PA-12

One month from Tuesday there's a special election to fill the empty congressional seat in PA-12. Haven't heard much about it, have you? You weren't meant to. The DCCC and NRCC have a gentleman's agreement that this one goes to Team Red without a contest. The DCCC is ignoring the district entirely.

Cheri-- burnin' down the House (but not in  a good way)And the winners are... not the candidates being recruited to run for congressional seats next year. These 5 were elected to positions that haven't been well-defined yet:

PA-12 in the western part of the state stretches from the Ohio border in the vicinity of Little Blue Run Lake into suburbs north of Pittsburgh from Aliquippa through McCandless, Ross, West Deer and Harrison townships and the east to Johnstown and Somerset. Very blue collar and very white, the district used to be a strong Democratic Party stronghold. But Obama lost it both time-- with 45% against McCain and just 41% against Romney.

The vote in the House Tuesday evening was 231-190. Every Republican but Walter Jones of North Carolina voted to hamper the ability of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect bank customers from the kinds of systemic abuse and predatory behavior that led directly to Bush's Great Recession and destroyed the financial stability of millions of American families.