For some reason I have the urge to play the Magnum P.I. theme when I see this pic.
Posted on 12/06/2005 1:15:21 PM PST by LdSentinal
U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, the senior member in the U.S. House of Representatives, plans to seek a 14th two-year term.
The Rockwall Republican confirmed plans to run last week.
Candidates began filing for the March 7 primary Saturday, with 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 2 the filing deadline.
“I want to finish the energy thrust, and I want to see gas under $2,” Hall said of his reasons for wanting to serve another two years.
Hall serves as chairman of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The Energy and Commerce Committee is the oldest legislative standing committee in the House of Representatives, enjoying the largest jurisdiction handling a high percentage of bills that make their way through Congress.
“We’ve been trying to pass an energy bill for the last 10 years,” Hall said. “All the tools are in place if we can just pass all the legislation we need, including drilling the ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge).”
“We had to pull that out to get an energy bill to finally pass this time,” Hall said of HB 6, which the president signed into law in August.
With 19 million acres in the ANWR, Hall said wildlife would not be disturbed by drilling in the small region known for containing vast oil resources.
“Drilling for oil is not dirty like in the early days,” Hall said. “It’s clean drilling now, and I can’t see it hurting anything. If it would help keep our kids out of another war, I think we ought to take another look at it.”
Hall said he also wants to see a oil research and development bill pass that he has tried to get through both the House and Senate for the past four years.
“It will help us drill the depths of the Gulf in hard-to-get-to, off-shore areas,“ Hall said. “There are known quantities of oil there.”
Hall said energy, or the lack of it, causes war.
“If we can solve our energy problem, we won’t have the problems we have in a lot of areas, and we won't have to depend on a country two oceans away from us who I don’t personally trust,” Hall said.
About the War in Iraq, Hall said he wants to see our soldiers come home.
“I want to end the war, but I want it done honorably,” he said.
On immigration, Hall said he would like to see “those hard working people have Social Security cards with the pictures on them.”
“They are good family people and they work hard,” Hall said. “I don’t want to give citizenship to people here illegally.”
On the economy, Hall says he sees good signs from the employment rate and the gross national product.
“I know the president believes we can grow our way out of the situation we are in,” Hall said of an increasing national debt. “I see signs of that happening.”
I'm distantly related to the late Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. Most of the rest of my family are Republicans though.
I always wondered what Mr. Sam would make of his beloved Democrat party today.
Interesting, too, which I'm sure you know, is that he was from Eastern Tennessee and moved with his folks at the age of 5 to Texas. Had he stayed in Roane County, Tennessee, he would've been rather limited politically (since it was in the 19th century and still is heavy GOP territory). Then again, Rayburn might very well have ended up as a leader of the Southern Republicans (back when East Tennessee's perpetual 2 GOP members were pretty much the entire Southern delegation). He was just one of those natural politicians.
I see a smidge of a resemblence. Now, if only we could persuade Magnum to take on Feinstein for the Senate...
Ever hear of a fellow named Dick Armey? He got to thinking he owned the seat and that he could pass it to his son. The voters disagreed.
See post #12. Dick Armey didn't time his retirement announcement to benefit his son; those who do usually get their children elected.
Good to see that the "Political Junkie" is on NPR. I used to read his column on WashingtonPost.com.
The other children whe mentioned who failed to follow their father's footsteps in the House were mostly candidates who were running in other districts or were running years after their father retired or died.
When Walter Jones, Jr. ran for the House after his father announced hir retirement, he wasn't really running in his father's district, since he ran in the new 57%-black district that took in black areas throughout eastern NC created in 1992 redistricting (he lost in the run-off to a black candidate, but switched to the GOP soon thereafter and won an adjoining district in 1994).
Yes, Tom Ewing. His son was a car dealer, right? I still think that had Tom Ewing dropped out of the race the day of the filing deadline and his son had filed immediately, he would have had pretty much a free ride both in the primary and the general (unless I'm confused, Tim Johnson beat the Democrat Kelleher in the general by like only 2%).
Let's look at that, because I'm not sure that I can agree with you on that.
Armey announced his retirement in mid-December, 2001, just before the holiday season. See story dated Dec. 12, 2001 from CNN here: http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/12/12/armey.retirement/
Now, you'll say that that's almost a year before the general election, but that isn't relevant. In a sure Republican district such as Armey served, The key dates would be the May primary (less than 5 months after the announcement), and the qualifying deadline would have been near the beginning of March (61 days before the primary election.)
So folks opposing the imperial succession would have had from mid December to the beginning of March, or about 2 and a half months (as a practical matter, only two months since it is hard to get politics organized during the last couple of weeks of December), to line up support and money for the sprint to the May primary.
So I'll say that your statement that Armey didn't time it to try to set up his son is just flat wrong.
I had a lot of respect for Armey before he pulled that stunt.
I couldn't ascertain Sam Ewing's line of work (Barone didn't mention it), but it was rather clear he was not qualified for the seat. If Ewing had tried to pull a stunt like that, it almost would've guaranteed a loss for his son in the general by a lot of angry Republicans sitting it out (and we know how bad it was for the IL GOP in 2000... well, '02 and '04, too). As it was, Johnson beat Kelleher by an unimpressive 6% (in a district Ewing was used to winning by close to 25%). Johnson's hold on the district is as solid as Ewing's. He got 65% in '02 and 61% in '04.
"Johnson's hold on the district is as solid as Ewing's"
I'm convinced that the Armeys would have pulled the last minute switch if their arrogance hadn't convinced them that it wasn't necessary.
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