Yall PoliticsYall Politics:Yall Politics - The Definitive Guide to Politics in Mississippi2008-05-13T21:32:26ZCopyright (c) 2008, OutsideStaffExpressionEnginetag:yallpolitics.com,2008:05:13DeSoto voting strong earlytag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81442008-05-13T20:29:00Z2008-05-13T21:32:26ZOutsideStaffDeSoto voting strong early
DeSoto County election officials reported a strong turnout as of early afternoon in the runoff today between Greg Davis and Travis Childers for the First District congressional seat
A strong turnout in populous DeSoto County is seen as crucial to the bid by Davis, the Southaven mayor, to keep the seat in Republican hands.
Thunderstorms were forecast for late afternoon in the county, which could slow the turnout as the polls approach their 7 p.m. closing time. But voting early in the day was brisk, according to Dale Kelly Thompson, Circuit Court clerk and elections coordinator.
She said there had been no serious problems at any of the county’s 38 precincts.
DeSoto County, which is heavily Republican, has 71,840 registered voters but only 12,499 cast ballots in the April 22 special election between Davis, Childers and four other candidates.
This you gotta see.
]]>DCCC defends ‘The Flyer’ - MS Dems Can’t Decide If They Like It or Nottag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81422008-05-13T18:45:00Z2008-05-13T19:46:50ZStaff of Y'all PoliticsDCCC links Davis to KKK founder’s statue
The DCCC stood by the flier.
“The flier is factual, a part of the public record, and has been in the press many times -— voters deserve to know Davis's record,” DCCC spokeswoman Jennifer Crider said in a statement.
Republicans, however, blasted the campaign strategy.
“This is a despicable move even for the DCCC,” said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). “False accusations and race-baiting politics have no place in our public discourse, and if Democrats want to continue to pursue this line of attack, then it will backfire in November.”
Childers spokesman Terry R. Cassreino distanced the campaign from the mailer: “It’s not from our campaign, and we know nothing about it. We are totally focused today on reminding as many voters as possible to get out and vote.”
The Hill.com
5/13/8
]]>AG Hood in default for failure to defend the state against plaintiff’s claimtag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81412008-05-13T18:17:00Z2008-05-13T19:21:02ZOutsideStaffHood asks federal judge to lift default order
The state of Mississippi argues in federal court papers that its preoccupation with appeals by condemned inmate Earl Wesley Berry led to its failure to respond to lethal injection challenges filed by four other death row inmates.
In documents filed recently in U.S. District Court in Greenville, Attorney General Jim Hood admits to the error but argues it was an honest mistake and did no harm.
The state’s inaction prompted the federal court on May 5 to find Hood and his office in default for failure to defend the state against a plaintiff’s claim.
In his May 6 motion, Hood asks the court set aside the judgment of default.
On Monday, the attorneys for Berry and the four other death row inmates said in court documents that the state was seeking “to be rescued” from its failure to respond to the complaint originally filed in October 2007.
Clarion Ledger
5/13/8
]]>MICHELLEMALKIN - Dirty race-card tricks in Mississippi: The KKK ploytag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81402008-05-13T17:05:01Z2008-05-13T18:14:10ZStaff of Y'all PoliticsDirty race-card tricks in Mississippi: The KKK ploy
Michelle Malkin
5/13/8
]]>Childers tours district with state lawmakerstag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81392008-05-13T15:51:00Z2008-05-13T16:54:27ZOutsideStaffChilders tours district with state lawmakers
Speaker of the House Billy McCoy of Rienzi, state Sen. Hob Bryan of Amory and state Rep. Steve Holland of Plantersville, all Democrats like Childers, were part of the Tupelo visit, while former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove joined them at other stops.
While in Tupelo on Monday, Childers criticized his rival's appearance with Gov. Haley Barbour and Vice President Dick Cheney in Davis' hometown of Southaven.
