the top Republican on the committee.
Other Republicans expressed more resistance.
Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) both took great pains to argue that the new proposals, had they been in place before the crisis would not have prevented any of the calamities that occurred, an argument being made by financial industry lobbyists opposed to the new measures.
Volcker urged the senators to look forward and also to see it as part of the broader reform package, not a cure-all.
“What I want to get out of the system is taxpayer support for speculative activity, and I want to look ahead,” Volcker said under questioning by Johanns.
“I tell you, sure as I am sitting here, that if banking institutions are protected by the taxpayer and they are given free rein to speculate, I may not live long enough to see the crisis, but my soul is going to come back and haunt you.”
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), another committee member, said before the hearing that he can’t assess the proposals until he sees “hard language” because the implications are just too massive, and he also expressed doubt that the final administration proposal will actually line up with Volcker’s ideas.
But the respect Volcker commands across the aisle has him listening. “The guy has got a folk hero status when it comes to financial policy and deservedly so,” Gregg said.
“It means what he suggests is going to be looked at very seriously, because he’s somebody we should be taking seriously when he comes up with ideas.”
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may be Time magazine’s Man of the Year – but he hasn’t convinced senators he’s the man for the job.
In the wake of Tuesday’s Massachusetts stunner, Bernanke’s chances of returning for a second term as head of the Fed were thrown into doubt, as a pair of liberal Democratic senators on Friday jumped on the dump-Bernanke bandwagon.
It was no idle threat. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he’d call a vote next week but couldn’t say for sure Friday that he has the 60 votes to confirm Bernanke by the time his term expires Jan. 31.
That raised the prospect of a fill-in Fed chief, which would shock a skittish stock market that already dipped 5 percent in three days.
And a Bernanke defeat would be a stunning blow to President Barack Obama, who interrupted his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to re-appoint Bernanke over the summer and now is forced to salvage a nomination that once seemed a shoo-in.
Blame the Scott Brown brushfire. Brown’s upset Senate victory in Massachusetts put the nation’s populist angst on vivid display – the same forces that have led senators, left and right, to target Bernanke for the past few months.
The anti-Bernanke fervor picked up steam this week after Brown’s victory, as senators turned up the volume on their complaints that Bernanke has been too beholden to Wall Street bankers and not attentive enough to the pain for middle-class families.
“It is time for a change – it is time for Main Street to have a champion at the Fed,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Friday in announcing her plan to vote against Bernanke. “Dr. Bernanke played a lead role in crafting the Bush administration’s economic policies, which led to the current economic crisis. Our next Federal Reserve Chairman must represent a clean break from the failed policies of the past.”
On Friday, the White House was moving to firm up Bernanke’s chances. Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner were working the Hill by phone to help him.
And Reid, who had withheld his endorsement of Bernanke after meeting him Thursday, signed on Friday, highlighting Bernanke’s role in staving off a worse recession – the work that won him Time’s honor and plaudits from many economists.
In an election year that’s being driven by populist voter rage over the state of the economy, many lawmakers are wary of casting a vote to support one of the chief architects of the U.S. response to the crisis.
But Bernanke’s supporters tout his role in staving off economic Armageddon once the crisis started and injecting more than $1 trillion in new money into the economy to prevent the economy from shutting down in 2009.
“I don’t want to see the Fed destroyed,” said Ernest Patrikis, a partner at the law firm White & Case who spent 30 years as an official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “People are so upset that they’re flailing left and right. We’re killing the dollar and confidence in the United States as a place to invest. There are issues that are so much more important than getting elected.”
At the Federal Reserve, where one source describes the mood as “weary exasperation,” aides scrambled to put together a plan for what happens if Bernanke does not receive a confirmation vote before his term ends.
In the event that Bernanke isn’t confirmed, several sources say, Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Donald Kohn likely would be elevated to acting chair of the U.S. central bank. Bernanke would be entitled to stay on the board until his term as a Fed governor expires in 2020, but the sources said Bernanke could instead return to a professorship at Princeton University.
Possible successors to Bernanke include three people currently advising Obama on the economy, former Fed chief Paul Volcker, Larry Summers and Christina Romer.
Kohn was traveling in Europe at the end of the week on Fed business, but strategy on the Bernanke confirmation was being led by former Enron lobbyist Linda Robertson, who is viewed as an effective advocate for the banking chief on Capitol Hill.
