Fossella's new trial, take II

After being found guilty and sentenced to five days in jail Fossella decided to try again in hopes of a more lenient verdict based on his blame everyone but himself strategy;

An Alexandria, Va. court has set aside two days for former Rep. Vito Fossella's trial on charges that he drove while under the influence on May 1 last year.

Fossella, who was sentenced in December by an Alexandria District Court judge for having driven with a blood-alcohol-content level of .17, will appear before an Alexandria Circuit Court jury April 13 and 14.

Seriously just go to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Why there won't be a special election here

Tomorrow (really today at this point) we will have a great picture of the approval ratings for the Republican party in the minds of their own voters. After suffering two crushing defeats in formerly very Republican Congressional districts in special elections, the Republican Party faces its final test in the MS-01 election. This seat has an even stronger Republican lean with a PVI of R+10 than either of the previous two seats they lost, LA-06 PVI R+6 and IL-14 PVI R+5. This race is the runoff resulting from an earlier matchup where the Democratic candidate was only tenths of a percentage away from an outright victory. The NRCC has dropped $1.3 million into saving this seat against the DCCC's $1.8 million investment. Regardless of the outcome this will be very telling on the path taken to the next election for the NY-13 seat. The NRCC has to fear Fossella's seat going to special election more than any others this year.

First this is drastically more Democratic leaning district, D+1 than any of the three above, where they have lost. Meaning IL-14, LA-06 and MS-01 went 6, 7 and 11 percentage points more for Bush last election than Fossella's.

Second the DCCC is flexing their muscle in MS-01 showing the NRCC they can drop unlimited amounts of money here in NY-13 on a special election and obliterate the NRCC budget. The NRCC currently only has about $7 million in the bank compared to the DCCC's $44 million. A fourth special election in NY-13 will completely wipe out their money heading into November where every seat is up for re-election. That is a daunting outlook.

Third the NY State Republican Party faces the prospect of losing;

* a congressional seat and their Staten Island leadership
* a DA's seat should Donovan run and win, that Gov. Paterson would then fill
* a State Senate seat should Lanza run and win, setting up another special election that the NY Dems have swept recently
* or putting Oddo up, you know this crazy guy

There is no way Fossella can resign before July 1. With Fossella's court date set for June 27th, the likelihood of him serving jail time before that magical July 1 is minimal. The Republican Party at this point wants him out, but not at the cost of losing his seat. They will try to force him out possibly through stripping his committee seats and pushing an ethics investigation on him, but only after the July 1 cut off date. The only reason at this point that Fossella calls it quits before then is in response to his party trying to push him out and and hoping they lose the seat.

Fossella Five to visit Fossella in jail

via Fossella Five;

Sally Jones and Thomas Good, members of the Fossella Five*, have released the following statement on the arrest of Congressman Vito Fossella for driving while intoxicated:

While we would never advocate placing a human being in a cage and calling that rehabilitation, we are aware that this is precisely what the great state of Virginia may do to Vito Fossella should he be convicted of driving while intoxicated.

There is one possibility for salvaging this regrettable state of affairs: both the congressman’s self described “error in judgment” and the Old Dominion’s punitive approach to treating alcohol abuse. We pledge that should Vito Fossella indeed be incarcerated for drunken driving, we will visit him in jail. We would do so in order to comfort the congressman in his hour of need and because this might be our only opportunity to meet with our representative — previously Mr. Fossella has been unavailable to meet with his constituents. We would gladly put time aside to meet with our fellow Staten Islander to discuss both his present difficulties and his positions on the Iraq War, health care, the Patriot Act, and immigration. We hope to see something positive come from this unfortunate situation and we want to support our congressman - we know what it is like to be incarcerated as we were arrested in the congressman’s office when we attempted to speak with him, a little over a year ago.

[*The Fossella Five were arrested in Rep. Vito Fossella’s Staten Island office on March 23, 2007, for reading the names of the (US) war dead aloud and demanding a meeting with their representative so they might discuss the position he holds on continuing the U.S. occupation of Iraq. ]

Poll: Should Fossella go to jail?

The NY Daily News is running an online poll asking;

Vito Fossella's drunk driving arrest
Should the S.I. congressman go to jail?

The poll currently stands at 66% yes. Let them know what you think.