Democratic Member (Barcia of Michigan) to Leave Congress

Associated Press ^ | Thursday, May 02, 2002 | NEDRA PICKLER

[Dog Gone]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Michigan Rep. James Barcia said Thursday that he will leave Congress at the end of his term and run for the state Senate rather than face a friend and fellow Democratic representative in a primary.

The congressional districts represented by Barcia and Rep. Dale Kildee were combined in the reapportionment map drawn by the Republican-controlled Michigan Legislature.

``It appears my political opponents seem to have accomplished with redistricting what they couldn't with the ballot,'' said Barcia, a moderate who often voted with Republicans on abortion, tax cuts and other issues during his 10 years in the House.

Michigan's congressional Democrats are challenging the redistricted map in federal court with the argument that the Legislature drew the map to benefit Republican candidates unfairly. The plan pits incumbent Democrats against each other in two other districts -- Rep. John Dingell against Rep. Lynn Rivers and Rep. Sander Levin against Rep. David Bonior. Bonior also will retire at the end of his term and is running for governor.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson set the trial for May 21-23 in Detroit and pushed back the filing deadline for congressional candidates from May 14 to June 11. Candidates running for state offices, including the Senate, still have to file by May 14.

Kildee said Barcia has been ``a perfect gentleman'' as the two discussed their options for the future.

``We've cried together and we've laughed together over this situation,'' Kildee said. ``From the very beginning, we were both perfectly honest about what we were going to do. I had made it clear to him that I would run no matter what the situation was.''

[The Old Hoosier]

Dammit! Why couldn't Kildee get out instead!

[Dan from Michigan]

DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT!

Two reason why. One, he'd be better than Kildee. Two, he's running against one of the best three Republicans in the state legislature. MIKE GREEN. Green wrote the CCW bill. He's also the guy we gave more PAC money too than anyone else, and for good reason.

This SUCKS. I like Barcia, but he's no Mike Green. GO MIKE GREEN.

[Dan from Michigan]

This ruined my week. Barcia's running against Green who is as pro-2a as Bob Barr or John Hostettler.

[Dan from Michigan]

Redistricting update. Kildee has an easy road, and it's a big loss for the 2nd Amendment.

[Torie]

Kildee was going to win anyway. That is why Barcia decamped.

[Dan from Michigan]

I figured Kildee would win(Flint) too. Unfortunatly, Barcia's running against a good friend of ours(MCRGO) in Mike Green, and that puts us in the hurt locker, bad.

Barcia can neutralize the gun vote too. In fact, I think he has the best gun record in the entire state's congressional delegation.

But Green does one thing Barcia doesn't do. He leads the way. Green writes pro-2a bills. Barcia checks yea or nay. That's why I give the nod to Green.

What makes this REALLY bad is that we are losing a good guy in Congress, and one of our top three pro-2a leaders could very well be defeated here.

I wish they threw Barcia with Stupak instead. He could have taken out Bart.

[Torie]

Some of the Barcia district went to Stupak no? But that was another hopeless task, since if so, Stupak previously represented the lion's share of the district.

[Dan from Michigan]

That's why I give the nod to Green.

Rephrase - give my support to Green.

If Bay doesn't turn out the vote, Green could win. If Bay turns out, Barcia wins hands down. Green will carry Huron and probably the thumb counties. Green is stronger than most Republicans in the area. Barcia is the strongest of all the dems in that area. It's going to be a heavyweight fight.

[Dan from Michigan]

Barcia got carved up. Stupak picked up the Northeast Counties. Alpena south to 2/3 of Bay County. That was ALSO part of Barcia's old district. The thumb was the other part of it(Bonior's now), as was Saginaw.

I would have picked Barcia over Stupak since the gunowners are mad at him and those dems would have no problem going for Barcia. Even 1/2 of Bay County also has twice the voters of Marquette. Alpena is also a bigger one in the area. Add the whole thing (giving some of Stupak's remaining west area to Camp, and part of Camp's area to Kildee) and it's over.

They overcompensated to get rid of Bonior. That's what caused this mess.

[Torie]

I suspect Barcia took a bye on Stupak because Stupak has a lock on the UP. Regionalism counts. It is not all about guns. :)

[BillyBoy]

>> DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT! <<

Yep, this sucks. I warned that something like this would happen. The redistricting is getting rid of the WRONG Dems. Same thing happened in Illinois. The Dem who is leaving is Rep. David Phelps (D) of southern Illinois. He is the ONLY solidly pro-life and pro-gun Democrat in Illinois. Sure, he's not as a good as a Republican but we had a chance to get rid of a liberal Dem instead of a centrist-- and we failed to do so.

Most of the he remaps in the midwest were slanted to get ae Republican majority in the U.S. congress by reconfinguring Democrats out in rural areas. Rurals areas are not a Dem strong hold to begin with, so changing the lines ensures that at least of one them is guranteed to lose. Naturally, when the Dems have to pick and choose between incumbants, they will always pick to save the most liberal Dem in the primary.

The urban areas should have been targeted. They are declining in population. Putting two urban DemocRATs districts together is easy (if you simply remove the suburban neighborhoods that have been added as padding over the years). Either way, an ultra-liberal Dem will lose the primary. The problem is that this basically gurantees the Dems will lose an "minority" member of congress, and the GOP won't do it because the Dems will cry racism. It would actually simply things by giving all the city Dems one black congressman, but oh well.

I will miss Phelps and Barcia.

[Torie]

Illinois was a marvelous deal for the GOP in a split decision. It was a Dem giveaway. There are not a lot of additional GOP seats to be had in major metro areas, even with gerrymanders. That is a pipe dream. In fact, except in Atlanta and maybe Houston and Dallas, I can't think of a one.

