He apparently doesn’t find it all that fun to be in the minority again:
A key Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said Tuesday that he would not run for reelection next year.
Rep. Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), the ranking member of the panel’s subcommittee on Aviation and an 11-term congressman, will not seek another term in the House of Representatives next year, his office confirmed to The Hill.
No great loss, but good news for Illinois Republicans.
Essentially, the reason why I say that is because of what happened with IL-12 because of redistricting:
The proposed new IL-12 is in orange, and it’s more or less identical to the current IL-12; the major difference is that Perry County has been moved over to the new IL-15. A call to the Perry County Clerk’s Office confirmed that the county went for Bush in 2004 (53%) and for McCain in 2008 (51%), which means that under normal circumstances this would have simply meant that Costello’s position would be slightly improved. The problem, though, is that if you look at Illinois results for the last few years then you’ll note that Obama won this district by a good deal more in 2008 than John Kerry did in 2004; from what I can tell, Costello was over-performing the national party in most years. Plus, it’s fairly clear that the Illinois Democratic party hadn’t been told that Costello was planning to retire: they wouldn’t have kept what’s currently a D+3 seat intact like this otherwise. Because even if the district doesn’t flip in ’12 it’s a prime candidate for assault in ’14 (freshmen Congressmen often are)*.
Bottom line? Winnable seat. With the right candidate, of course.
Moe Lane
*Of course, this all assumes that the existing map survives a Voting Rights Act challenge.
Ahh, Jerry C, Durbin’s good buddy and croupier. Had a great run. He made it without being indicted; thanks to some quick shuffling of the US Attorneys for the Southern District of Illinois more than a decade ago, thanks Bill C.