WASHINGTON, April 15 (UPI) -- Capital Comment -- Daily news notes, political rumors and important events that shape politics and public policy in Washington and the world from United Press International.
The Keystone to control -- Last week, federal judges in Pennsylvania threw out the state's new congressional district lines, causing both Democrats and Republicans to sweat. The three-judge panel found that the 19-person population deviation between the districts was too high and gave the legislature three weeks to produce a new map. If they can't, the court will take over the process.
The GOP, which was counting on the new lines to produce a handful of new Republican-leaning seats, are worried that a judicial map will be not nearly as helpful to them in their battle for control of the Congress as the plan that was voided. State Democrats are exploring ways to keep the legislature from meeting the deadline. Meanwhile the GOP, which controls both chambers of the state legislature and the governorship, says they may push off the state's primaries until the fall, bumping them up from May 15.
If the court imposes substantially new district lines, then the congressional primary would have to be pushed up. The GOP says that, to save money, all the primaries would need to be pushed up and held on the same day rather then creating a split-primary system: state races on May 15 and congressional races later in the year. This is what is making the Democrats nervous.
Right now, the state's auditor general, Bob Casey, Jr., and former DNC chairman and Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell are waging a fierce battle for the Democrat gubernatorial nomination. If all the primaries are pushed forward, then Casey and Rendell will be locked into a fight that will continue almost up to the general election while state Attorney General Mike Fisher, the GOP nominee, has no opposition. The later the primary, the harder it will be for the Democrats to pull together, creating a dilemma: do they need to put a priority on helping Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., become speaker of the House or do they need to focus all their efforts on recapturing the governor's mansion after eight years?
Keep those cards and letters coming -- On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to stay out of the emerging fight over the "vote by mail" electoral system.
At issue in Decker vs. Bradbury, which is the case the court declined to hear, is the constitutionality of the system imposed on the state of Oregon by a ballot initiative in 1998. As a result, close to 80 percent of the state's voters cast ballots by mail in 2000, leading the state to abolish polling places.
Several Oregon voters challenged the new system, arguing that the Constitution and federal law require the states to conduct balloting for federal offices on the same day in November. They argued that voting by mail, and the practice of early voting that is common in a number states, violate that requirement because they allow voters to make their choices on more than one day.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals approved the vote by mail system last year, holding that because the votes were not counted until Election Day, the process did not violate the law.
Line of succession -- If, as rumors suggest, House Minority Leader Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., steps down from his leadership post after the November elections, there will be a bruising battle to fill his slot.
The principal contenders are current party whip, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and current party caucus chairman Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas. Both of them are equally liberal, so it is not a matter of ideology; rather, if is a matter of politics.
Since becoming whip Pelosi has made several significant missteps, including giving embattled Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., an endorsement in his primary that she later rescinded. She is also backing Rep. Lynn Rovers, D-Mich., in her uphill primary fight against Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the longest serving member in the House and a power within the party.
Frost, who as chairman of the party's congressional campaign committee, has raised money for most of the Democrat incumbents currently in office, is thought to have a better political sense than Pelosi -- but he doesn't yet have the backing of the more left-wing members that make up most of the caucus and who were crucial to Pelosi in her victory over Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., in the whip's race.
However long it takes -- David Keating, of the National Taxpayers Union and the Club for Growth, reports that "Taxes have become so confusing the IRS now estimates that the average taxpayer will have to spend 28 hours and 6 minutes on the 1040 form and necessary record-keeping, including the common schedules for interest, dividends, capital gains and deductions."
"This waste of manpower now tops an estimated 6.1 billion hours on tax forms and record-keeping, accounting for 80 percent of the federal government's entire paperwork burden," Keating says -- forgetting about the amount of time filers spent in line Monday at the Post Office trying to get their returns and requests for extensions in by midnight.
What can you do? -- The Alliance for Justice, the left-wing political advocacy group, recently hosted a briefing for more than a dozen key allies to explain the impact of the recently enacted campaign regulation legislation on non-profit organizations.
The briefing, given by Michael Trister and Holly Schadler of the law firm Lichtman, Trister, Singer and Ross, focused on three central areas: issue advocacy, communication with federal candidates and fundraising. Copies of the issues briefing distributed at the meeting are available from Julie Bernstein at 202-822-6070.
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