Free Republic

Democratic Assemblymember Jim Cooper, who represents the 9th District — which includes parts of Sacramento and San Joaquin counties — was found with a loaded pistol last week, Transportation Security Administration officials confirmed to Politico. Cooper, a former sheriff’s deputy, told the political news outlet he was legally able to possess a firearm in an airport. His office also said that the pistol was in his bag by accident. TSA regulations forbid the possession of a loaded firearm in checked or carry-on baggage but permit carrying a firearm and ammunition separately in checked baggage. Politico also notes that “a retired...

After over two years of campaigns and a voided November general election over allegations of ballot fraud, voters in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District will finally choose their next congressman on Tuesday. As the campaign comes to a close, President Trump is front and center in the election: Republican Dan Bishop has explicitly tied himself to the president and cast his opponent, Democrat Dan McCready, as a radical socialist. The president will also be front and center at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Monday, where Mr. Trump will stump for Bishop. A recent TV ad by Bishop's campaign...

The spectacle in North Carolina's 9th District makes 2018 feel like the election that will never end. And, the looming presidential primaries are rapidly overshadowing congressional politics. But the 2020 fight for the House is already underway, with both the DCCC and NRCC working behind the scenes to identify the most ideal recruits and releasing ambitious lists of targeted districts to declare they are "on offense." Republicans will need to gain 18 seats to win back the majority (or 19 depending on the outcome of a new election in NC-09), and have no shortage of good-looking targets, at least on...

Republican Mark Harris on Thursday called for a new election in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, saying that allegations of ballot tampering have shaken the public’s confidence in the race’s outcome. Harris’s request, which came at a hearing of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, was a stunning reversal for the Republican House candidate, who has for months urged state elections officials to certify him as the winner in the race. --This is a developing story.

RALEIGH The state’s investigation into alleged election fraud by the Mark Harris campaign will continue, a judge ruled Tuesday morning. Harris is the Republican candidate who appeared to narrowly win an election for North Carolina’s 9th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 elections. But the state has not certified his victory, due to an ongoing investigation into alleged fraud related to mail-in absentee ballots. Harris and his legal team had asked Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway to order the state to certify the results of the election despite the investigation, which could then...

<p>With the race between North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory and Democrat Roy Cooper down to a razor-thin margin, Republicans filed claims of voter fraud with county boards of election around the state. The GOP was aiming to delegitimize Cooper’s lead and to legitimize years of effort to overhaul voting laws to make them more restrictive, claiming serious fraud.</p>

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said Thursday that Democrats are closely monitoring fraud allegations in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District but said they would only call for a new election if it’s impossible to determine the winner. “The House Administration Committee will have full investigative authority to determine the winner of the election,” Pelosi said. “And … only if it’s impossible to determine who the winner is, would we take the extraordinary step of calling for a new election.” The midterm results in North Carolina’s 9th District have been embroiled in controversy since a number of voters have emerged...

Mounting evidence of voter fraud in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District could indefinitely delay the certification of a winner, as state election officials investigate whether hundreds of absentee ballots were illegally cast or destroyed. The North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement has no plans to certify Republican Mark Harris’s 905-vote victory over Democrat Dan McCready, according to an agenda of a board meeting scheduled for Friday morning. The board is collecting sworn statements from voters in rural Bladen and Robeson counties, near the South Carolina border, who described people coming to their doors and urging them to...

Republican Mark Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by five percentage points for North Carolina's 9th Congressional District, according to a new poll by the New York Times and Sienna College. Harris was favored by 47 percent respondents while McCready was favored by 42 percent. Eleven percent of voters are undecided in the race for the seat, which stretches from Republican areas in south Charlotte and Union County to Fayetteville. The seat is considered one of the Democrats' best opportunities to flip a seat held by the GOP. Harris narrowly defeated Robert Pittenger in the May primary... This is the first...

SEATTLE (AP) - Washington state lost a major legal battle Friday, which could force it spend nearly $2 billion to restore salmon habitat by removing barriers that block fish migration. A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year affirmed a lower court’s 2013 ruling ordering the state to fix or replace hundreds of culverts - large pipes that allow streams to pass beneath roads but block migrating salmon. Idaho and Montana joined Washington state in asking the appeals court to reconsider the case. Washington had sought a rehearing, arguing in part that the court’s decision forces...

Republican challenger Rocky Raczkowski has the lead over first-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Gary Peters in the 9th congressional district, an independent weekly tracking poll released Wednesday indicates. The automated poll conducted Sept. 13 of 300 likely voters in the 9th congressional district and 400 likely voters statewide has Raczkowski at 45 percent and Peters at 40.7 percent with 10.3 percent undecided. The poll was conducted by The Rossman Group in partnership with Team TelCom. Kelly Rossman, CEO and founder of the Lansing-based Rossman Group, says Raczkowski is benefiting from the sour mood of voters towards Congress. "It's no secret that...

The former mayor backed out of a debate scheduled for July 11 to be aired live on WREG-TV Channel 3 because he said two panelists were biased and would be unfair to him. He called Norm Brewer, a WREG commentator, and Otis L. Sanford, editor for opinion and editorials at The Commercial Appeal, “two of the most biased individuals in the media that I've been involved with in over 30 years of public service." snip “That allows the challenger to determine that Norman Brewer and Otis Sanford – two of the most respected journalists in the city of Memphis –...

FRiends, I just learned yesterday that an old school friend of mine, Adam Light, from Tazewell, Virginia, in the Commonwealth's 9th District is running for the GOP nomination to take on notorious, double-dealing, smooth-talking liberal Congressman Rick Boucher. He is currently running against five other relatively weak GOP candidates, with the front-runner being a "good ol' boy," next-in-line professional GOP hack who doesn't even live in the district. Adam is a strong Conservative, a committed Constitutionalist, a Christian family man, and a hard-working land surveyor (primarily in the coal industry) by trade. Perhaps most importantly, he is one of us!...