The Missouri 1st District
Congressional District or Personal Fiefdom?
I live within the 1st District in Missouri. It is not something
that I am proud of. My Congressman is William “Lacy” Clay Jr. The
reason he represents the 1st District is that his Father William
“Bill” Clay Sr. held the seat for 32 years. This after 5 years as
St. Louis Alderman, and holding various union jobs, including the
powerful Pipefitters union… oh, not as a union worker but as a
union official.
It is important to know this about the senior Clay, because that
is the only qualification “Lacy” has to the seat.
“Lacy” has never really lived in the district he represents
having grown up in Silver Springs Maryland, gone to college at the
University of Maryland, College Park. Even while serving in the
Missouri House of Representatives he studied at Harvard
University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Then he moved on
to the State Senate, waiting for Daddy to retire, in 2000.
Clay is a 100% PC liberal that is just to the right of Maxine
Waters and Dennis Kursinch. He also was an early supporter on The
Messiah. In fact Clay is one of the few people in politics today
that can make Obama look worldly and experienced.
Clay’s district has always been a tough urban one, low on income
and education. His father grew up on those streets, learned to be a
fighter on those streets. Lacy did neither, yet acts as though he
did.
In this last election Clay received 242,570 out of 279,277 votes
cast. The GOP did not run a candidate, Clay was opposed by a
Libertarian Robb Cunningham, who pulled 36,700 votes… including
mine.
If Clay got the seat because of his father, he holds it because
of gerrymandering.
The St. Louis metro area is split by three of Missouri’s nine
districts. The City of St. Louis, long a huge pool of Democratic
strength is in turn split, north and south by the 1st and 3rd
districts. The 3rd District now held by “Russ” Carnahan, son of the
a former Missouri governor and Jean Carnahan, a former U.S.
Senator. This is also Dick Gephardt’s old seat.
The problem for the Democrats is that the city is no longer that
large pool of votes. Thus with each census, the 1st and the 3rd
have had to fight over the city. This has led to compromise after
compromise, while also pushing these two further out into the less
safe territory of the suburbs. Also while fighting for those
remaining Democratic voters they have also isolated more of the GOP
voters into the 2nd district held by Todd Akin.
This takes us to 2010 and beyond to 2012… which should be
interesting. The fight between the 1st and 3rd will go on… again
the city is almost sure to lose more population, and these two will
fight to keep as much of the city as they can. This will be made
all the more interesting if Missouri losses a seat in the 2010
census. If there would be a clear cut ‘winner’ in this fight, the
loser would be very vulnerable. Given a ‘good’ GOP year, and we
could get one of them out. Although Carnahan might be the easier of
the two to unseat Lacy would be the one we could hope for… given
his total liberal dogma, and lack of both political skills and
morals.
If Lacy were to win the re-districting fight… taking the whole
of the City of St. Louis, this would push Carnahan further into
southern Missouri… Jefferson and Ste Genevieve Countys. Not the
best for him, but at least competitive. But were Clay to lose, that
would push him out into either St Charles County to the west or
into central St. Louis County (apart from the City of St. Louis…
don’t ask) both areas being very Republican. A re-districting like
that and Lacy would be in serious trouble.
The loss of a House seat in Missouri and all bets are off. While
gerrymandering has allowed a unqualified unskilled pol like Lacy to
hold on to this seat, it has also made his district an island in a
red GOP sea.
Our best course would be to find a young, energetic candidate,
maybe even one that could self finance… run them in 2010, just to
get the name recognition, then be ready for the real fight in
2012.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lacy_Clay,_Jr.
http://www.sos.mo.gov/enrweb/raceresults.asp?eid=256&oid=56160&arc=
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