Posted on 05/23/2013 2:30:55 PM PDT by Perdogg
GOP Rep. Jo Bonner is resigning after a decade in Congress to take a job at the University of Alabama, he announced Thursday.
The congressman said he would leave the House by Aug. 15 to become vice chancellor of government relations and economic development at the University of Alabama System. Bonner’s sister, Judy, is the president of the university’s school in Tuscaloosa.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Do Congressmen who resign ever take jobs in the private sector (jobs where they lobby Congress on behalf of the private sector don't count)?
It’d be nice to get a Tea Partier into this seat (solid Republican since 1964).
The odds of Alabama former governor Riley being picked as the temp for the job? Better than fifty percent I think. He was in DC for a one-day visit about six weeks ago.
Blast. Out of the corner of my eye, it looked like “Boehner” for a split second.
Never heard of Jo........
He’s a RINO. Very Republican district. DEFINITELY a Tea Party pickup opportunity.
Not a liberal, but not a Conservative. Too representative of the moderate wing, of which there is way too many. The worst example in AL is Bachus, and after almost 21 years in the House, he has curdled.
Good...He was pathetic and just did as he was told by the party...What a joke.
You believe he is considering running in a primary in a special election for this open seat? Kind of a small job for a former governor.
I'd say zero. House vacancies are filled by special elections. Nobody is appointed.
No. Never that I can recall.
With liberals, incest is okay as long as you keep it in the family.
Leni
If he is not a conservative,he aint worth counting.
Riley doesn’t reside in that district (although one need only live in a given state, not a given district). Don’t forget, however, former Gov. Sanford just ran and won his old House district.
An opportunity to get someone better I guess but I’m fed up with these quitters. We still haven’t filled Emerson’s seat.
Why did you run for reelection if you wanted to quit, Jo?
He should have to pay for the special election.
At least it’s not as dumb as what happened in Canada a few weeks ago. They had a Conservative cabinet member resign to contest his seat again after some “irregularities in his campaign spending” cropped up 2 years later. Naturally he lost to the Liberal.
We haven’t had idiocy like here that since Phil Gramm did the “honorable” thing and resigned when he switched parties.
Really lame example from the UK a few years ago, David Davis (who was beaten by Cameron in the Tory leadership election) resigned just so he could run a new campaign highlighting civil liberties. I don’t know what the hell was up with that. What a waste of taxpayer money.
Hell, I reached my breaking point several years ago when Hastert resigned his seat in mid-term. The RATs ended up taking that seat when Oberweis became the GOP nominee and had only a few months to campaign for the special election (and ended up losing the regular November election as well!)
Forcing these politicians to pay for the special elections they cause by vacating their seats after winning a primary or general election is an excellent idea. Of course there would have a clause allowing you to resign in the event of an emergency (Congressman suffers a major stroke and cannot discharge the duties of his/her office, Congressman gets indicted, etc.) but otherwise there would be heavy penalties for cutting and running in the middle of a term. They also need to pass a law preventing them from running for two offices simultaneously in one election. Pick one! If you try to run for a new office and you don't win it, too freakin' bad, back to the private sector for you. I'm tired of Lieberman, Biden, Paul Ryan, etc. hedging their bets and running for Vice President AND re-election to Congress.
Funny thing, now that I think about it, one of the FEW things Illinois does effectively is coordinate elections so they DON'T waste taxpayers money.
Other states have completely idiotic and useless sets of elections, like one primary election day for the RATs, a different primary election day for the GOP... one primary election day the presidential candidates, one primary election day for the downticket candidates, etc., etc. New Hampshire insists on having their presidential primary wayyyy before anyone else has it and long before it's needed, in Janunary, and then they wait around for months and have their primary for other offices like U.S. Senate like a month before the general election so there's no time for the nominees to campaign! What the hell? It's a complete waste of time and money, they need to consolidate all those elections into ONE primary and ONE general like we do in Illinois.
Even when all these slimy politicians pull a fast one and resign in the middle of their term, Illinois tends to coordinate the special election to occur on the ballot with a regularly scheduled election so they don't have to waste extra time and money having another election day. The special election for Obama's vacant Senate seat was held the same day as the Nov. 2010 general election (so I got to vote against Mark Kirk TWICE! Yippee!) and the special election for Jesse Jackson Jr.'s vacant house seat was held the same day as the regularly scheduled local city/village elections in Cook County (April 9, 2013). If it was another state, they would have managed to get five separation elections out of that.
I think the all time winner for "unnecessary special election days" is California. They had three of them during AHNULD, and each one was a worthless waste of time and money. First the recall election where they accomplished nothing because they replaced a big spending liberal Dem with a big spending liberal RINO, then a bizarre "special election" so Arnold could rush out a bunch of half-assed ballot initiatives before voters instead of waiting around a few months to put them on a regularly scheduled election ballot (Every single one of Arnold's initiatives failed!), THEN, after he had "learned his lesson", ANOTHER special election two years later (again, a few months before they could simply place them on the ballot during a regular election) because it was a "fiscal emergency" and they demanded voters pass a bunch of tax hikes to "save" the state (all these initiatives failed as well).
I'd love to know how much taxpayers money they wasted with the combined cost of all three of those "Special elections" that accomplished zilch. During Ahnuld's reign, the state called "special elections", so often, they could have abolished regular elections and still gotten voters to the polls every two years!
it is hard to believe that Beatnik me is back in the fray ... special election here in CT and I signed up for it. Nothing like a close election for a state house seat ... and a great candidate in the middle of it to break a personal boycott.
I will muddle haiku to myself as I campaign, however.
I am out the door at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. Praise God that a true conservative is running for an open seat and the locals were smart enough to nominate him.
Pete rises from rest,
harkens back to days of good,
victory or else
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