John Shadegg

On Monday, while I was cleaning the dinner dishes at home, I received an unexpected telephone call from Republican Rep. John Shadegg.

Shadegg was conducting one of his “tele-Town Hall” teleconference and a computer called my home number at random. I’m one of 321,000 registered voters who live in Shadegg’s congressional district, which takes in central and northern Phoenix, plus Carefree, Cave Creek and Paradise Valley.

Shadegg’s tele-Town Halls operate much like radio talk shows. A computer calls homes within specific geographic regions, regardless of the residents’ political party affiliations. Anyone who picks up can listen in as Shadegg takes questions from other constituents who also are on the call.  Listeners with questions can get in queue to speak with Shadegg directly. 

Lately, Shadegg has been conducting the tele-Town Hall calls several nights a week, whether he’s in Phoenix or in Washington, said his press secretary Abby Winter. The calls generally last about 90 minutes each. If you work the time-zone math, that means that when Shadegg is in Washington, he makes the calls from 10 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time to catch people at reasonable hours in Arizona.

Usually Winter talks to constituents who want to ask questions off-air, so to speak, to inquire about the general topics of their question. Then Shadegg selects from among the callers, whose first names and topics are displayed on a computer in front of him. The strategy allows him to move from topic to topic.

About half the residents want to discuss some aspect of immigration, Winter said. The next hottest topics, somewhat in order, are healthcare, education, gas prices/energy, the Iraq war, the economy, housing and gun rights.

On Monday, Shadegg was a bit of a ham and kept the call entertaining. “Thanks for the question about gas prices, Mark. Next, we have a question from Polly about healthcare. What’s on your mind Polly?”

Alas, Shadegg never got to the topic that was on the top of the list for my lovely wife – calling her sister to wish her a happy birthday – so I dropped off the tele-Town Hall after a few questions to free up the phone line.

John Shadegg

U.S. Rep. John Shadegg will be the featured speaker at next Arizona Eggs & Issues Breakfast meeting.

In addition to the usual sorts of political questions during the Q&A session, the Republican will have some explaining to do about his sudden about-face concerning his planned retirement. A few weeks ago, Shadegg unexpectedly said he planned to step down at the end of his current turn, an announcement that caused about a dozen GOP office-seekers to scramble to the nearest microphones to announce their desire to succeed him. At the time, it seemed like a firm decision. Ten days later though, Shadegg changed his mind and said he planned to run again.

At the time, some observers suggested Shadegg  wanted to step aside to prepare a Senate campaign to fill John McCain’s office, figuring McCain planned to step aside from the Senate to concentrate on his presidential campaign. Others suggested that Shadegg had no interest being in the minority party following the GOP’s drumming in 2006. And, well, there were plenty of other theories offered…

It will be interesting to hear Shadegg’s perspective on it.

The breakfast event is set for 7:30 a.m., May 29, at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort & Villas, 6333 N. Scottsdale Road, in Scottsdale. Its being presented by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Tickets are $30 for members and $45 for non-members. For information and to RSVP, contact Renee Roebuck at (602) 248-9172 or rroebuck@azchamber.com.

Shadegg represents central and northern Phoenix, plus Paradise Valley, Carefree and Cave Creek.

Happy donkeys

The total number of voters statewide dipped since the presidential preference election on Feb. 5, however the number of registered Democrats increased.

Overall, the number of voters dropped by less than 1 percentage point from 2.71 million voters to 2.69 million voters March 1, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

“The decrease in the voter registration totals really reflect continuing voter roll clean-up efforts by county recorders,” Secretary of State Jan Brewer said in a statement.

The party-by-party details tell a different story though.

The number of Republicans fell less than 1 percentage point from 1.04 million voters to 1.03 million.

The number of Democrats increased just more than 1 percentage point from 905,000 voters to 916,000.

The number of Libertarians dwindled by 4 percentage points from 17,700 voters to 16,900.

And the number of independents dropped by 3 percentage points from 748,000 voters to 725,000.

Those types of numbers underscore why Democrats insist Arizona is becoming increasingly competitive.

In pure numbers, Republicans still outnumber Democrats by 121,000 voters. However, the Dems gained 11,200 voters during the last reporting period, while the GOP lost 5,500 voters. That means the Democrats narrowed the gap by 16,700 voters in a single reporting period.

It’s like an SAT question: If a donkey and an elephant facing the same direction start 121 miles apart and the donkey trots 11.2 mph forwards and elephant lumbers 5.5 mph backwards, how long will it take for the donkey to overtake the elephant?

Of course past results don’t guarantee future performance, but if those trends to continue unchanged, the Democratic Party will become the majority party in Arizona in about spring 2010, which would be just in time for a Janet Napolitano-John Shadegg U.S. Senate race.

And in the meantime, state Democratic Party officials contend that independents break about 2-1 toward Democratic candidates.

Another interesting point is the number of independents decreased. Until late last year, the number of new independent voters joining the state’s voter roles was greater rate than number of new Democrats and Republicans combined. Even last year though, Democrats were registering more new voters than Republicans.

The next couple of voter registration reports, which will reflect the parties’ efforts to register new voters before the fall primary and general elections, should provide greater insight into whether the current numbers are just quirky blips of statistics, or early indications of a dramatic shift in Arizona politics. 

Congress.org’s latest annual Power Rankings of the members of Congress provides some interesting talking points concerning Arizona’s 10 member delegation.

First a little background: The deep thinkers behind the rankings score each member on a number of factors, including position, indirect influence, legislative activity, earmark passage and “sizzle/fizzle.”

Clearly, nearly all of that is subjective. For example, racking up federal expenditures for earmarks is considered a positive factor in the rankings. Congress.org’s deep thinkers associate earmark passage with political influence. Sure, there’s an argument to be made for that.