On Wall Street, executives predicted a dire market reaction if Bernanke’s confirmation fails. “A decision to kill the Bernanke nomination will cause a large and disturbing upset in global financial markets,” said economist Joseph Brusuelas. “Not just equities, but the dollar and interest rates will be immediately impacted.”
Wall Street lobbyists in Washington said they were quietly making the case for Bernanke on Capitol Hill, but were hamstrung by the politics. Because Bernanke has been criticized as too close to Wall Street, they said, the surest way to seal his fate would be for financial lobbyists to make a full court press to save his nomination.
“Three months ago, we thought this was a slam dunk,” said one financial services executive. “And today people think this may not even be a layup. There’s lots of concern in the markets that the politics of the Senate might derail him.”
And at the White House, staffers strategized over how to finesse the delicate politics of confirming a man who has become increasingly linked with the Wall Street bailout policies of the past year and a half. “[White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel] and the other people are all engaged,” said an administration source.
“As the President has said before, he has a great deal of confidence in what Chairman Bernanke did to bring our economy back from the brink,” said White House spokesman Bill Burton. “And he continues to think that he's the best person for the job, and will be confirmed by the United States Senate.”
In the Senate, though, leadership aides said neither Democratic nor Republican leaders were whipping the vote as of Friday, a testament to how fractured the caucuses of both parties are on the fate of Bernanke. Democratic leadership aides said they did not have the votes to confirm Bernanke without significant support from Republicans.
Bernanke has come under fire from the left for being too close to Wall Street, and from the right for his role in extending government control of the financial markets. And both sides have complained that the Fed’s policy of lowering interest rates to spur the economy was part of the problem that led to the crisis of 2008.
And although most Senate watchers continued to predict that Bernanke will squeak through, speculation turned to what happens if he is rejected – and just who might take over one of the most powerful economic positions on the planet.
All the angst puts a rare spotlight on the otherwise-obscure vice chairman of the Fed, Kohn. Officials said Kohn sees the world largely the same way as Bernanke, and the Fed under his control wouldn’t take radically different steps than it has under Bernanke’s reign. “There’s no daylight that I'm aware of between Kohn and Bernanke,” said one former Fed official. “[Kohn has] spent his entire career at the Fed. He’s a creature of the institution.”
Kohn, a native of Philadelphia, is seen as a vital inside player inside the central bank. “He’s the glue that holds the Fed together,” said Patrikis. “If he were the acting chairman, it would be steady on course.”
Democratic leaders on the Hill have very little time left to gather votes before the Jan. 31 deadline. By Senate procedural rules, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would need to file cloture – the procedural move to force debate – on the nomination by sometime Tuesday morning to ensure a final vote during the normal workweek,. The move is necessary because several Republicans and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders plan to filibuster Bernanke nomination.
Late Friday, Reid released a statement offering an endorsement of Bernanke – but did not indicate when he will call a vote. “No one pretends for a minute that our economy is back at full capacity,” Reid said. “But Chairman Bernanke has worked hard to strengthen the economy in recent months . …He also deserves recognition for what didn’t happen: An expert on the Great Depression, Chairman Bernanke helped steer us away from a second one.”
But the Friday announcements by Boxer and Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) opposing Bernanke brought the total of publicly declared “no” votes on both sides of the aisle to about a dozen.
And there are even more undecideds.
“I’m cogitating on it,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). But he’s far from sold on Bernanke. “I just have some uneasy feelings that his mindset is not where we need to be in terms of the Federal Reserve right now.” Harkin said the White House had not reached out to him to support Bernanke.
Dodd, who defended Bernanke against liberal critics during the Democratic caucus lunch Wednesday, told reporters Friday that he doesn’t know where the votes stand but he believes his Democratic colleagues who plan to oppose the Fed chairman are making a mistake.
"If you want to send a worse signal to the markets right now and send us in a tailspin, it would be to reject this nomination. This is not naming someone to be an assistant secretary to something -- this is the most important central banker in the world,” Dodd said.
Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., mounted a defense of his firm amid a grilling today by members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Goldman Sachs is a market-making firm that acquired securities, including mortgages, that were repackaged and sold to clients, and sometimes at a loss, Blankfein told commission Chairman Phil Angelides in response to questioning.
“We represent the other side of what people want to do,” said Blankfein, 55. “Because we had this risk, because we were accumulating positions which, by the way, we acquired from clients who want to sell them to us, we have to go out ourselves and provide and source the other side of the transactions so that we can manage our risk.”
