You won't have John Ensign to kick around anymore

I saw a tweet from Roll Call's Shira Toeplitzi, and Senator Ensign made it official on his website:

Press Releases
Media
April 21, 2011
ENSIGN TO RESIGN FROM OFFICE

Washington, D.C. - Senator John Ensign today announced his resignation as the 24th United States Senator from the state of Nevada. In a letter to Vice President Joe Biden tomorrow, Senator Ensign will state that his resignation from office is effective as of May 3, 2011.

"It is with tremendous sadness that I officially hand over the Senate seat that I have held for eleven years," said Ensign. "The turbulence of these last few years is greatly surpassed by the incredible privilege that I feel to have been entrusted to serve the people of Nevada. I can honestly say that being a United States Senator has been the honor of my life.

So now Governor Brian Sandoval has to appoint someone (re: Dean Heller) to that open Senate seat and a special election for the the now open congressional district 2 seat must be called in 180 days.

Why did this all happen, when only a month ago Senator Ensign said he'd finish his term? No one knows for sure. Ensign says it was to protect his family, but if he really cared for his family, he would've never cheated on his wife then given money and jobs to his mistress and her family.

Maybe Ensign knew the ethics investigation would not go well. If he's no longer a senator, there is no investigation.

Maybe Ensign was pressured by Governor Sandoval (side note: When Harry Reid involves himself in state politics he's called a meddler; when Brian Sandoval does it, he's a strong leader. I hate Nevada politics sometimes.) to get out because Dean Heller knows he can not defeat Congresswoman Shelley Berkley on his own merits. Being an incumbent adds some panache to your campaign, I'm told. Don't know if I believe that.

Now, who will run for #NV02? Sheila Leslie is the best option in my very humble opinion. I hear Debbie Smith is interested. And Jill Derby (two-time #NV02 loser) has been popping up at party events lately. She might want it too.

So much drama.

My dear friend Rhett sums it all up. I hope the Dems are smart enough to use this:

John Ensign resigning is a political stunt for Republicans to try to retain his Senate seat! First you cheat on your wife, now you cheat on Nevadans!

--

Laura

Oh, the irony

I've long complained that I have no congressman.

I live in Clark County but have the misfortune of living in Congressional District 2, the seat currently held by Dean Heller.

A CD2 resident since 2008, I've met my congressman exactly zero times. In the past three plus years I've gone to Washington, DC at least a dozen times and each request I've sent to his office to meet with him or to receive gallery passes has been ignored. Going to his constituent office in Las Vegas renders similar results. Usually no one is there. Just a locked office, lights off. Your tax dollars hard at work.

Today I caught Jane Ann Morrison's column in the Las Vegas Review Journal where Heller defends himself against the notion that he's become more conservative and less accessible.

The timing couldn't be more perfect.

I planned on going to Heller's office this morning with some seniors to ask him to stop threatening to kill the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, medicare protections and benefits with it. His office must know this column is coming out today. They surely had a staffer there so as not to prove the columnist's point. Or so I thought.

Waiting at security of Alan Bible building, I browsed the wall of the world's most evil terrorists (why isn't Bin Laden up there anymore?) and I could hear the security guard picking up the phone, dialing, waiting, hanging up, dialing, waiting...for almost a full minute. Finally, he said no one was in the office, so no one was going upstairs.

I really wish I knew who else was in the building so I could have told a little white lie, gone up and taken a picture outside his darkened office, on a weekday, at 10am.

Granted, Ms Morrison was mostly referring to accessibility of Heller to the press (more important than constituent accessibility, right?) in her column, but as I said above, as a constituent, no matter how hard I tried, I've had absolutely no access to my congressman.

Heller says he has a lot of work to do in Clark County if he wants to win Ensign's newly vacated seat (what happens if Ensign retires early and Sandoval appoints himself to that seat? No more election or Heller?) so far, he's off to a really bad start.

Not that I'm complaining or anything.