Despite apparent voter fatigue, Holland - who lost to Childers in the Democratic primary - urged 1st District residents to take part in "the most important of all these elections."
Daily Journal
5/13/8
]]>Davis pushes message of unity on eve of votetag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81382008-05-13T15:48:00Z2008-05-13T16:50:48ZOutsideStaffDavis pushes message of unity on eve of vote
His election eve "get out the vote" tour took him from Tupelo to Oxford and back to Southaven, where Cheney was the featured guest.
In Tupelo, Davis was accompanied by Republican Party leaders Gov. Haley Barbour and Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant. Also in the crowd were Republican regulars Sen. Alan Nunnelee of Tupelo, ARC Director Mike Armour, Tupelo Councilwoman Carolyn Mauldin and unsuccessful Public Service Commission candidate Mable Murphree.
Davis and Barbour emphasized that the race for Congress is not about one part of the district against another.
"The other side wants to make this about geography - east versus west," Barbour said.
Politics is a team sport, "and we need a congressman in the 1st District who will vote like Thad and Roger, not against them," Barbour noted. He was referring to Republican Sens. Cochran and Wicker. "We also need him on the same team with John McCain," the presumptive GOP presidential nominee from Arizona.
Davis said, if elected, he will not try to divide the district, noting he wants to be like Wicker, who "stood up for all of us," even though he lives in Tupelo.
Daily Journal
5/13/8
]]>Low-interest debris loan accepted by citytag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81372008-05-13T15:13:00Z2008-05-13T16:15:02ZStaff of Y'all PoliticsThe Clarion-Ledger, 5/13/8
Jackson officials crowed Monday over the low interest rate the city will receive on a $6 million loan to pay the cost of clearing debris from last month's damaging tornado.
But City Administrator Rick Hill said the city will have to cut spending in an already tight budget if hoped-for federal reimbursement does not come through.
"That would be real difficult to fit into the budget," he said.
The City Council unanimously approved Regions Bank as the winning bidder for the debris loan. Regions beat out Trustmark National Bank and BancorpSouth with a 3.73 percent interest rate on the five-year loan. The loan will act as a line of credit, with the city drawing down only what it needs to complete the cleanup from the April 4 storm.
]]>Mississippi governor not worried about Toyota delaytag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81362008-05-13T15:11:00Z2008-05-13T16:12:46ZStaff of Y'all PoliticsThe Houston Chronicle, 5/12/8
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is putting an optimistic spin on Toyota's decision to wait a few extra months to open its auto manufacturing plant in Blue Springs.
Barbour said Monday that the delay until mid-2010 could mean there is a "higher likelihood" Toyota will train the plant's first assembly line workers in Mississippi since the plant would be fully built, rather than sending them to another of the company's sites out of state.
"For our community college instructors to learn how to teach that, to learn it on the newest, most sophisticated equipment, will be a boon for Mississippi," Barbour said in response to questions during a news conference at the state Capitol.
Toyota officials announced in early 2007 that the company had chosen a 1,700-acre site in northeast Mississippi to build the company's eighth North American auto manufacturing plant. The Highlander sport utility vehicle will be built there.
]]>Melton kicks off sleepover tourtag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81352008-05-13T15:08:00Z2008-05-13T16:09:33ZStaff of Y'all PoliticsThe Clarion-Ledger, 5/13/8
Jackson Mayor Frank Melton is spending the week with citizens and the homeless to get a better feel for the problems they face.
His overnight stays started Monday night at the Holiday Motel on U.S. 80 and will end Friday, when he plans to spend a night on the street with the homeless.
"I'm hearing a lot about young kids being homeless," Melton said. "That's what we are going to deal with immediately."
The mayor made similar overnight stays more than a year ago at Christian Brotherhood Apartments and at a home in Virden Addition.