[BillyBoy]

>> Illinois was a marvelous deal for the GOP in a split decision. <<

I'm sorry, but going from a 10-10 split in our state delegation, to going to a 10-9 (one seat advantage for the GOP, by losing a Dem seat that ALREADY votes their way on the federal level) was no bargin. The GOP ALREADY had almost all of downstate, they picked off a rural Dem who's district was mostly GOP to begin with, and they let the Chicago 'RATs bully them into ensuring all our liberal Chicago politicans will have "safe" seats for the next decade-- even if that means middle-class suburbanites like myself are stuck with NO represenation because we're convient "filler" for some Chicago district that has lost a thousand constiuents due to people leaving their scummy city area.

The people of southern Illinois are the real losers in this too. The bottom third of Illinois is more like Virginia and has little in common, economically and culturally, with the rest of the state. They are a very rural, foresty region filled with caverns, trails, and small towns. Coal miner country. The remap puts them in with Springfield Republicans. Central Illinois is a few small cities with flat, grassland-- farmer country. Rep. Smirkus (R-Springfield) is a good guy, but he is simply too far away to adquently represent people way down in southern Illinois. Remember, Illinois streches the furthest south of any midwestern state.

We all know where the bad 'RAT politicans in Illinois are: Chicago! Blagojevic, Davis, Rush, Jackson, Guiterrez. They are the ones we need to get rid of.

The downstate dems are Costello (liberal in an area that is almost half GOP-- his district will likely go Republican after he retires), Evans (the ONLY liberal district downstate-- East St. Louis. Keeps all the liberal dems in one area and happy), and Phelps (George W. Bush won his district by 55% under the OLD map-- EVERY Dem they elect is conservative on social issues)

Except for the last decade, Chiago has lost population is every census from 1960 onward. We don't six 'RATs to "represent" the city anymore and we sure don't need to take all the tiny towns in Cook County and force them into those districts. The only suburban areas liberal enough to WANT Chicago Dems in Jesse Jackson's and Jan Schakowsky's. The rest of us will be quite happy living in Hyde and Lipinski's districts. It high time to put two Chicago 'RATs into the same district and watch the fun happen. ;-)

[Torie]

Billy, why don't you try to draw a map with one more GOP district in it. And then post it. Cheers. It is next to impossible. Trust me.

[Torie]

You also might ponder the collapse of population downstate (generally only marginally GOP in any event), and the serious erosion of GOP margins in Chicago suburbs as you go about this task. Illinois is basically a Dem state at this point at the federal level, and will remain so as long as cultural issues are most salient. Get used to it.

[KQQL]

Dan ....slowly the RAT party will no longer have Pro-Gun reps.....you watch and see....with time RAts will be all anti-gun....

[spintreebob]

The "original" map eliminated the district of Dem Rod Bla-goy-eh-vich, giving Republicans the same count. Rod conceded his seat in exchange for the support of Chicago Dems in the primary for Governor, which he won.

But the competence gap between Dem House Speaker Madigan and clueless Republican leader Lee Daniels gave the Chicago Dems the opportunity to shift the losing Dem seat from Chicago to the Southern tip.

Funny thing is, the Southern Dems voted for the guy whose name they can't pronounce despite the fact that they got double crossed by the Chicago Dems. It's a regional thing...who gets the pork... as much as an ideology thing.

Billy, the opportunity exists for someone to educate the Southern Dems on how they got double crossed. Unfortunately, the Republican State Party Chair is still clueless.

[Hellwege]

Chic ago gained surprisingly much population while downstate did loose a lot. Furthermore the suburban GOP districts around Chicago needed to be strengthened as the older suburbs are becoming liberal. The elimination of rod district would have brought about 500.000 people in their district that would have made them even more liberal. with the current plan they could give 200.000 innerring suburbanites away, and god, are they happy about it. Illinois is a brilliant plan for the GOP

[BillyBoy]

>> with the current plan they could give 200.000 innerring suburbanites away, and god, are they happy about it. <<

Oh yeah, we just love having a black panther to "represent" the views of six or seven small, mostly white, middle-class towns. We're disappointed that that both our Democrat state Rep. AND Republican State Senator voted against the "brilliant" resolution. We're really happy that an area that went to Fitzgerald for the U.S. Senate and has a Republican as Chairman of our township will be "represented" on both the state and federal level by Chicago Democrats that Chicago's 19th ward picked FOR us. We really like that city people who blindly vote 90% Democrat can provide only 30% of our districts vote but manage to cancel out the other 70%. We really like that we have not one, but TWO black Chicago Democrats to represent the southside of Chicago when both districts are rapidly losing representation. Oh, and we're really happy that a southern Illinois district that ALREADY votes Republican on the federal level has been "redistricted" to elect a Republican who lives nowhere near the area.

Did you ever stop to think that the Cook County suburbs might be "becoming Democrat" due to the Republicans leaving in disgust, after their party FAILED to stop Chicago from RIGGING the area?

BTW, both Chicago's black AND white population LOST numbers in the last census. The ONLY reason Chicago recorded a SLIGHT gain for the first time in five decades was the hispanic population doubled (not to worry, they already gerrymandered an "Hispanic majority" district back in 1990 when they drew a district that looked like an ink blot). MEANWHILE, what causes Illinois to leapfrog Pennsyvania and become the nation's fifth largest state was the population in the FAR western suburbs basically doubled. Naperville, for instance, is a "suburb" with over 100,000 people and a population larger than Springfield today.

If our friends at GOP, Inc. over in DuPage country would look out for the interests of ALL the Republican-leaning suburbs, we wouldn't have this problem.