Does one really

suddenly realize that you can't raise your kid while in Congress?  This particular retirement does seem to be coming out of the blue, although I'm hardly privy to good GOP gossip.  Was this rumored for a while, was Pryce's discontent with her family situation known, or did she just, um, suddenly decide she had a parenting problem?  I've always thought of Pryce as a reasonably clean member of Congress, but any sudden announcement makes my ears perk up... especially since the GOP is obviously stuck without a candidate at the moment, and the Dems aren't.  As a courtesy, wouldn't she have normally delayed her announcement until the NRCC had had a chance to do some recruiting, so they could have a better press storyline than "well, we've got nothing?"

The only red flag I can think of is that Pryce was supposedly a "Hastert ally", and he's also set to announce his retirement this week. 

Any of the Hastert experts know if something is in the prosecutorial pipeline here?

Also, anyone know when she adopted her child, and how old she is?

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by: texas dem @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 15:40:04 PM CDT

I believe I heard a suggestion...

...a while ago that Pryce might retire, but I didn't take it seriously.  It's certainly a surprise, but CQ finds some recent clues that she dropped:

Pryce had been raising funds hard until recently for a 2008 re-election bid. She reported raising $594,000 in the first six months of 2007 and had $453,000 in her campaign account as July began; Kilroy had raised $61,000 during the period and banked $26,000.

But Pryce's full-time fundraising aide in Columbus was "cut loose" recently, according to one Republican source, and Pryce gave her 2006 campaign manager and former Capitol Hill aide John J. Destefano $20,000 in bonuses from her campaign account in the reporting quarter that ended June 30, an unusual move if she were planning to seek re-election in a tight and expensive race.

Wow.  $20k for a bonus is a pretty sweet deal.

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by: James L. @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 15:53:15 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Well don't you remember in the past

That Congress was also called the "Tuesday through Thursday Club". Basically, under Republican control, they only worked 3 days a week so presumably she could spend 4 days a week raising her daughter. Now she works 4 or 5 days a week, and for someone who hasn't worked that hard in 12 years, "it's hard work!"

This is great news, however. Stick a fork into this district. It's done, it's ours.

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by: KainIIIC @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 16:25:12 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It can't be fun...

...to have an assumption of satefy and seniority, and then have to raise and spend $4 million to win by 1,100 votes.

This is good news - if someone fairly young and well-positioned in leadership doesn't feel like sticking around, she won't be alone.

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by: Seth D @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 15:54:46 PM CDT

The Surprising Nature of this Retirement

As recently as August 6, the Cook Report didn't see it coming.

http://www.cookpolit...

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 15:57:38 PM CDT

Surprising yes - but also not

I didn't see it coming. But at the same time it makes sense. Why spend the next 14+ months raising money for much of her day on a race she might not win - especially since she's no longer in the leadership, the Republicans don't look likely to return to the majority, and she's young enough to work in another (perhaps more enjoyable) field for a bit. Given those basic dynamics I expect we'll see a few more "surprising" retirements.

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by: armand @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 16:08:21 PM CDT

The counter arguments

to your case would be that Pryce probably thinks that if she survives 08, then she'll have a much easier time in 10 (Democratic president, house and senate will tend to make moderate Republicans look desirable again, to the powers-that-be, the press, and thus the voters; plus if she survives two close calls the Ds would probably look elsewhere), and if she survives '10 she can get a favorable redistricting in '11 by offloading her Democrats into a new Democratic district centered in Columbus (currently there isn't one, but there will be).  She'd then be set for the rest of the decade, the GOP could plausibly get the House back in 2012 or 2014 , and because she is young and has already been in leadership, she could easily be high up in leadership again, especially if the reconstituted GOP is more moderate, which it will be if Dems play their cards right.  So, she's 56 now, she could plausibly hope to be speaker or Minority Leader or something by the time she's 65.  (A little hard to imagine given that she's pro-choice though.)  Anyway, being young and having been the #4 already... it'd be a little bit like Harold Ford retiring from politics (though he's quite a bit younger than she). 

You're certainly right that there is a compelling reason to go, but there are also compelling reasons to stay. 

Incidentally, she might still be a candidate to replace Voinovich if he retires in 2010.  Given the state of the Ohio GOP, she's possibly the only attractive candidate they have.  And she might be willing to do it too, even given the family stuff, because Senators only have to campaign once every 6 years.

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by: texas dem @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 18:43:33 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

More arguments on your side though,

here's the answer to a question I posed earlier:

According to congressional sources, Pryce is finding it painfully difficult to balance the demands of her job in Congress, a second bruising re-election campaign and her duties as the single mother of a young daughter.

She adopted her daughter Mia as an infant in 2002, following the 1999 death from cancer of her 9-year-old daughter Caroline and her subsequent divorce from her husband of 21 years, Randy Walker.

So, she's got a four year old.  Plus she's lived through tragedy and knows she only has one life.  Having been through all that, I can imagine deciding that fifteen more years in Congress really isn't all that great.

Also, she's a "Hastert ally."  Depending on what exactly that means, she might be rendered a mere backbencher by his departure, with no real future leadership prospects.  I dunno enough about that to evaluate.

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by: texas dem @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 18:52:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

a 4 year old

Yep, I bet that matters a great deal.

