Alabama

Last summer we looked at the story of a once powerful dead congressman from Pascagoula, Mississippi, William M. Colmer, a virulent racist who was elected as a New Deal Democrat.

I met with a friendly congressman this week to talk about the prospects for improving House Democratic leadership in a post-Pelosi world. Aside from assuring me that enough members of the caucus detest Steve Israel so that he's not going up any ladders, it was a depressing conversation.

The race most people were most interested in today was the lesser-of-two evils gubernatorial election in Virginia. As expected, the lesser of two evils, Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe, won.

Unless you're from Montgomery, Alabama, I wouldn't blame you if you can't remember who Bobby Bright was. As Mayor of Montgomery, Bright never had to say if he was a Democrat or a Republican. But when Republican Terry Everett announced he would not run for reelection in AL-02, a seat that had been in GOP hands for over 4 decades, Bright avoided the crowded GOP primary by running as a Democrat, albeit as gay-hating, anti-Choice NRA Blue Dog. He won the general election by 1,776 votes (just over a half of one percent).

I guess if Troy King is still in the closet, he can be on the Alabama GOP steering committee.

By Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky | AllGov | July 28, 2013

In what some experts say may be the beginning of the end for mass incarceration, the U.S. prison population declined for the third year in a row last year.
In 2012, the prison population shrunk by 1.7% (or 27,770 inmates), according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).