Russ Carnahan

Democrats in the United States House of Representatives sent a letter to the United States Department of Justice requesting that they look into new laws that require voters to possess photo identification in order to cast a ballot. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon vetoed voter photo ID legislation earlier this summer because it would put the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of Missourians at risk. 

Here is an excerpt from the House Democrats' letter:

Approximately 11 percent of voting-age citizens in the country -- or more than 20 million individuals -- lack government-issued photo identification. We urge you to protect the voting rights of Americans by using the full power of the Department of Justice to review these voter identification bills and scrutinize their implementation.

The Voting Rights Act vests significant authority in the Department to ensure laws are not implemented in a discriminatory manner... [T]he Department should exercise vigilance in overseeing whether these laws are implemented in a way that discriminates against protected clauses in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

.Missouri Democratic Representatives Russ Carnahan, Lacy Clay and Emanuel Cleaver all signed the letter.  

h/t Salon

Brian Hook of the Franklin Center's Missouri Watchdog website captured and posted videos of all the big speeches as this weekend's Democrat Days event in Hannibal.   Sen. Claire McCaskill, Gov. Jay Nixon, Rep. Russ Carnahan, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, Treasurer Clint Zweifel and Attorney General Chris Koster all spoke at the Saturday brunch or banquet. 

Video of all their remarks may be found here.

The League of Conservation Voters released its annual environmental voting scorecard today.  Eighty-one House members received "zero" ratings for their votes against clean energy and commonsense pollution safeguards -- and four of those zeros came from Missouri.  

Here's how the LCV summarizes their methodology:

“While the lack of progress in 2010 is highly disappointing, we applaud those members of Congress who fought to protect public health and the environment and reduce our nation’s dangerous dependence on oil,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV Senior Vice President of Government Affairs. “Conversely, the 2010 Scorecard clearly exposes those members who put corporate polluters and other special interests ahead of the health and well-being of all Americans by opposing efforts to transition our nation to a clean energy economy, enforce commonsense pollution safeguards, and protect the environment.”

Politico reports this afternoon that seventy-four House Democrats, including Rep. Lacy Clay and Rep. Russ Carnahan, are "asking Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any health care reform cases, citing reports that his wife financially benefited from efforts to repeal the legislation."

Thomas' wife, Virginia, is a Republican lobbyist in Washington, and founded a organization called Liberty Central that received huge anonymous contributions to carry out its pro-GOP activism.

Here's the text of the letter, as published by the Washington Post:

The Honorable Justice Clarence Thomas
United States Supreme Court Building
1 First Street Northeast
Washington D.C., DC 20543

Dear Justice Thomas:

As an Associate Justice, you are entrusted with the responsibility to exercise the highest degree of discretion and impartiality when deciding a case. As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act.

The Beacon has a good story on the bipartisan law signed last month, sponsored by Rep. Russ Carnahan and three others, that aims to reduce energy use and costs for federal buildings.   Check it out. 

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 270-175 this afternoon to repeal the federal "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring openly gay and lesbian soldiers from the military.  Representatives Russ Carnahan, Lacy Clay and Emanuel Cleaver all voted for repeal.  Representatives Todd Akin, Roy Blunt, Jo Ann Emerson, Sam Graves, Blaine Luetkemeyer, and Ike Skelton voted against repeal.  The full roll call vote is here.

Nearly 80% of Americans support repeal. It's time. 

From the Post-Dispatch's endorsement of Russ Carnahan over Ed Martin in Missouri's  3rd Congressional District: 

Mr. Carnahan’s Republican opponent is St. Louis lawyer Ed Martin, 40, the former chief of staff for former Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. After being forced out of that job in 2007 for embroiling the office in a scandal over missing e-mails — a controversy that eventually cost taxpayers more than $2 million in legal fees and settlements — Mr. Martin reinvented himself as an all-purpose conservative gadfly.

He is a shrewd and gregarious man with a knack for telling people what they want to hear, no matter how absurd (Barack Obama and Russ Carnahan want to deny you eternal salvation). But character counts, and Ed Martin flunks. For character and his stance on the issues, vote for Russ Carnahan.

"Carnahan faces a cagey, far right-wing Republican (and three more marginal candidates) on the Nov. 2 ballot. If the angry, divisive white right had a poster boy it would be Carnahan’s Republican opponent, Ed Martin. Martin’s campaign has been a prolonged distortion of the truth, starting with the fiction that he is an outsider."

The St. Louis American, in their endorsement of Russ Carnahan for Congress

This is actually from last week, but I lost it in the fray... 

One more post about Sunday night's debate between Ed Martin, Russ Carnahan and Nick Ivanovich.  The candidates were asked to share their stances on the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policies."  As you can see in this video from Hotflash at Show Me Progress, Carnahan lays out a clear response to why he supports repealing DADT. 

And then, as you'll see, Martin stands up and reveals his true character:

Picking up at the 0:48 mark in the clip:

MARTIN: I'm here for you.  Translation: Congressman Carnahan supports gay marriage.  He doesn't care what Missourians think, or what their positions are.  That's what he thinks.  So, let me ... [audience grumbles]

MODERATOR: [Inaudible] What's your position on what's [inaudible]?

MARTIN: I'm getting there, I'm getting there. So, I'm sure you're going to stop the time right, so we can answer?  The fact is, this is social engineering by Nancy Pelosi and the far left who wanna do something that hasn't been done in our military. That is, allow the social engineers to go in an decide how people are supposed to function....