]]>Scruggs Roundup: DOJ’s Pursuit, New Katrina Lawyers, and the New Yorker’s Taketag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81342008-05-13T15:05:00Z2008-05-13T16:06:46ZStaff of Y'all PoliticsWSJ Law Blog, 5/12/8
Mississippi — to its economic and political credit — is growing inhospitable to its “rich” tort bar, which, as a result, is becoming “less fabulously rich,” according to the WSJ Edit Page’s Stephen Moore. Reading the opinion piece, we couldn’t help think of our fallen friend, Dickie Scruggs, who was once very fabulous but has become somewhat less fabulous in the past six months with his criminal conviction on a charge of conspiring to bribe a judge.
The New Yorker magazine today has a ginormous feature on Scruggs. For Scruggs hounds (like us) who’ve been following the saga all along, reading time is best spent on the last few pages. The reporter, Peter Boyer, turned up some nice details about how the bribe went down. The infamous Timothy Balducci didn’t set out to bribe Judge Lackey, though he eventually did, Boyer writes. And even P.L. Blake made a cameo in the whole affair. Our favorite details: When the feds nabbed Balducci and tried to enlist him in nailing Scruggs, AUSA Tom Dawson told him “‘The only question is, will you see your children graduate from high school.’ Balducci did not hesitate. ‘What do you want me to do.’” Balducci then went on to give a “dazzling performance,” according to a defense team member, in getting Scruggs to make the ultimate incriminating statements, on the government’s wire.
]]>GOP strives to avert Miss. train wrecktag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81332008-05-13T15:02:00Z2008-05-13T16:03:22ZStaff of Y'all PoliticsThe Hill, 5/12/8
Republicans are pulling out all the stops to win Tuesday’s special election in a northern Mississippi district that has been held safely by the GOP for more than a decade.
Vice President Dick Cheney headlined a roster of GOP stars campaigning for Republican candidate Greg Davis on Monday, as the party tried to prevent the most significant blow yet to the GOP this cycle.
Davis spent the final day before the election rallying with Cheney, Sen. Roger Wicker (R), Gov. Haley Barbour (R) and Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant (R), whipping up voters from Tupelo to Oxford to Batesville to his base in DeSoto County, where Cheney was set to appear.
Former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) have also helped in recent days. Davis is competing with Democrat Travis Childers for the former seat of Wicker, who was appointed to the Senate after Lott retired.
]]>ICLAWBLOG - Katrina litigation update/Trailer Lawyer update, May 13tag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81322008-05-13T14:41:00Z2008-05-13T15:50:10ZOutsideStaffKatrina litigation update/Trailer Lawyer update, May 13
These filings include a brief calling State Farm's attempt to disqualify the Trailer Lawyers the last desperate act of a desperate company (actually, it sounds more like the first act of the Katrina Follies, the musical I am writing: "If this trailer's rockin', don't come a-knockin', Trailer Lawyers are busy inside, tappin' on the keyboard with the Rigsby Sisters, surfin' through the claims files till their fingers blister"). These filings also included another brief that avoided the use of the word "trailer" like it was a gift basket of pit vipers ("Sir? Special delivery from Snake Farm. Sign please"). See this prior post for more information.
State Farm's rebuttal brief contains these paragraphs, which seems a good excerpt to kind of sum up their position (boring legal citations omitted, and some explanatory information inserted):
The Rigsbys’ [Trailer Lawyers'] response and opposition briefs confirm even more clearly why all of their counsel must be disqualified. Counsel admit that they knew of the payments to the Rigsbys soon after they began, “either in late Summer or early Fall of 2006” and knew that any payment to the Rigsbys was improper on multiple levels and violated the ethical rules. Yet, for the next year and a half Counsel made no effort to stop these payments or to disassociate themselves from Richard F. Scruggs (“Scruggs”), his law firm, or the Rigsbys. As in McIntosh v. State Farm [the case where the KLG was first disqualified by Judge Senter], Counsel’s “failure to take timely and reasonable remedial steps or to object to this arrangement amounts to a ratification of Scruggs’s actions” and warrants disqualification.
. . .
