Political Stakes: Republicans ride an uncertain wave
 
When it comes to politics, Americans are romantics who idolize their suitors as candidates and notice their blemishes only after they are elected. Small wonder that "it's time for a change" is an enduring political slogan or that the party out of power in the White House has gained in all but two midterm elections since 1900.
 
This year the change could be momentous. If the pollsters are right, Republicans are poised to regain control of the House of Representatives they lost four years ago, come reasonably close to winning the U.S. Senate, pick up a net of six or seven governorships and take control of fifteen or so state legislative bodies. Statehouse results will have long-term consequences because legislative and congressional districts will be reapportioned next year based on the 2010 census. 
 
"Change is coming for sure," says Tim Storey, a political analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). "The question is whether it's going to be the normal repositioning that occurs in most midterm elections or a wave of the magnitude of 1994." That year, with Bill Clinton in the White House, Republicans won the House for the first time in nearly half a century and gained an astounding 500 state legislative seats. 
 
Republicans hope for similar results this year, while Democrats insist that a number of GOP candidates have yet to close the deal. Privately, however, even Democratic strategists acknowledge that Republicans are likely to take the House. The GOP needs a net gain of 39 seats to reach this goal; independent analyst Charlie Cooke projects Republican gains of from 48 to 69 seats. 
 
The Senate is a stiffer challenge. To gain control Republicans need to hold all of their 18 seats, which they may well do, and win 10 of 11 Democratic seats rated as tossups. This is not impossible, says Cooke, but "very, very difficult." In the pre-election week polling, Republicans led in eight of the tossup races but trailed in California, Washington, and West Virginia. Republicans hold an overall advantage in gubernatorial races, although the Democrats have bright spots as well. Thirty-seven governors will be elected this year; the current breakdown is 26-24 in favor of the Democrats. Republicans are favored to win eleven governorships now held by Democrats, among them Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Democrats led in the polling in five states now governed by Republicans, including Connecticut and the big prize of California. The website RealClearPolitics rates eight gubernatorial races as tossups; five of these states presently have Republican governors. 
 
Flying below the radar in the 2010 midterm media coverage are the legislative races that will determine who gets to draw the congressional maps for the next decade. Here, too, Republicans are poised for major gains. They are in need of them, for Democrats now control both legislative chambers in 27 states compared to 14 for the Republicans. Control is divided in eight states. (Nebraska has a non-partisan unicameral legislature.) 
 
According to Storey's analysis, Republicans are positioned to win one or both houses in 11 states where Democrats now control both chambers, among them Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. From a redistricting standpoint, the struggles for control of the New York Senate and the Texas House are particularly significant. In the Empire State the Democrats won the Senate in 2010 after 35 years in the minority. Republicans, spending heavily, want it back. In Texas, Republicans are clinging to a two-seat majority in the House. Texas is the biggest prize in the redistricting sweepstakes, as the Lone Star State stands to gain four new congressional districts from the census. The best-case scenario for Democrats would be winning the Texas House, which is a longshot, while winning the Florida governorship, a nearly even bet. Republicans have a long wish list that includes winning the Houses in Illinois and Michigan. This would require a truly monumental Republican wave since Democrats have plus-20 majorities in both states. 
 
Regional differences abound. Democrats believe they have a firewall on the Pacific Coast, staunchest of all in California. Republicans are running strong in the Midwest, where independents who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 are defecting, and in the South, where the statehouses are catching up with the region's trend in national elections. Twenty years ago the GOP lacked a majority in any legislative chamber in the South. They now hold half of the 28 southern legislative chambers; Storey predicts that they will control a majority of these chambers after this election. 
 
Whatever happens Tuesday, Republicans have made an extraordinary comeback from back-to-back catastrophes in the 2006 and 2008 elections. After these defeats, says Rep. Greg Walden (R-Oregon), Republicans were "like mold — not really alive but you couldn't kill us either." The speedy GOP political recovery is the flip side of a recovery that has unfolded more slowly than the Obama economic team predicted. Nearly 15 million Americans are officially unemployed and millions more have given up looking for work. Forty-four million Americans, one in seven, live below the poverty line and nearly as many rely on food stamps. Nearly a quarter of the nation's homes are "under water," meaning that they are worth less than their mortgages. 
 
