John Shadegg

Rep. John Shadegg put off an announcement concerning his political future until at least Thursday, according to his press secretary Abby Winter.

Shadegg stunned state and national political observers when he announced on Feb. 11 that he planned to retire at the end of his term in January. Days later, 145 GOP members of the House signed a letter asking him to reconsider his position and to seek re-election.

Shadegg has been reconsidering his decision ever since.

If he was so motivated, he could try to use the unprecedented show of support to leverage some sort of advantage for himself. Perhaps he could get Republicans to commit to certain political policies. Perhaps he could extract a leadership position for himself to help guide those political policies.

Consider the quotage being offered about Shadegg last week.

“In many ways, he is the conscience of conservatives in the House of Representatives,” Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, who helped draft and circulate the letter, told me.

“I would fully expect that if Mr. Shadegg goes forward with his decision to retire, Republicans will elect a capable new representative from that district, but they won’t elect John Shadegg. We need John Shadegg,” Pence said.

“There has never has been a day that I didn’t look up on that board when any vote was called. You could always count on John Shadegg casting a vote that reflects a deep commitment to limited government and conservative values,” he said.

Shadegg likely wasn’t feeling the love from his colleagues when he lost two leadership elections in recent years. Specifically, he lost to Rep. John Boehner of Ohio for the post of Republican leader, and to Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri for Republican whip.

Pence, who ran and lost a leadership election himself last year, said, “I personally know the challenge of a leadership election and the aftermath of that. And, quite frankly, leadership elections turn on a lot of different issues. They are not in any way an estimation of the esteem with which a person is held in Congress. John Shadegg may have lost his past elections for leadership, but in each case, he won the argument.”

Maybe. Republicans have talked a lot about adopting the types of fiscal discipline and reform that Shadegg advocated, but so far, their talk mostly has just been noise.

In the meantime, the hoopla Shadegg created when he announced his retirement hasn’t settled much. At least eight possible GOP candidates have emerged on the scene to fill the possible void in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional Distrist, which takes in central and northern Phoenix, Paradise Valley, Carefree and Cave Creek. At least one of the contenders, former state Rep. Steve May, said he’ll run no matter what Shadegg decides.

The other possible candidates are state Rep. Sam Crump, state Sen. Pamela Gorman, political strategist Wes Gullett, Shadegg’s chief of staff Sean Noble, state Sen. Jim Waring, state Rep. Jim Weiers, and Paradise Valley Mayor Ed Winkler. There could be others.

Stay tuned…

Jeff Flake

So much for all the talk by U.S. House Republicans about getting back to GOP ideology of limited spending.

The Republican Steering Committee had the chance to appoint pork-buster Jeff Flake to fill a vacant on the Appropriations Committee. Flake had promised to use the insider position to choke off earmarks.

Instead, the Steering Committee appointed Rep. Jo Bonner of Alabama, who made no such promises. Bonner, like most members of both parties, regularly writes legislation to use federal funding for pet projects in his district.

Flake’s appointment was widely supported by taxpayer watchdog groups. Yet, the talk around the Capitol was that Flake would put the Republicans at a competitive disadvantage in reforming the earmark process, because he would have gutted GOP earmarks immediately.

That’s right, Republican leaders were afraid of spending less first. That kind of thinking only makes sense in Washington, D.C.

Then after giving Bonner the appointment, members of Congress adjourned for Presidents’ Day, which for them, requires more than a week.

Kris Mayes

Republican Kris Mayes announced the formation of an exploratory committee Tuesday as she considers running for the U.S. House in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District.

Republican incumbent Rick Renzi is under federal investigation for possible public corruption and is not seeking re-election. The seat is attracting plenty of attention, from both Republicans and Democrats.

Mayes’ exploratory committee has all the tell-tale signs of a full-fledged campaign. She has the endorsement of former U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, help from the GOP-oriented political consulting firm High Ground, and a fully developed campaign Web site, www.krismayes.com. Prescott businessman Malcolm Barrett is her committee’s finance chairman.

Mayes currently is a member of the Arizona Corporation Commission, the state agency that regulates utility companies. Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano initially appointed her to fill an open seat in October 2003, and Mayes won election on her own in 2004 and 2006. Mayes previously served as spokeswoman to Napolitano, and before that worked as a political reporter for The Arizona Republic.