But you might well be right about that 2010 Senate race. She could sort of pull a Blanche Lincoln on that (retire when the kids are really tiny, then run statewide a couple years later). I imagine Rob Portman will be running for governor or for the Senate that year - but if Voinovich retires that'll leave one big race in need of a Republican nominee.

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by: armand @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 19:29:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

long-term prospects favor Democrats

Pryce won in 2006 by a thousand votes.  Meanwhile Bush is dragging the Republican brand down even further for the 2008 cycle.  If Pryce survived 2008, she would likely still be in the minority for a couple of cycles, and in 2012, redistricting would likely make her seat even less safe (Ohio has managed to split Franklin County just well enough to disperse Democratic voters between this district and Tiberi's).

If I am Deborah Pryce, I have a hard time seeing how I would ever regain the influence I had before November 2006.

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by: Nuisance Industry @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 20:47:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

And Hobson's district.

Dave Hobson's district has a slice of Franklin that could be added to the 12th and/or 15th districts in a redistricting process to firm up the Democratic base there:

http://upload.wikime...

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by: James L. @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 20:51:55 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Pryce & the Equal Pay Legislation

Late last month, the House passed HR 2831, a bill to overrule a Supreme Court decision which stated that a case alleging an equal pay violation on the basis of sex had to filed within 180 days of the initial unequal payment.  Thus, someone who discovered the years after the fact had no recourse.

Only two Republicans (Chris Shays and Don Young) voted in favor of this bill, which means all Republican women voted the other way.  Now, the number of Republican women who are total nutcases is rather high, including Barbara Cubin, Marilyn Musgrave, Jean Schmidt and Marsha Blackburn, but I would classify others as relatively sane including Heather Wilson, Joanne Emerson and Pryce.  If Pryce was contemplating retirement, why did she vote against this bill?

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by: Vadranor @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 16:12:09 PM CDT

I would also like to add...

...to your list of female wingnuts: Virginia Foxx.  God how I hate that bitch.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 17:11:49 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

and then there is

Michelle BACHMANN of Minnesota who was "told by God to run for Congress".

"My name's Dr. Multimillionaire and I kicked your ass." -- Rep. Steve Kagen D-WI to Karl Rove

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by: walja @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 17:17:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

good lord

How could anyone possibly forget about that one... lol even though I did hahahaa

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by: Venslor @ Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 12:43:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I would almost argue the opposite

I was really surprised at how few GOPers voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Somehow, I don't think their usual tropes ("frivolous lawsuits flooding the courts!") have the same strength they once did.

And what's more, if the Dems cut an ad with Ledbetter herself that can be used across districts, it could be devastating. I mean, this woman was actually discriminated against. This isn't some story about some ticky-tack procedural bullshit that no one cares about and that can be waved away. The Supreme Court said, "Yeah, you were discriminated against, but tough luck." That's a hard thing for the GOP to walk away from, I think.

In other words, a "moderate" GOPer would have been smart to vote for this bill. And I'm surprised the GOP bothered to whip on this bill, since it was going to pass anyway. The CFG and all those groups who hate trial lawyers must have really laid down the law on this one as a serious litmus-test issue, even though they knew they couldn't stop the bill.

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by: DavidNYC @ Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 00:06:35 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

when I heard about this

I simply assumed she was still depressed her best friend in the House, pedophile Mark FOLEY, was no longer around to bring joy into the lives of Republican children on Capitol Hill.

"My name's Dr. Multimillionaire and I kicked your ass." -- Rep. Steve Kagen D-WI to Karl Rove

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by: walja @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 17:16:18 PM CDT

"The Perfect (Ohio) Storm"

1. The Ohio GOP is in shambles (seriously)
2. Brooks dropped out of the race on the Dem side
3. The DCCC now has some great young staffers with DEEP Ohio experience
4. The rising tide is raising all of the Ohio Dem US House boats. For example, consider some of the candidates running for the US House in Ohio: Judge O'Neill in OH-14, Steve Driehaus in OH-1,and, of course,  State Senator John Boccieri in OH-16
5. Three words: GOVERNOR Ted Strickland

And finally, we have gone from the depths of election depravity under the former SoS "He-who's-Name-Must-Not-Be Spoken," to the competence of Jennifer Brunner (with Marc Dann as State ATtorney General to back her up.)

So ask yourself, if your were a GOPer and the 25% Shrub was in the White House, would YOU wanna run?

I didna think so..

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by: ohio_anon @ Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 17:19:02 PM CDT

So three retirements

In the OH delegation alone. Pretty impressive. Wonder if we might see any more GOP crumb-bums from the Buckeye State bail?

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by: DavidNYC @ Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 00:09:35 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

3?

pryce, chabot and..... 

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by: Andrew @ Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 11:47:46 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Chabot??

David was referring to Pryce, Regula, and Hobson.  Regula and Hobson, of course, have yet to confirm the rumors.

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by: James L. @ Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 11:50:27 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

thanks

i just read further down SSP, i have a lot of posts to catch up on, :)

and i guessed on chabot, that bastard should retire, i hate when big cities are represented by a Republicans

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by: Andrew @ Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 11:54:00 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

No kidding.

It just doesn't make any sense to have a metro area like Cincinnati routinely vote for Republican'ts like Chabot.  I hope that Steve Driehaus is the real deal.

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by: James L. @ Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 12:19:06 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

"Steve Driehaus is the real deal."

That's affirmative.

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by: ohio_anon @ Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 15:23:17 PM CDT

[ Parent ]