These economic realities have provided fertile soil for the Republican resurgence and the Tea Party movement. Economic downturns inevitably spawn protest movements that tend to vanish when prosperity arrives. That happened most recently to the Ross Perot movement of the early 1990s, although Perot stuck around long enough to cost George H.W. Bush reelection. Many of these protest movements wave the banner of limited government; columnist E.J. Dionne traces "profound mistrust of power in Washington" back to the anti-Federalists who opposed the U.S. Constitution. The GOP and the Tea Party have been conflated in the public mind because they share common targets: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aka the stimulus package, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, known by its many critics as Obamacare. But as journalist Christopher Caldwell has observed, a majority of the Tea Partiers are conservative independents who do not reciprocate the Republican embrace. For the most part, Tea Partiers recognize that the runaway debt that is a conspicuous feature of Obama's policies had its origins in the George W. Bush presidency. That's why the Tea Party candidates challenged (and defeated) so many establishment Republicans this year in primaries. Some of the Tea Party victors have turned out to be capable general election candidates; others have not. Stuart K. Spencer, a premier GOP strategist for Ronald Reagan, believes that exotic Tea Party candidates, as in Delaware, have cost Republicans a chance to win the Senate while at the same time helping them to win the House. 
 
In addition to the defection of independent voters, Democrats are also dealing with a mass desertion of white working class voters — the so-called "Reagan Democrats" — who expected more on the job front than the Obama administration has delivered. As The Economist put it, "White working-class voters are the quicksilver of American politics; they are hard to catch and hard to hold." Obama had a tenuous grasp of this electorate even in 2008, when many working class voters favored Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The districts in which Clinton did best are now on the endangered list for Democrats. 
 
A combination of the sour economy and a proliferation of independent expenditure groups have made for an angry and expensive campaign in which facts have been the first casualty. The debate on the stimulus bill has been especially hollow, with Republicans alleging that the $847 billion measure accomplished nothing, while Democrats boast of saving millions of jobs. Economists agree that the measure created some jobs and enabled hard-pressed states to balance their budgets. But the low end of the Congressional Budget Office estimate of jobs created is only one million, which suggests that the administration did not get much bang for its stimulus buck. Indeed, Obama seems to know as much. He told the New York Times that "there's no such thing as shovel-ready projects." 
 
Obama's refreshing admission ranks as a high point of this surly campaign. Another bright moment was the self-deprecating declaration of Sarah Palin at campaign rallies that she could "see November from my house." Sometimes she says she can see 2012 from her house as well. Palin at least is cheerful, which is more than can be said about many of her more apocalyptic contemporaries on both sides. But the cheering may stop on Election Day. If Republicans fulfill the expectations of the pollsters, they will share power and responsibility with Obama and the Democrats. Unless they deliver, their romance with voters could also be short-lived.

Dems expected to suffer big state election losses
 
At least 16 legislative chambers in 13 states will be "in play" in tomorrow's elections, according to Governing.com. Of those, 14 are currently led by Democratic majorities, with control of the other two — Montana's House and Alaska's Senate — split between Democrats and Republicans. And Democrats may not fare much better in tomorrow's governors' races. RealClearPolitics predicts Republicans will pick up six new governorships or more, ahead of next year's decennial redistricting. Democrats are likely to claim the governors' offices in only two states by RealClearPolitics' reckoning, although the political news and polling aggregator said gubernatorial contests in eight other states — Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont — were too close to call.

