David Wasserman, undisputed popular votemeister, has just updated his national House popular vote number with the certification of final results from New York State. And the Democrats now has a non-trivial lead of 1.362 million votes. 49.15% to 48.03%.
That’s not only a measure of effective gerrymandering. There’s also the concentration of Democratic votes in large urban districts. And the simple fact that, like in the presidential race, different areas are contested in very uneven ways.
With all that said, though, significantly more people voted for Democratic representatives than Republican ones.
According to The Hill, Speaker Boehner has told members of his caucus that he’s done negotiating with President Obama. From the perspective of Boehner and House Republicans this process has amounted to nothing more than Boehner and the members he represents being taken again and again to the cleaners. Read More
Sen.-elect Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who just got elected with bigtime NRA support, comes out against more guns in schools proposal.
“Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.”
Answer after the jump. Read More
Sahil Kapur has the latest on where things stand.
Joe Weisenthal: “A number of folks in the media seem to get that there’s something reckless about the Default Caucus of the GOP, but since they strive so hard for balance, they have to attack Obama for something too, and so they usually point to his lack of spending cuts.”
What came after the Boehner-to-Reid eff you, according to Jimmy Fallon.
Kevin Drum on the correlation between atmospheric lead and violent crime.
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) ascended the steps on the east side of the Capitol a short time ago, under his own power, in returning to the Senate for the first time since his stroke one year ago.
Proceedings are underway in the new 113th Congress. First order of business: electing a new Speaker of the House. Voting getting underway now. Watch.
John Boehner expected to have more GOP opposition than last time around, but nothing that seriously threatens his hold on the gavel. At least that’s the expectation going in.