Constitution partier Mike Simmons of New Haven filed for the US Senate, making the Constitution Party US Senate primary a three-way dance and also making the Constitution Party field larger than the Democratic Party field for the US Senate. Simmons will face Jerry Beck of LaMonte and Joe Martellaro of Cuba in the primary. Also, Libertarian Rick Vandeven of Chaffee filed in the 8th Congressional District.

Democrat Amy Hilgemann filed in HD64, a seat held by Rachel Storch and might be an open seat (feel free to confirm or deny the openness of the seat on here or by e-mailing me). Hilgemann is the wife of former state Rep. Bob Hilgemann.

Also, Republican Daniel O’Sullivan filed in HD73. O’Sullivan lost a race for this seat in November 2008, and November 2009. Will he do a hat-trick in November 2010? Probably. Stay tuned. As well, Democrat Bob Rubino of Nixa filed in HD141, a seat opened up by the term limits-induced departure of Jay Wasson.

So the total for today was 5, one under the O/U I gave. The over/under for filers tomorrow is 5. Feel free to liberally bet the under. The areas without Democratic Congressional candidates: CD2 (are all the frequent candidates busy?), CD6, and CD9. Still got 27 days left. But time flies.

State Senator Chuck Purgason:

Last night Purgason sent a statement via fax announcing he is setting up an exploratory committee for the race. He took aim at his own party.

“I think that my own Party bears some blame for many of the things that are happening today,” Purgason said. “We have forgotten our values, what we stand for, and what made us a great nation. In the past few years, the leaders we sent to Washington did not stand up for our values of smaller government and more freedoms but instead became part of the problem rather than the solution. As a result, we have become a Party without a true base and a vacancy in real leadership.”

(snip)

Purgason also criticized the president for trying to “change” America.

“We must stop the “changing” of America and fight for the renewal of America and the dreams we share as Americans,” he said

The GOP primary for US Senate keeps getting weirder and weirder. Convinced that Roy Blunt isn’t up to the challenge of taking on Robin Carnahan in the general election, and that a fresh face outside of Washington might do the trick, party elders like former Senator Jack Danforth turned to… Thomas Schweich.

Thomas who? Well, he’s a visiting law professor and former Bush Administration official (which just screams fresh face for the GOP, I know) who apparently has a few friends in high places.  Friends like Sam Fox, the big GOP donor who also helped fund Swiftboat ads with a $50,000 donation well after the ads had been discredited. Danforth, Fox & Co. must have agreed on “fresh face” as a talking point, because they used it several times during the course of their argument for an alternative to Blunt.

Meanwhile, Sarah Steelman, edging toward an official declaration for Senate herself, is loving it. She instantly sent out an e-mail welcoming the competition:

The US Senate is a very important office and I am glad to see Mr. Schweich taking an interest in it. I don’t know what he stands for yet so I will be interested in learning his views about the role of government,” said Steelman. “I think the Republican Party needs to embrace people who are willing to run for office instead of letting political power brokers who are more interested in profiting off of government and retaining their power hand pick someone for the job. Let’s try having a little competition in the free market of ideas in the Republican Party instead of a monopoly,” Steelman added.

Practically speaking, she’s already the “fresh face” from outside Washington that Danforth & Co. are desperately looking for. I’m not saying that she really has any new ideas – her platform for governor was essentially boilerplate Republicanism – but she did run against virtually the entire GOP establishment and nearly pulled out a win. She’s fresher than a former Bush official handpicked by establishment money men, in any case.  

UPDATE: Blunt has apparently updated the page so that it collects occupations and employers. You’re welcome!

Funny for a guy supposedly all about transparency, Roy Blunt isn’t even following federal campaign finance law. Looking at Roy Blunt’s Senate campaign website, he fails to collect the proper information for disclosure when collecting donations. Federal campaign finance law states that a candidate must disclose the names, addresses, occupations and employers of all donors who contribute $200 or more in a calendar year. Kinda hard to do that when you don’t even have a place for them on your contribution page on your website. You can click on the photo for a closer look.