MAINE THE EPICENTER OF FRAUDCLOSURE FIASCO: If asked to identify the state where the latest foreclosure crisis began, an attentive observer might answer California, Arizona, Florida or Nevada, the states where foreclosure rates have been the highest. But it was actually in Maine, where an employee of GMAC Mortgage recently testified in state court to signing over 10,000 foreclosure affidavits a month without reviewing the loan files, spurring some of the nation's largest banks to impose voluntary foreclosure freezes and bank regulators and attorneys general across the country to begin investigating the practice of "robosigning." 
 
It may seem ironic that the current crisis spread from a state with a relatively strict foreclosure monitoring system, requiring judicial review. But it was because of that system that the problem was discovered. 
 
"Somebody at some point was able to notice that the documents that the servicers were sending into the courts were phony," said Geoffry Walsh of the National Consumer Law Center. "It's much, much worse in the non-judicial states where most people in America live, where courts don't even look at any papers." 
 
Including Maine, there are 23 states where foreclosures are handled through the state court system, an approach that is somewhat at odds with the accelerated process large, national banks put into place to manage the unprecedented volume of foreclosures and loan modification requests they've seen. 
 
Maine overhauled its foreclosure laws in 2009, but the changes actually added homeowner protections — as well as complexity — to the process rather than streamlining it to bring it into line with the national banking practices. The state now has additional documentation requirements for lenders and servicers and a mediation program that requires lenders to meet with homeowners and mediators prior to foreclosure. 
 
As a result of the robosigning crisis, other states are likely to follow Maine's lead. Nevada, for instance, launched a mediation program in 2009, which is administered by the state's Supreme Court. 
 
Some in the banking industry, however, worry that such measures will add too much red tape, delaying the resale of houses and, consequently, the recovery of the housing market. 
 
"It adds a lot of time and cost to the foreclosure process to go after information and documentation that is already apparent," said Fritz Conway, a lobbyist for the Connecticut Bankers Association. "I'm not sure the extra time and effort is really on anybody's side." 
 
Nevada Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty said that while his state's new program has helped improve outcomes for both borrowers and lenders in many cases, it has also heaped 2,000 mediation requests per month onto the court's docket. 
 
Still, it is unlikely other states won't take similar action to tighten up their foreclosure practices. 
 
"States don't want to get in the way of the home-buying process, but they do want to have some back-stops and rules in there to make sure that the process is done correctly and that consumers are being protected," said Heather Morton, a mortgage and foreclosure legislation analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "The legislators are trying to balance those needs." (STATELINE.ORG, NEW YORK TIMES, MINYANVILLE.COM) 
 
BUDGETS IN BRIEF: General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC announced plans last week to invest $2 billion in their MICHIGAN operations, adding an estimated 2,250 jobs. The investments are partly the result of tax incentives provided by the Michigan Economic Development Corp (DETROIT NEWS). • In recent weeks, the hole in TEXAS' next two-year budget has grown to as much as $25 billion. At about 25 percent of current spending, that gap is now proportionately larger than the deficit CALIFORNIA closed last month (DALLAS MORNING NEWS). • NEW YORK Gov. David Paterson (D) is calling lawmakers back to Albany for a special session on Nov. 15 to allocate the $607 million in education stimulus money Congress gave the state last summer (ALBANY TIMES UNION). • The Obama administration awarded $2.4 billion in grants for passenger rail projects in 23 states, despite election-season criticism from some Republicans that the projects are too costly. Over a third of the money, about $901 million, will go to CALIFORNIA, most of it to begin building a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. FLORIDA will receive $800 million for new intercity routes as well (WALL STREET JOURNAL). • Amazon.com scored a victory last week in its struggle against states seeking to force it to collect state sales taxes when U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that the First Amendment forbids state tax collectors from knowing the books, music and movies online customers buy from websites. The ruling stemmed from a federal lawsuit Amazon filed last April to stop NORTH CAROLINA tax collectors from obtaining the names, addresses and purchases of its customers (SEATTLE TIMES).

PRICEY JUDICIAL RACE IN IL: In Illinois tomorrow, four candidates are vying for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama. Another six are competing for the keys to the state's executive mansion. But one of the biggest money races that will be decided in the state on Election Day is one in which there is only a single candidate running. 
 