Classy stuff!  And not true. Most Americans support allowing gay men and women to serve openly.  Repealing DADT is not "social engineering by Nancy Pelosi and the far left" 

Show Me No Hate posted on Martin's cynical switcheroo on Wednesday. 

I actually think Ed gets off easy in this ad.

Show Me Progress' Hotflash has a great new post highlighting some of the back and forth from Sunday's debate between Russ Carnahan and Ed Martin. It's really worth watching her clips to see what a class act Martin can be when he puts his mind to it.  In one of the clips, Martin twists Carnahan's support for repealing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy into support for same-sex marriage.

In another, embedded here, Martin states that "Obamacare basically says you will give up control of your health care and government bureaucrats will figure it out of it for you." (See here for Martin's previous declaration that "Democrat Health Plan = Abortion and Euthanasia.")   "And not only that, there will be 16,000 new IRS agents that will come and find you and tell you if you haven't got the right kind of care and coverage." Watch it:

You may be surprised to learn that Ed Martin is lying. (I know I was!) FactCheck.org took a look at this claim a few months ago, and wrote that the 16,000 new IRS agent claim "stems from a partisan analysis based on guesswork and false assumptions, and compounded by outright misrepresentation."

This wildly inaccurate claim started as an inflated, partisan assertion that 16,500 new IRS employees might be required to administer the new law. That devolved quickly into a claim, made by some Republican lawmakers, that 16,500 IRS "agents" would be required. Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas even claimed in a televised interview that all 16,500 would be carrying guns. None of those claims is true.

The IRS’ main job under the new law isn’t to enforce penalties. Its first task is to inform many small-business owners of a new tax credit that the new law grants them — starting this year — which will pay up to 35 percent of the employer’s contribution toward their workers’ health insurance. And in 2014 the IRS will also be administering additional subsidies — in the form of refundable tax credits — to help millions of low- and middle-income individuals buy health insurance.

The law does make individuals subject to a tax, starting in 2014, if they fail to obtain health insurance coverage. But IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified before a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee March 25 that the IRS won’t be auditing individuals to certify that they have obtained health insurance. He said insurance companies will issue forms certifying that individuals have coverage that meets the federal mandate, similar to a form that lenders use to verify the amount of interest someone has paid on their home mortgage. "We expect to get a simple form, that we won’t look behind, that says this person has acceptable health coverage," Shulman said. "So there’s not going to be any discussions about health coverage with an IRS employee." In any case, the bill signed into law (on page 131) specifically prohibits the IRS from using the liens and levies commonly used to collect money owed by delinquent taxpayers, and rules out any criminal penalties for individuals who refuse to pay the tax or those who don’t obtain coverage. That doesn’t leave a lot for IRS enforcers to do.

h/t @DaveCatanese

Crazy Ed Martin blasted out a press release yesterday calling on Russ Carnahan to return "$36,500 received from a corrupt lobbyist."  Such a demand may be difficult to meet, because Carnahan hasn't actually taken any money from the dude.

The Russ Carnahan campaign has a new microsite called "Ed Martin is a Hackman."  It's a fun take on Ed Martin's long record of unethical public service and wasting of taxpayer dollars.

Points awarded for both style and substance.

h/t Riverfront Times

Chad Garrison of the Riverfront Times and Adam Shriver of St. Louis Activist Hub break it down.

"Given that several years have passed since your own unfortunate experience with FOIA and sunshine requests as former Governor Matt Blunt's Chief of Staff, your confusion about this process is understandable.  Nevertheless, I applaud your new-found appreciation for transparency in government."

Caroline Battles, Chief of Staff to Rep. Russ Carnahan, responding today to a request for information from Ed Martin

h/t Chris King

The conservative American Action Forum has released a slew of polls this morning from GOP pollster Ayres, McHenry & Associates, including one in Missouri's 3rd Congressional District. Their survey shows that Russ Carnahan enjoys a "comfortable" 54 to 38 lead over Ed Martin.

Our polling, conducted for American Action Forum on August 16, 17, and 21, with 400 likely general election voters, shows Representative Russ Carnahan with a comfortable lead at the start of the Fall campaign. Carnahan’s 51 to 35 percent favorable-unfavorable rating (with 98 percent total name ID) exceeds challenger Ed Martin’s 16 to 9 percent rating (with 43 percent total name ID), and Carnahan leads by a 54 to 38 percent margin.

Buried at the bottom of this afternoon's KMOV story, "Carnahan responds to claims staffer played role in firebombing"

Wednesday afternoon, Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder has used his personal twitter account to forward links to political blogs about this story. We want to know what you think about this. Is it appropriate? post your comment below.

Are Kinder's rush to judgment and attempts to politicize the situation appropriate?  Um, no.

h/t St. Louis Activist Hub

The Russ Carnahan campaign emailed a short statement this afternoon regarding an apparent arson incident at the campaign’s headquarters:

“This morning at approximately 2:20 a.m. the local fire department responded to a call they received about a break-in and fire at the campaign headquarters,” said Angela Guyadeen, campaign spokeswoman. “There is minor damage to the office and the campaign headquarters remains open. The St. Louis police and fire departments are investigating.”

Politico reports this morning that the National Republican Congressional Committee "will invest in 40 districts around the nation in its first wave of television commercial reservations" -- and none of those targeted races are in Missouri.

As noted by NBC News' First Read, this means other allegedly viable GOP challengers like Vicky Hartzler and Ed Martin will be "banking on outside groups" and/or "a wave" to help their chances for November.