Chiefs of Bank of America Corp., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. defended their firms’ actions and blamed the crisis on conditions such as low long-term interest rates and U.S. government policies that encourage and subsidize home ownership. Blankfein bore the brunt of three hours of questions on issues ranging from short-selling to its dealing with insurer American International Group Inc.
Angelides pressed Blankfein on Goldman Sachs’s sale of mortgage-backed securities, its requests to the credit-rating companies for the highest rating while betting the securities will later fail.
“It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars,” Angelides told Blankfein. “It doesn’t seem to me that that’s a practice that inspires confidence in the markets.”
SEC Probe
The Securities and Exchange Commission and brokerage regulators are examining how Wall Street firms bet against mortgage-linked securities to profit as their clients took losses, people familiar with the matter said in late December after report.
Blankfein and the other executives testified in the first day of hearings of the commission, led by Democrat Angelides, the former California Treasurer, and Bill Thomas, a Republican who is a former congressman from California. The commission was created by Congress to examine the causes of a collapse that roiled global markets and led to a $700 billion U.S. government bailout of the nation’s banks.
“Many firms were too highly leveraged, took on too much risk and did not have sufficient resources to manage those risks effectively in a rapidly changing environment,” Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack, 65, said. “The financial crisis has also made it clear that regulators simply didn’t have the visibility, tools or authority to protect the stability of the financial system as a whole.”
Risk Management
JPMorgan’s focus on risk management and prudent lending, helped the firm avoid setbacks experienced by other companies, said Jamie Dimon, 53, JPMorgan Chase’s chairman and CEO.
The CEOs lead two days of hearings that include Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro and attorneys general from Colorado and Illinois. The panel has six members appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans and has the power to subpoena witnesses and documents.
Blankfein said the firm’s practice of marking assets to market daily helped it decide to cut risk earlier than some rivals. Goldman Sachs was the biggest U.S. securities firm before it and Morgan Stanley converted to banks during the crisis, gaining lending support from the Federal Reserve.
By contrast, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, 50, said mark-to-market accounting exacerbated the crisis as thinly traded assets often had to be recorded at fire-sale prices, triggering losses and further sales.
“The market began to anticipate this downward cycle, and question companies or structures that would become subject to it, in a self-fulfilling way,” Moynihan said in his remarks.
Dimon echoed Moynihan’s concern about mark-to-market accounting.
“Although we are a proponent of fair-value accounting in trading books, we also recognize that market levels resulting from large levels of forced liquidations may not reflect underlying values,” Dimon said.
Congress is considering a financial regulatory overhaul, with the Senate crafting legislation after the House passed a measure last month with rules for derivatives, powers to break apart financial firms whose collapse would threaten the economy and a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The banking industry and the nation’s biggest business lobby have fought to scale back the legislation.
Financial Profit
Profit at financial institutions, which kick off earnings season with JPMorgan’s fourth-quarter report on Jan. 15, has rebounded and may triple by 2011, according to analyst surveys compiled by Bloomberg News. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, the biggest U.S. lender, said last week that it expects to pay record bonuses to some investment bankers. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are all based in New York.
All of the executives provided prescriptions for how regulators and the government should deal with banks whose failure could put the economy at risk -- the so-called too-big- to-fail institutions.
Blankfein, who heads the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, proposed that regulators require firms to submit to continuing public “stress tests” to examine whether they have adequate capital. Regulators may require companies to raise so-called contingent capital if stress tests deem they need more capital.
Automatic Re-capitalization
“Making recapitalization automatic if capital levels fall below a public threshold would minimize systemic risk and force shareholders and bondholders to bear the burden of the firm’s mistakes, not taxpayers or the economy,” Blankfein said.
Dimon called for a regulatory authority that would manage failures of large financial institutions in such a way that shareholders and creditors would be at risk.
“A regulator should be able to terminate management and boards and liquidate assets,” Dimon said. “There is much that can be learned from the process by which the FDIC closes banks today,” he said, referring to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Moynihan said the size of banks shouldn’t be limited and legislation to separate consumer and investment banking -- like the Glass-Steagall law that was overturned in 1999 -- shouldn’t be revived.
“Those arguing for a return of Glass-Steagall are effectively arguing that Bear Stearns was a more stable entity than JPMorgan Chase,” he said. “I don’t see how that is tenable.”