Nearly $3 million has flowed into the retention race for Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride, which has good-government advocates shaking their heads. 
 
"We've got this notion embedded in our history that when judges sit on a case they're supposed to...consider the law and not be swayed by campaign contributions or whom they know," says Cynthia Canary, who runs the IL Campaign for Judicial Reform. "But when you're talking about this kind of money, even a justice who is doing their absolute best to apply that kind of standard and to be neutral, the problem is: Does the public buy it?" 
 
The Democratic Party and unions have contributed over $2 million to Kilbride, a 10-year veteran of the court who is seeking another 10-year term. Business groups, meanwhile, spurred in part by Kilbride's vote this year against limits on medical malpractice claims, have spent about $600,000 on ads attacking him. 
 
"It became obvious that Thomas Kilbride not only had the worst record on civil issues," said Ed Murnane, who leads the pro-business Illinois Civil Justice League, "he also had a terrible record on criminal issues, and we thought the voters of Illinois who are being asked to send him back to the Supreme Court for 10 more years needed to know about his record." 
 
The harshness of the attacks against Kilbride have him asking himself whether he'll ever run again after this race is over. 
 
"I don't know about in the future [if] I'd want to do anything like this, the way it's evolved," he said. 
 
Yet Kilbride's campaign has raised more than twice what his opponents have. Kilbride maintains that he really didn't have much of a choice. 
 
"Nobody would be raising any money but for the announcement months ago, if not a year ago, when Ed Murnane of the Illinois Civil Justice League made it clear he was going to raise a million and a half dollars to come after me," he said. "Now what am I to do...sit still, lay down and roll over and just get trampled?" 
 
Kilbride said the retention battle is ultimately about far more than his career. 
 
"If we are going to allow the courts to be politicized to this degree, where there's more and more big time money coming in, it's going to ruin the court system and we might as well shut down the third branch," he said. (NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO) 
 
D.C. HACKING CASTS DOUBT ON FUTURE OF ONLINE VOTING: Washington, D.C. was planning to allow some voters to submit their ballots via the Internet in tomorrow's election. Fortunately, D.C. elections officials opted to test the system first. 
 
Less than 36 hours after the election Web site was opened to the public to evaluate its security and usability, it was hacked by a team of computer scientists from the University of Michigan, who altered the site's server software to make the site play the school's fight song. 
 
More troubling for elections officials, however, was that the Michigan team also obtained the names, addresses and PIN numbers of test voters who had signed up to try out the system, demonstrating that they could have changed votes on ballots or revealed voters' choices on the Internet. What's more, the Michigan computer scientists weren't the only ones who rooted around in the D.C. system; they said they observed other attacks, some of which originated in China and Iran. 
 
Unsurprisingly, the D.C. elections board decided to shelve the online ballot submission idea. But elections experts disagree on what the episode means for the future of online voting. While some say it just proves secure online voting isn't viable on the Internet in its current state, others, including D.C.'s top elections official, still think it has potential. In fact, Arizona and eight counties in West Virginia are planning to go ahead with their own online voting experiments on Nov. 2. (STATELINE.ORG) 
 
POLITICS IN BRIEF: The Seattle Times took the unusual step last week of withdrawing its endorsement of a political candidate, incumbent WASHINGTON Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders. The move was prompted by offensive remarks Sanders and fellow Justice Jim Johnson made about African American incarceration rates in the state (OLYMPIAN). • The U.S. Justice Department said last week that it has reached agreements with or won court orders in 14 states and territories protecting more than 65,000 overseas and military voters ahead of the Nov. 2 elections. The department had sued four states and Guam in September and October over violations of the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, requiring that ballots be sent to military and overseas voters at least 45 days before a national election (ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS). • ALASKA's Supreme Court ruled last week that state election workers can provide lists of write-in candidates to voters who request them at polling places. The ruling could benefit U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-ALASKA), who is running a write-in campaign for re-election (NEW YORK TIMES CAUCUS).