Of course, other deep thinkers associate earmark passage with self indulgence, wasteful spending and stains on congressional records. So, what of Sen. John McCain, and Reps. Jeff Flake and John Shadegg who specifically don’t request earmarks? The Power Rankings knock their scores for that. 

Furthermore, Democrats get an automatic edge because they comprise the majority party in both the Senate and House and as a result will score higher in the position and legislative activity categories. That’s to be expected.

So with that preamble…

On the Senate side, Congress.org ranked Republicans McCain is 10^th and Jon Kyl 18^th, or second and third overall among Republicans. Interestingly, McCain’s presidential rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barak Obama place ninth and 11^th in the Senate respectively.

Congress.org attributes McCain’s ranking in part to position as a ranking party member of a committee, his frequent media coverage, positive sizzle and for successfully amending bills.

He’s knocked for running for higher office, because doing so allegedly reduces or defuses his power to help current constituents. Other deep thinkers could offer the argument that emerging as his party’s nominee for president may give him a certain amount of added clout, but, of course, it’s Congress.org’s rankings so their deep thinkers get the final word.

Kyl should climb in coming years with the real and perceived power associated with his new No. 2 position in the GOP leadership team.

On the House side, Congress.org ranked Democrat Ed Pastor 84^th; Republican Shadegg 211^th, Democrats Raul Grijalva 246^th, Gabrielle Giffords 277^th and Harry Mitchell 334^th; and Republicans Jeff Flake 372^nd, Trent Franks 387^th and Rick Renzi dead last at 435^th.

Also of note, Renzi was the only member in either the Senate or House to get a negative score.

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…

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.”

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.”

Jeff Flake

Arizona Republican Reps. Jeff Flake and John Shadegg voted against the House tax rebate measure Tuesday, despite overwhelming support in the House and President Bush’s push for the policy in his State of the Union Address on Monday.

The remaining six members of Arizona’s delegation in the House supported the economic stimulus package that was approved with a 385-35 vote.

The legislation is designed to provide tax rebates of up to $600 for individual taxpayers with adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less a year, or $1,200 for couples who jointly file and have a combined adjusted gross income of $150,000 or less a year.

The measure also provides tax benefits to businesses, as well as mortgage relief.

“If this package had been a simple rebate to those who have paid taxes, I could support that,” said Flake, who represents Arizona’s 6^th Congressional District, which takes in parts of Mesa and
Chandler, plus Gilbert, Queen Creek and Apache Junction.

“I don’t believe that rebates provide much of a long-term economic stimulus, but taxpayers can certainly spend their money better than Congress can. However, a large number of those receiving rebates do not pay income tax and the Senate is likely to add unrelated spending items to the bill,” Flake said.

 Democrat Rep. Harry Mitchell voted in favor of the measure because, he said,  the economy is a concern.

“Unemployment rates are up in Arizona and we have a record numbers of foreclosures in the Valley,” said Mitchell, who represents the 5^th District, which takes in Scottsdale, Tempe, Fountain Hills, Ahwatukee Foothills and west
Mesa.

“I am disappointed that the package did not include my bill to stop members of Congress from taking yet another pay raise,” he said. “At a time when so many families are worried about making ends meet, I think it is just plain wrong. The American people haven’t gotten a pay raise, why should we?”

Incidently, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, the presidential candidate who is Mitchell’s co-sponsor on the bill to block an automatic Congressional pay raise, parted with Mitchell and voted against the tax rebates.

Shadegg said the federal government doesn’t have the money to pay for the rebates.

“It makes absolutely no sense to me to go give away money we don’t have. These rebates will push us even further into debt to China and Saudi Arabia and impose the burden of this debt on our children and grandchildren,” said Shadegg, who represents the 3^rd District, which includes central and northern Phoenix, plus

Paradise
Valley, Cave Creek and Carefree.

“Temporary rebates will not stimulate economic growth.  The most they’ll do is make politicians feel good,” Shadegg said.

Barack Obama

Campaign officials for some of the presidential candidates have been trying to persuade Arizona voters to register in time to vote in the presidential preference election on Feb. 5. The deadline is Monday.

Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign sent an e-mail Saturday to supporters in Arizona to remind them to.

The e-mail stated: “You can be part of our movement in Arizona, but you must be registered to vote as a Democrat. And Arizona’s voter registration deadline is January 7 – just a few days from now. Make your support count. Register to vote today.”

In accordance with state law, only voters registered in recognized political parties are permitted to vote in the constest that will help determine the major parties’ presidential nominee. Registered Republicans will be given Republican ballots. Registered Democrats will be given Democrat ballots. Registered independents, who comprise 28.1 percent of the state’s voter base, won’t be allowed to vote at all.

Internet magazine publisher and independent U.S. House candidate Annie Loyd said she doubts many independents will rush to change their status.

“The independents that I’ve spoken to over the last week in particular, and in the last month, I have not heard of anybody re-registering to vote in the presidential primary election,” she said. “In fact, I know of more people that have just reregistered as independents and forgone their registration as Democrat or a Republican, because they’re not drawn to any of the candidates.”

Many independents are waiting for an independent candidate or a third-party candidate to emerge on the national scene, said Loyd, who is running against incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. John Shadegg.

She noted that several media outlets reported early this week that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed to speak at a nonpartisan conference Sunday in
Oklahoma, in possible preparation for an independent presidential bid. The conference is being staged by Unity08, a group also hopes to advance a nonpartisan ticket.

Loyd said, “What’s important is that independents don’t fee represented. They don’t feel that either party represents them.” She is seeking a seat in Arizona’s 3^rd Congressional District, which takes in central and northern Phoenix.