In McIntosh, this Court disqualified the remaining SKG lawyers because they were in a joint venture with Scruggs and knew or should have known about his unethical conduct, but did
nothing to stop it. In this case, all Counsel were similarly in a joint venture with Scruggs, admittedly knew of his unethical conduct, and did nothing to stop it.
Further, Counsel’s ties to the SKG are much more significant than they disclose. Chip
Robertson has in fact not only entered an appearance and served as co-counsel with Scruggs and the SKG in the appeal of Tuepker v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., he actually argued the appeal before the Fifth Circuit. Similarly, BFRG [Robertson's firm] served as co-counsel with Scruggs and the SKG on behalf of the McIntoshes in In re State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. This representation is especially significant, as it pertained to State Farm’s Petition for a Writ of Mandamus from this Court’s denial of State Farm’s first disqualification motion. BFRG also served as co-counsel in Cori Rigsby & Kerri Rigsby v. Gene Renfroe & Jana Renfroe.
Insurance Coverage Blog
5/13/8
]]>NYTIMES - Republicans Use Race as Weapon in House Contest in Mississippitag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81312008-05-13T14:14:01Z2008-05-13T15:41:11ZOutsideStaffRepublicans Use Obama as Weapon in House Contest in Mississippi
In advertisements and speeches, Republicans have repeatedly associated Travis Childers, the white Democrat threatening to take the seat away from the Republican Party, with Mr. Obama. Republicans say Mr. Obama’s liberal values are out of place in the district. But for many Democratic veterans here, the tactic is a throwback to the old and unwelcome politics of race, a standby in Mississippi campaigning.
Former Gov. William Winter, a Democrat, expressed shock at the current campaign.
“I am appalled that this blatant appeal to racial prejudice is still being employed,” said Mr. Winter, who lost the 1967 governor’s race after his segregationist opponent circulated handbills showing blacks listening to one of his speeches. Mr. Winter went on to win the governor’s office 12 years later.
“I had thought we had gotten past that,” Mr. Winter said. “That was a tactic that was used against me in the 1960s.”
The chairman of the University of Mississippi’s department of public policy leadership, Robert J. Haws, said he had also noted the use of race in the contest. “Does this reflect a certain level of desperation?” he asked.
NY Times
5/13/8
Would the NY Times report on this handbill distributed courtesy of the DCCC:
]]>DOWN THE BALLOT: MISSISSIPPI’S SPECIALtag:yallpolitics.com,2008:index.php/yp/post/1.81302008-05-13T14:10:00Z2008-05-13T15:40:12ZOutsideStaffMSNBC - DOWN THE BALLOT: Mississippi’s special
The New York Times, previewing today’s congressional run-off in Mississippi between Travis Childers (D) and Greg Davis (R), notes how the Republicans have tied Childers to Obama -- in what some see as playing the race card. “Hoping to hang on to a Congressional seat in a tight special election here on Tuesday, Republicans in this mostly white and very conservative district are trying to make the vote more a referendum on Senator Barack Obama than on the candidates themselves.”
“In advertisements and speeches, Republicans have repeatedly associated Travis Childers, the white Democrat threatening to take the seat away from the Republican Party, with Mr. Obama. Republicans say Mr. Obama’s liberal values are out of place in the district. But for many Democratic veterans here, the tactic is a throwback to the old and unwelcome politics of race, a standby in Mississippi campaigning. Former Gov. William Winter, a Democrat, expressed shock at the current campaign. ‘I am appalled that this blatant appeal to racial prejudice is still being employed,’ said Mr. Winter, who lost the 1967 governor’s race after his segregationist opponent circulated handbills showing blacks listening to one of his speeches. Mr. Winter went on to win the governor’s office 12 years later.”
(Again, be careful not to read too much into the results since neither candidate's political party is listed on today's ballot.)
MSNBC
5/13/8
Mr. Winter obviously had not seen this handbill distributed courtesy of the DCCC:
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