CHRISTIE KILLS MASSIVE TUNNEL PROJECT: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) officially killed a multi-billion dollar proposal to build a second train tunnel under the Hudson River to Manhattan. Christie ended the project after weeks of negotiations with federal officials failed to provide the state with the protection he sought from possible cost overruns. 
 
"I do this with no sense of happiness," Christie said. "It's not a philosophical issue. We don't have the money. I will no longer allow government to make commitments it can't meet." 
 
Christie originally cancelled the project on Oct. 7, but agreed to reconsider after federal authorities asked him to give the measure more thought. In a meeting with the governor last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood offered four possible proposals to keep the project alive, including phasing in parts of the project, the use of a federal railroad loan program, a public-private partnership and an offer of $378 million to cover overruns. None, however, were enough to satisfy Christie, who said the cash offer would not come close to covering even the most optimistic cost projections for the tunnel.  
 
"I told LaHood we can't have the taxpayers on the hook for a blank check for all the cost overruns," Christie said. "I really appreciate the efforts of LaHood. He conducted himself in an apolitical way." 
 
The tunnel project, originally estimated at $8.7 billion, was to be funded with $3 billion in the largest Federal Transit Administration "New Starts" grant in the nation; $3 billion from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and $2.7 billion from the state, including $1.25 billion from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. The project is now estimated to cost $9.77 billion.  
 
Tunnel advocates expressed disappointment at the governor's decision, noting it would also wipe out up to 6,000 construction jobs and as many as 44,000 public and private sector jobs upon its completion.  
 
"He obviously failed to give any of those (federal) options serious consideration, because he had already made up his mind to cancel the project to take its funding and spend it elsewhere," said Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John S. Wisniewski, (D), who also chairs the New Jersey Democratic State Committee. 
 
It also means the state will lose $3 billion in federal money, which will be distributed to projects in other states. The Garden State will also likely be forced to pay back $350 million in federal money that has already been spent, though Christie said he will ask the feds to reduce that amount. (ASBURY PARK PRESS, STAR-LEDGER [NEWARK]) 
 
RENDELL ENDS SHALE DRILLING: Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) followed through on a promise to halt natural gas drilling on 1.5 million acres of state land, issuing an executive order that halts drilling on all but the 700,000 acres of forest land already designated for gas drilling by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.  
 
Rendell also issued EO 2010-05 last week at least in part due to an ongoing standoff between Democrats and Republicans over a proposed severance tax on natural gas pumped from underground Marcellus Shale, the bulk of which is located underneath state forest lands.  
 
The governor placed most of the blame on the GOP-controlled state Senate, which he accused of not acting "in good faith" during the shale tax negotiations. Lawmakers considered but ultimately rejected the tax before recessing last month.  
 
The criticism angered Senate Republican leader Joe Scarnati, who said lawmakers will review the order's language "to see if it's within his executive authority. If not, we may file suit." Rendell was nonplussed over the threat.  
 
"If he wants to sue, let him sue, but he can't win," the governor said.  
 
He also urged Republican Tom Corbett and Democrat Dan Onorato — the two gubernatorial candidates seeking to replace him — to keep the moratorium in place after taking office in January. Onorato spokesperson Brian Herman said his boss would undoubtedly uphold the ban; Corbett spokesperson Kevin Harley said his candidate would immediately rescind the order if elected.  
 
