| Since it's been a month or so since my last update on things in Missouri, thought it was time to post on how things are developing. As an initial point to explain the shuffling going on, in 1992 Missouri adopted term limits for our General Assembly. The term limit amendment limited individuals to serving 4 terms in the House and 2 terms in the Senate (but only counted terms elected after 1992). Thus (regardless of how many previous terms had been served), a person elected to the House in 1994 could serve in the House until 2002 before reaching the term limit. If that person then ran for a senate term that year, they could serve in the Senate until 2010 before reaching the term limit. (Since only half of the Senate is elected at any one time, it was possible that they might have to sit out an election and run in 2004 for the Senate with those people serving until 2012). In other words, the 2010 election is the first time that we have people who can't run for any position in the General Assembly ever again. Aside from the term-limited House members running for open Senate Seats, we have three major races that Senate and House members could consider running for. First, there is, of course, the open U.S. Senate seat. Second, there is our State Auditor's race. Finally, with Congressman Blunt running for Senate, there is his now open seat. On the Democratic side, while not final since filing doesn't take place until late February and March, it seems that things have cleared out for Robin Carnahan, the Secretary of State, to run for the Senate seat. Likewise, State Auditor Susan Montee is unlikely to get serious primary opposition. Given the fact that Representative Blunt's district (the seventh) has a PVI of R+17 , it is unlikely that the Democratic candidate (whomever that may end up being) will win barring a large field on the Republican side allowing a candidate even crazier than the Republican base to win. On the Republican side, things are more interesting. As was the situation in my first post on Missouri, we are still waiting to hear what Sarah Steelman will do. What has changed since my more recent post is the situation with the moderate establishment and Ambassador Schweich. After several weeks of the Ambassador being raised as a potential senate candidate, a deal was reached between the different branches of the Washington Republican establishment to unify behind Roy Blunt for Senate and Ambassador Schweich for State Auditor. Only problem is that nobody told the Missouri establishment. Ambassador Schweich is currently looking at a hotly contested primary against the chair of the House Budget Committee and Representative Cynthia Davis of Countdown with Keith Olbermann fame. |