The grim outlook for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections just got a little worse.
Four top Democrats — including veteran Sens. Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan — all prepared to pull the plug on their campaigns in a 24-hour period that began Tuesday, and in the process, offered an unnerving glimpse at the perilous election year ahead.
With Dorgan’s stunning retirement announcement Tuesday evening, Democrats are now facing their bleakest election outlook in years — and the very real possibility the party will lose its 60-40 Senate super majority after the November elections. On the House side, the prospect of a 20 to 30 seat loss is already looking increasingly likely.
“It’s not good news for Democrats,” said Roy Temple, a Democratic strategist. “The reality is this is going to be a challenging year, and this is an additional challenge you would prefer not to have. Because of the success of the last two cycles, there are a lot of seats to defend. This is just an additional complication.”
Dorgan’s announcement was accompanied Tuesday by Michigan Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry’s decision to end his floundering bid for governor, and by the revelation that both Dodd and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter would announce Wednesday that they would not seek reelection.
There is some silver lining in the Democratic cloud: Ritter, Cherry and Dodd were all struggling to gain traction and their departures could actually increase Democratic chances of holding those offices.
Several top-tier prospects immediately surfaced in Colorado as potential Democratic candidates for governor. In Connecticut, Democrats expect that state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will run in Dodd’s place, providing them with a stronger nominee than the embattled five-term senator.
But the retirements of two senior Democratic senators, and the suddenly altered landscapes in Michigan and Colorado, continue a wave of Democratic bailouts that began with a burst of retirements by veteran House Democrats representing competitive districts, followed by the stunning late December party switch by freshman Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith.
In the meantime, President Barack Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s poll ratings have slipped across the board, generic polling is now generally more favorable to Republicans and a handful of promising Democratic House candidates have abruptly ended their campaigns.
Suddenly, the sad sack GOP is looking at its best shot in three election cycles of making serious gains in November.
“Sen. Dorgan’s retirement coupled with the recent spate of retirements by House Democrats show the national mood is swinging against them,” said Carl Forti, a GOP strategist. “With Sen. Blanche Lincoln and others in a precarious position, Democrats will have to thread the needle to get back to 60 seats.”
In Dorgan’s case, Republicans now have a very strong chance at picking up his seat in Republican-oriented North Dakota, a state that Obama lost by eight points in 2008 and John Kerry lost by 27 points in 2004.
Dorgan said his decision had nothing to do with his re-election campaign, where he had yet to face stiff competition — though the popular GOP Gov. John Hoeven might have jumped into the race and forced the senator to wage a fierce campaign. In the wake of Dorgan's announcement, North Dakota GOP Chairman Gary Emineth told POLITICO that he believes Hoeven is likely to run now.
In a memo to staff and later to the press, Dorgan said that he came to his decision over the holiday season and wanted to pursue interests outside politics, including writing two more books, working on energy policy and teaching.
“[M]y decision has no relationship to the prospect of a difficult election contest this year,” Dorgan said. “Frankly, I think if I had decided to run for another term in the Senate I would be reelected.”
Still, his decision forces Democrats to defend yet another open seat in addition to Delaware and Illinois — two states in which Democrats typically run up the score but where the GOP is poised to run competitive candidates this year. And it comes in a year in which Democratic incumbents including Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Arlen Specter, appointed Sen. Michael Bennet and Lincoln are battling weak poll numbers.
“Remember the old Tareyton cigarette slogan? ‘I'd rather fight than switch?’” said Alex Castellanos, who advises the Republican National Committee. “Now that the Democrats are expected to drop under 60, we will probably see other retirements as Democrats decide they would rather retire than fight.”
Despite the souring outlook, Democrats are hopeful about their chances in five of the six states where Senate Republicans have their own retirement-related problems — Ohio, New Hampshire, Missouri, Florida and Kentucky. They envision a scenario in which the economy will yield job growth heading into the midterms, and expect that public perception of the party will brighten if Congress gives final approval to the Democrats’ sweeping health care bill and approves other measures on the ambitious agenda.
Some Democrats give little credence to the retirements, noting that they have no broader meaning other than the fact that individual lawmakers chose not to run for reelection.
“These guys quit sometimes,” said Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist.
The timing — the first week of the new year — and the locales of the retirements makes them hard to dismiss as isolated incidents, however.