She lives in Phoenix, but has history in the 1st District, a mostly rural district that takes in sweeping portions of the northern, central and eastern portions of the state. She was born and raised in Prescott, which is within the district, and served as valedictorian at Prescott High School.

Mayes told me last week that if she runs for the U.S. House, she’ll move back to Prescott, and that if she wins, she’ll maintain her main district office in Prescott. She already holds regular monthly office hours in Prescott in connection to her ACC position.

“It’s where my heart is. It’s where my family is. And it’s the best congressional district in America,” she said.

Really? What makes it the best district in America?

“Oh, 1,000 different things. Do you have time?” Mayes replied.

Certainly enough time for the short list.

“It is an amazingly diverse district geographically, as well as demographically. And it is obviously a large district and one that’s facing a number of issues that I’ve been working with here at the commission,” she said.

Those ACC-related issues have to do with water allocation and energy development.

The district is in political flux. It used to be anchored by Flagstaff and cities and towns along the Mogollon rim. It probably still is anchored by those cities, but not as much these days, though. The 1st District also takes in booming east Pinal County, a developing suburban region that’s tilting the political balance in the district to the desert cities below the rim.

On Tuesday, Mayes started to outline a broader political agenda. The highlights: She supports extending President Bush’s tax cuts; she backs Second Amendment rights (that’s the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” amendment); she opposes abortion; she supports increased federal efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border; and she’s in favor of forest thinning and forest restoration efforts.

Mayes, who is single and unattached, has run two previous statewide campaigns and is prepared for the rigors of a congressional campaign. She’s well aware that the entry fee for a competitive race is about $1 million.

“If I move forward, we’ll aggressively fund-raise. Any congressional race is expensive and anyone who gets involved in one of these has to be ready to raise money and campaign hard. This is a district that you’ve got to do both in. You’ve got to be able to really hit the ground running and really campaign hard. You’re doing a lot of parades, a lot of door-to-door, a lot of phone calls, everything,” she said.

She has Toyota 4-Runner with 95,000 miles on the odometer. She expects to rack up the mileage if she decides to runs in the district that’s larger than the state of Illinois. “I assume that at the end of this, it will be double. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to hitting the road talking to people,” she said.

She has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Arizona State University, a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University in New York, and a law degree from ASU.

Despite Mayes’ potential entry into the race, the eventual Democratic nominee is likely to win the district, said Emily Bittner, spokeswoman for the Arizona Democratic Party.

 “We have really, really terrifically strong candidates who have strong ties to the district, who have a good sense for the direction that they want to take this country,” Bittner said.

The Democratic field features taxi company employee Jeffrey Brown, former state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, environmental attorney Howard Shanker, and former TV reporter Mary Kim Titla.

Bittner said, “That district has been represented for so long by a Republican who is inextricably linked to corruption. I think voters in that district are tired of a party that turns its nose away from corruption.”

The lone Republican who has launched a full campaign to succeed Renzi is radio talk show host Sydney Hay.

I will be out of the office paying tribute to some of my favorite former presidents for a few days. I’ll be back on politics on Tuesday, Feb. 19.

John Shadegg

John Shadegg told me this evening that he will reconsider his plan to resign from the U.S. House at the end of his current term. His double-take was promted by a letter that is being circulated among House Republicans asking him to stay on. Check out the Tribune story for the details.

Matt Salmon

Matt Salmon discounted the seemingly endless speculation in the blogesphere that U.S. Rep. John Shadegg’s decision to leave the House was part of a double-secret double-switch plan that would thrust Shadegg into John McCain’s current office, if and when McCain leaves the Senate to pursue his presidential aspirations.

“That would be the most incredibly foolish way to do it. I mean it’s so much better – ask anybody who’s ever run for anything – to run as an incumbent and have the bully pulpit,” said Salmon, a former U.S. representative and Arizona Republican Party chairman. “That would be foolish.”

A report in Tuesday’s edition of Roll Call could be sobering for the Republican challengers seeking to oust Democratic U.S. Reps. Harry Mitchell’s and Gabrielle Giffords in the fall.

Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Congress, reported that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a huge financial advantage against the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The committees direct political expertise, and more importantly funding, toward selected races nationwide. At least they do that most years.

Roll Call writer Nathan L. Gonzales reported that through 2007, the DCCC had collections of $35.1 million, while the NRCC had $5.4 million.

Gonzales wrote, “Both committees generally give first priority and focus to incumbents, followed by open seats and then challenger races. With a number of vulnerable incumbents and more than two dozen open seats to defend, GOP challengers shouldn’t expect much more than a pat on the back from their campaign committees.”

Using that formula, Arizona’s Republican incumbents Reps. Jeff Flake and Trent Franks will get first-priority funding, though in reality, they won’t need it because they’ll only face token opposition.

The second-priority funding will go to whichever candidates emerge from the GOP primaries for the open seats currently held by outgoing Republican Reps. John Shadegg and Rick Renzi.

The third-priority funding will go to the Republican challengers for Mitchell’s and Giffords seats, which could be competitive. That is, if there’s any funding left.

John Shadegg

John Shadegg pulled one of the most surprising political acts in years when he announced that he will retire from the U.S. House in January.

OK, the simple act of Republicans retiring isn’t such a remarkable matter these days. What makes Shadegg’s retirement so surprising is that he, rather than voters, made the decision.

Despite Democratic challenger Bob Lord’s and independent Annie Loyd’s best efforts, Shadegg’s seat generally was considered relatively safe. After all, registered Republican voters outnumber registered Democratic voters 44 percent to 29 percent.

Shadegg decided that seven terms were enough.

“It is true that a lot of people at my level in the Congress don’t leave,” he told me. “They tend to stay. And they tend to stay for a long. And they tend to get kind of settled in. I don’t intend to get settled in and I don’t want to stay so long that the job become rote or routine or it’s just a mechanism to support the Shadegg family.”

He said that rather than being a member of the minority party in the House, he may be better able to advance conservative causes in the private sector. Since House ethics rules forbid him from looking around for another job while still in office, he has no idea exactly what private sector position may be in his future.

He said, “A lot of guys just stay. The decision to leave has been very, very hard, because there are a lot of nice things about the job. People call you ‘Congressman,’ and people are very nice to you, and you get to vote on very important matters, but I’m really anxious to do something, not just hold this job. I just don’t want to be a congressman; I want to change Washington. I think if you stay too long there’s a danger that you’re just a part of the process.”

A final thought on Super Tuesday…

My favorite dark horse candidates failed in their attempts to win Arizona’s presidential preference elections.

Democrat Sandy Whitehouse, a Tucson-area resident who ran on the platform that she would cut government spending by saving a line of type on all presidential correspondence, garnered 577 votes. That came just 200,814 votes shy of fellow challenger Hillary Clinton’s winning total.

Meanwhile, Republican Michael P. Shaw, a Glendale resident who said he ran to represent the ’hood and the God of Israel, attracted 59 votes. That was a mere 227,701 votes short of rival John McCain’s tally.

Alas, there’s always 2012. Remember that McCain didn’t do so hot the first time he ran for president either.

John McCain’s biggest challenge between now and Nov. 4 is to say focused, said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., who traveled with McCain on Super Tuesday and Just Getting By On Coffee Wednesday.

“His world is about to change,” Lindsay told reporters at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport before boarding McCain’s jet for Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning.

“The more presumptive nominee status you obtain, the more security you’re going to have, and the relationship he has with y’all may change a bit. But I’d hate to be the Secret Service agent who told him he couldn’t talk to y’all,” said the native South Carolinian.

McCain has been becoming more mentally prepared every day for the rigors of becoming the presumptive nominee, party leader and president, Graham said.

 “There’s nobody I’ve ever met more prepared to lead this country in the times in which we live. The challenges are great. They’re immense. And John has paid a heavy price for what he believes in life,” he said.

“He’s sacrificed for his country – and I don’t think it’s an accident that God has kept him around all these years. He’s got one last mission to go on. I really, honest to God believe that, that he’s here for a reason and his next assignment will be as commander in chief,” Graham said.