I find this totally bizarre. I mean, this is the establishment Republican frontrunner for a US Senate campaign, and he can’t even put together a decent website that properly collects information that he’ll need to disclose for donations.  

When is Robin Carnahan going to have a real website? For that matter, when is a Republican going to jump in the race?

Just saying that you’re not concerned about Robin Carnahan isn’t really enough to convince anyone. Rev. Mik Chester, president of the Northwest Missouri Republican Club and himself a candidate for state representative, claims that Republicans aren’t really worried about Robin Carnahan’s strong candidacy for Bond’s US Senate seat. “We’re not surprised that Robin Carnahan has thrown her hat in, and neither are we concerned,” he said.

No word on whether Rev. Chester is unconcerned about opponents in his own race. I will say that his website looks like a bumper sticker with a donate button and an e-mail address attached. “I want to know what’s important to you. Email me at mikchester@me.com,” the bumper sticker says. (Be polite if you do e-mail him.)

Chester also says of the Republican Senate primary, “I very much expect them to get going early,” he said. “It’s an arduous task even if you’ve got good name recognition, and there is a lot of ground to cover.”

I hope so! This is going to be a fun primary for us Democrats to watch.

And no, this time it’s not McCaskill or stimulus-related. According to Dave Catanese’s Twitter feed, Missouri Speaker Richard said that he was speaking ahead of  the “next US Senator.” The next speaker at the Lincoln Day festivities just happened to be Roy Blunt.

Do we have some coalescing around a consensus candidate?

Robin just announced her run for Bond’s seat in 2010. Watch the message:

In the Senate (both in the US Senate and here in Missouri), the senators debate a bill until there’s an agreement that the debate’s over. Only then a final vote can be taken. The vote to end debate (called a cloture vote) requires a supermajority, while a final vote generally requires only a simple majority to pass. A filibuster is an attempt to prevent a bill from passing by keeping it from ever coming to a vote.

Jimmy Stewart’s character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” made the filibuster famous by singlehandedly stalling the entire Senate. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you view the bills being passed) the movie is misleading; a single Senator can’t hold up a bill that way. S/he needs 39 accomplices in the US Senate to go along – otherwise, the rest of the Senate would vote for cloture, bringing the debate to an end.

Nowadays, a full-fledged filibuster hardly ever happens, with all the images it conjures up of talking to all hours of the night reading from the Federalist Papers, recipe books, the Bible, and letters from home. The filibustering side threatens, and if they have the votes, the bill is usually withdrawn without so much as a cloture vote.

http://atlanta.creat…

http://i41.photobuck…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed a motion today to limit debate on a bill that would reauthorize and expand SCHIP.  The vote could come as early as tomorrow, Tuesday.

The bill, similar to the bill vetoed by Bush earlier this month would expand the SCHIP Legislation to cover 10 million children and increase funding $35 billion over the next five years.  The money would come from a 61-cent increase on cigarettes.  Like the adjusted House bill, this bill specifically limits coverage to children in families with incomes below 300% of poverty level. 

A similar measure passed the House last week by a 265 to 142 vote.  The vote is considered veto proof in the Senate but the House still does not appear to have the votes to override.  Bush is expected to veto.

According to CQ, how the Democrats address the November 16 expiration of the continuing resolution under which SCHIP is currently operating, (the previous bill expired on September 30) will signal how they intend to proceed.

Passing a short-term extension of the program “would suggest that Democrats still hope to negotiate a permanent expansion of SCHIP with Republicans,” while passing a long-term extension — which could expire directly prior to the 2008 elections — “would suggest that Democrats have resolved to use children’s health insurance as a political weapon.

Related to this is Howard Dean’s response to the issue:

The Republican leaders have made their choice, they want to stay in Iraq and deny our kids health care. America cannot afford four more years of a president who borrows for the war and denies health insurance for our kids