In addition to the moratorium, Rendell also asked the Senate to return to session Nov. 8, the same day the House is expected to return. In theory, they could then resume talks on the severance tax and possibly work out a deal before the session officially ends on Nov. 30. Although a handful of GOP Senators from the northeast part of the state, where the severance tax proposal is popular, also urged leaders to resume talks on the tax, Scarnati said he has no plans to call the Senate back for the "lame duck" session. (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE) 
 
GOVERNORS IN BRIEF: CALIFORNIA Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) became the most veto-prone governor in the Golden State in four-plus decades last month. This year, Schwarzenegger rejected almost 29 percent of the 1,029 bills lawmakers sent his way, still less than the 35 percent veto percentage he had in 2009 (SACRAMENTO BEE). • VIRGINIA Gov. Robert McDonnell (R) ordered a review of how the state selects public school textbooks after the discovery of material in some fourth-grade books that says thousands of blacks fought in the Confederate ranks during the Civil War. McDonnell said he "was very disappointed to see that," calling the material outside the historical mainstream. He said "immediate corrective action" was also taken to keep teachers from using that material (RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH).

BUSINESS: The Obama administration announces it will soon distribute $2.5 billion to states to fund high speed rail projects. CALIFORNIA ($902 million) and FLORIDA ($800 million) will receive the largest shares. The administration did not reveal the other states receiving funds (CNBC.COM). • NEW JERSEY officials announce they will seek bids from private operators to collect highway tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway. The state, which estimates it could save $43 million annually by privatizing the tolls, is expected to seek the bids starting in December (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER).  
 
CRIME & PUNISHMENT: A federal judge in MASSACHUSETTS grants a preliminary injunction against a Bay State law that effectively bans from the Internet anything that may be considered "harmful to minors," including material adults have the right to view. Lawmakers adopted the measure, which is aimed at protecting children from online sexual predators, in February. The state is considering an appeal (BOSTON GLOBE). • PENNSYLAVANIA Gov. Ed Rendell (D) signs HB 727, which narrowly redefines the Keystone State law pertaining to trademark counterfeiting. The bill also provides for a process for law enforcement to seize any property obtained as a result of trademark counterfeiting ((PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR'S OFFICE). 
 
EDUCATION: In a 5-2 decision, the OHIO Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of a state law that requires the dismissal of school employees with serious criminal convictions in their pasts. The court said the law can continue to be applied to Buckeye State employees or applicants whose criminal history is revealed through background checks (CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER). • PENNSYLAVANIA Gov. Ed Rendell (D) vetoes HB 101, which would have given a property tax break to non-profits that rent facilities to charter schools. Rendell called the proposal "unfair and unconstitutional" (MORNING CALL [HARRISBURG]).  
 
ENERGY: KANSAS Gov. Mark Parkinson (D) signs Executive Order 10-13, which creates a work group tasked with promoting wind power in the Sunflower State. The group will be comprised of leaders from 10 government agencies (LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD).  
 
ENVIRONMENT: Citing a failure by lawmakers to enact a tax on natural gas pumped from Marcellus Shale, PENNSYLAVANIA Gov. Ed Rendell (D) issues Executive Order 2010-05, which enacts a moratorium on any further leasing of state forest land for the drilling. The order makes 1.5 million acres of state forestland off limits to the drilling (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE). • Federal officials announce that the grizzly bear population in Yellowstone National Park has hit its highest level since 1975, the year the bears were granted federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team said at least 603 grizzlies now inhabit parts of WYOMING, MONTANA and IDAHO (HELENA INDEPENDENT RECORD).  
 
HEALTH & SCIENCE: PENNSYLVANIA Gov. Ed Rendell (D) vetoes SB 1280, which would have frozen primary medical malpractice insurance limits in the Keystone State for seven years and adjusted the formula for determining the assessment by which MCare, the state's medical liability coverage fund, is run. Rendell said the bill would destabilize the medical malpractice insurance market (PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR'S OFFICE). • Also in PENNSYLVANIA, Rendell signs HB 47, which requires hospitals to give new parents information on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, and Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy, or SUDI. Hospitals will also be required to keep a signed statement by parents confirming they have received the information (PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR'S OFFICE). • NEW JERSEY officials begin requiring doctors who wish to enroll their patients in a medical marijuana program to tell those patients that there is a "lack of scientific consensus" that the drug works and that it could even be dangerous. The statement also requires physicians to attest to their patients' conditions and the failure of conventional medicine to help alleviate their suffering (NEWJERSEY.COM).  
 