In Colorado, the epicenter of the recent Democratic resurgence in the interior west, it is telling that Ritter, a 53-year-old former Denver prosecutor who cruised to victory in 2006, would unexpectedly pull down the curtain on a promising career and that Bennet, the senator he appointed to a vacant Senate seat, would be in jeopardy of losing it.
In Michigan, a state battered by job losses but still a reliable Democratic bulwark in state and federal races in recent years, the heir apparent to two-term Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm is similarly quitting before even starting, unable to raise money or get out from under the shadow of what has become a deeply unpopular administration.
And back in Washington, Democrats were all but blindsided by Dorgan’s decision to retire rather than seek a fourth term in a seat that only he might have been able to hold. Neither the Senate majority leader nor the White House even had a statement prepared.
Compounding the problem for Democrats — and spreading the pain to all three Democratic campaign committees Tuesday — the one Democrat who may be able to hold Dorgan’s seat is Rep. Earl Pomeroy. But if he vacates North Dakota’s at-large seat, that would create another problem: Republicans would be positioned for another House pickup.
The odds for a Republican take over of the North Carolina State Senate just got a lot better. State Senator R.C. Soles (D-Tabor City), the longest serving in the Senate has announced that he will not seek re-election. It’s not that surprising that he has chosen to retire. Aside from being 75 years old, he has been plagued with two scandals, one that he molested a teen aged boy and he is facing a possible indictment for shooting someone in his home last August.
Republicans need to win six Senate seats to take over the body and Soles is another retirement that may make that possible. The district has been trending towards the GOP and Soles opponent last year, Bettie Fennell, came considerably close to defeating him. Soles’ retirement is in addition to a few other Democrat retirements who also represent Republican friendly districts.
Senator David Hoyle of Gastonia represents a heavily Republican leaning district that the GOP will almost certainly pick up. Senator Julia Boseman of Wilmington who like Soles has been embroiled in personal conflicts has also decided not to run for re-election. Her predecessor was a Republican.
Who controls the state legislature next year will be vital as he who has the power controls the redistricting after the Census is completed.
His time to go was several years ago. Tony Rand had his hands directly in steering North Carolina into being the highest taxed state in the southeastern U.S., the beginning of turning the state into a northeastern rust bucket.
There will now be a fight I’m sure among the Senate Democrats to claw their way up to the top and take over as Majority Leader. That should be an interesting sight to behold. What will also be on the radar is how hard the Republicans will fight to try and win this seat when the special election is called. The GOP needs to win six Senate seats if they want to take it over in 2010 before redistricting takes place. I don’t know how heavily Democrat this seat is, but if they can pick it up that will bring them closer to their goal.
There is speculation at Katy’s Conservative Corner as to whether or not Rand’s resignation has anything to do with the recent Easley trials, but according to the N&O he is stepping down to take a position as chairman of the State Parole Board.
R.C. Soles Jr., a N.C. State Senator from Tabor City will be indicted by a grand jury. This was reported in the News and Observer today.
The grand jury wrote in its presentment that it had reason to believe that Soles had committed a crime:
Twelve or more grand jurors concur in finding probable cause to believe that R.C. Soles, Jr. committed the offense of Assault With a Deadly Weapon Inflicting Serious Injury against Thomas Kyle Blackburn in Columbus County on or about August 23, 2009 by unlawfully, willfully and feloniously shooting Thomas Kyle Blackburn and inflicting serious injury.
Looks like we have another Democratic being taken to the woodshed. I wonder if Democrats will call for his resignation like they did the drunk Republican? Will they treat him the same as Rep. Wright?
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Unless I receive a personal Request to do so and I have Professionally Confirmed that the Third Party Organization or Charity is indeed a Legitimate Entity.
NOTE: Anyone who chooses to give to any Third Party Organization NOT Endorsed by BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ is doing so at his or her own risk.
BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ does NOT Discriminate against Politicians, Political Candidates, Organizations or Charities based on Race, Color, Nationality, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Religion, Faith, Disability, Political Affiliation, Creed, Education, Social Status, Age.
This disclaimer applies to ANY and All requests for Donations on this Blog. Thanks for understanding. Again No Personal Offense intended.
For Story Tips….Corrections…….. or Requests for Endorsements:
Please contact me via e-mail: blackpoliticalbuzz@gmail.com
or via my Facebook page: facebook.com/blackpoliticalbuzz
Thanks for stopping by
God Bless
Laurel @BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ
LINKS: POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE & INFORMATIONAL SITES
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