FL-27: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to retire from Congress

[Virginiá]

This probably also kills Scott Fuhrman's chances of winning the primary, since this will open the floodgates for first tier Democrat candidates to jump in.

JJR's Senate seat isn't up till 2020. Hard to see why he wouldn't make the jump. Still no more than tilt D, though.

Didn't Florida recent pass a resign to run law for federal offices?

Unless it was very recent, I don't think so.

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0000-0099/0099/Sections/0099.012.html

Edit: Nope. I see what you mean though. Caldwell proposed, but it still hasn't made it out of committee:

https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=59604

[Virginiá]

Rick Scott is term limited in 2018.    After 2018 there would only be the 2020 election before redistricting anyway,  I really doubt they would draw a new map for 1 election.

Scott has claimed that in the literal 1-2 minute window where before he leaves office & the scotus justices are officially forced to retire, he can fill the seats, which means he can make the entire bench red.

I think it goes against the spirit of the rules, but whatever. Expecting most politicians - especially ones like Scott (or, say, most NC Republicans), to not be greasy hacks is way beyond the scope of reasonable thought at this point.

[Virginiá]

Well, that would obviously lead to a lawsuit.  Let's see where that goes.  Would the existing justices refuse to swear the new ones in until after it was resolved? 

That would be interesting. It would only leave 4 justices to hear the case, all of whom would be Republicans. Not entirely convinced that bodes well for it.

Also, if Dems can finally pick up FL-GOV next year, none of this will matter for redistricting anyway.

afaik it would for legislative districts, whose maps cannot be vetoed. The best option would be for Democrats to get independent commission initiative(s) on the ballot for 2020. At that point, FL would have a pretty sound redistricting process, assuming the commission setup is well-designed.

I believe part of the Democrat's strategy for next redistricting is to use ballot initiatives where possible to level the playing field. If the worst case scenario happens in FL (GOP gov & all GOP Supreme Court), I could see Democrats pushing a commission initiative here. They would be foolish not to.

[Virginiá]

We should consider banning him for 30 days until he stops trolling and contributes like many of us know he's perfectly capable of. It'd be a boon for Atlas in more than one way to have Good Krazen here.

As I understand it, he was banned for over a year some time ago and as soon as he came back for the 2016 election, he was doing the same thing as before, but with some 'tweaks' to avoid getting banned for the same thing again. That he has spent years doing this is a testament to how screwed up he is, and how unwilling he is to be respectful. His goal is to agitate liberals, period. He doesn't want to be a quality poster here. He just wants to ruin it for everyone else.