Katie Hill

Only one of these people has the brains to leadThere's no foolproof test, but it's a lot easier to name the most corrupt members of Congress-- think Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Greg Meeks (New Dem-NY), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Vern Buchanan (R-FL)-- than the stupidest... or smartest.

he announced that she would leave her office in the wake of a House Ethics Committee investigation into her alleged participation in sexual relationships with her male legislative director and her female campaign staffer.

PVIs are backward looking and are rarely up to date. Take CA-25, the district represented by Katie Hill, Officially the PVI is "even" but the Santa Clarita Valley-Antelope Valley-Simi Valley district is way bluer than that would indicate. Obama won it narrowly against McCain and then lost it narrowly against Romney. Hillary beat Trump convincingly-- 50.3% to 43.6%. Blue America has been working to flip this district for well over a decade.

There are 22 congressional districts that Trump won in 2016 that turned around and elected a non-incumbent Democrat two years later. None of the 7 California freshmen are included:

Katie Hill-- a target for right-wing Republicans AND right-wing DemocratsWhen I met Katie Hill for the first time-- a month or so before she officially decided to run for the seat occupied by generally unpopular GOP incumbent-- I was really excited. She said all the right things. Problem, of course, is that everybody has his or her own definition of what "progressive" means. Even Pelosi claims to be a progressive.

The 10 most recent polls that measured the public's feelings about voting for Congress next year all came up with the same conclusion-- that the Democrats have this one. The polling average is about 6 points in the Democrats' favor with a Morning Consult poll from this week showing the Democrats ahead by 12 points, enough the flip the 50 seats we're looking for.

I understand why she's not moving forward. She thinks impeachment will cost her party House seats-- that a dozen members who rarely vote with the Democrats anyway could lose in swing districts.

When I first met Katie through a mutual friend a couple of years ago, she was about to declare her candidacy. She was new and green and eager. Perhaps there was a gap between what she was saying and what I was understanding, but she appeared to be telling me she was a progressive. No doubt I was eager to hear that. In follow-up conversations and e-mails, that was reinforced.

A couple of weeks ago there were 24 freshman Democrats with 100% ratings from ProgressivePunch. Today there are 16. The votes haven't been that hard that there are many reasons to drift away from 100%.

I got that invitation above the other day and said to myself, "self, didn't Katie Hill say she wasn't going to take PAC money?" Maybe not; maybe I was thinking of almost every other freshman. Or maybe there was some Philadelphia lawyer language in the statement about not taking-- let alone soliciting-- which this invitation clearly is. So I tweeted it. A top Hill chief of staff write to me immediately: "I saw your tweet.