SOCIAL POLICY: An ARIZONA court rejects a request to block a new state law that bars anyone other than a doctor from performing various medical procedures before or after an abortion. The judge said the plaintiffs, Planned Parenthood Arizona, waited too long to challenge the law, which was adopted in April. PPA filed its challenge on Oct. 14 (EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE [MESA]). • FLORIDA Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) announces he will not appeal an appellate court's September ruling striking down the Sunshine State law banning adoptions by gay couples. McCollum said the case should have been decided by the state Supreme Court, but concluded it was "not the right case" to take to the high court for a conclusive review (ST. PETERSBURG TIMES).  
 
POTPOURRI: WYOMING officials announce they will make the Equality State the first in the nation to adopt the Google Apps for Government productivity suite enterprisewide. The process, which will begin within a year, will migrate all of the state government's 10,000 employees to a common communications platform, including e-mail, documents, sites, calendar and video applications (GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY).

CHIEF EXECUTIVE WEDDING CRASHER: Some Idaho lovebirds got a surprise visit from Gov. C.L. Butch Otter last week. Unfortunately, it came as the couple was starting their wedding reception, and Otter and his large entourage were definitely not on the guest list. As the Magic Valley Times-News reports, Otter and other GOP candidates were on a campaign bus tour that decided to make an unscheduled stop at a local public library. The group took over an unoccupied room, where the gov was holding court when the wedding party that had reserved the room months before showed up. A perturbed guest promptly ordered the gov's people to get out. Otter bid a hasty retreat, but state Rep. Maxine Bell and another candidate stayed to help reset the room for the bride and groom. Bell said she hoped the couple will forgive them, adding "I don't know who dropped the ball on that." 
 
ONE MAN, ONE SUBJECT: Most people tuning into the New York gubernatorial debate a few weeks ago were undoubtedly ready to see firebrand GOP candidate Carl Paladino or Dem frontrunner Andrew Cuomo hog the show. Alas, as the Washington Post reports, both were upstaged by former New York City mayoral candidate Jimmy Williams, who is now running for governor under the mantle of the "The Rent Is Too Damn High" party. Regardless of the question, most of the loquacious Williams' comments focused on, you guessed it, rent prices, with his hyperbolic rants often drawing laughs from the crowd and rolled eyes from the other debaters. Alas, as the Atlantic Wire, reports, Williams' reality is not so funny: he has a history of anti-Semitism and is not actually even one of the three official members of the party he claims to represent. Nice.  
 
BAD, BAD TIMING: Few things rattle grown ups like a phone ringing in the middle of the night. So you can imagine the consternation of the 50,000 Nevada residents who rolled out of bed at wee hours last week to answer their phone, only to hear the recorded voice of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor blathering on about Ballot Question 1, which voters will consider on Nov. 2. Imagine that irritation turning to rage when the call came again just 15 minutes later. As the Reno Gazette Journal reports, both calls came from a company hired by Nevadans for Qualified Judges (NQJ), the group pushing the measure. Sadly, the company incorrectly programmed the timing of the calls, mixing up 12:00 noon and midnight. They soon sent out a third call, this one apologizing for the mistake. Alas, NQJ fired them anyway.  
 
WHAT CAN BROWN COWS DO FOR YOU? Apparently, a lot if you are a rancher in Kazakhstan. As the Bismarck Tribune reports, North Dakota officials recently sent almost 200 head of Herford and Angus cattle to the Central Asian nation in an effort to help it rebuild its beef industry. Although sending U.S. cattle abroad is not rare unto itself, this deal had a unique angle. While cattle usually go by ship or train, these cows went via UPS air freight. It was a first for both the bovines and the shipper. "We've shipped all kinds of animals, from whales to pandas but I can't recall cows," said UPS spokeswoman Ronna Branch. Hopefully it went well: officials in both nations say Kazakhstan could eventually buy as many as 50,000 cows from North Dakota ranchers.