Lake politics: Bayh and the Basin

A Great Lakes swing state is a bit more, well, swinging, now that Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh announced he would retire this year.

So what does it mean for the basin?

It depends on how you link political parties to environmental protection. The retirement of Bayh, who was once rumored to be President Barack Obama’s VP choice, puts his Indiana seat in play for Republicans.

Bayh has $13 million on hand for his campaign, and recent polls had him leading his Republican challengers, former Sen. Dan Coats and former congressman John Hostettler, by 20 points and 16 points respectively. CQ Politics called the move “a stunning decision that gives Republicans a prime opportunity to win a seat they had no expectation of winning at the beginning of the election cycle.” Indiana Democrats, already facing a tough electoral climate, are scurrying to qualify a new contender.

The moderate Blue Dog was no hero among progressives. Among the 59 Senate Democrats, Bayh was the second-most-conservative, after Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, according to the DW-Dominate database. But he scored an 82 percent on the League of Conservation Voters’ 2008 scorecard. That means, more often than not, he was on the right side of environmental issues, including having voted for the Great Lakes Compact. Compare that to his fellow Hoosier-state Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican, who scored 18 percent.

Bayh was among moderate Dems who rode the fence on climate legislation, which isn’t likely to happen this session. But the prospect of a Republican in his seat makes the task of passing legislation that includes a cap-and-trade element even more daunting for congressional leaders.

FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver applied his political handicapping voodoo to show that Bayh was “reasonably valuable to his party,” as a democratic vote from a fairly red state. And Bayh becomes the second Great Lakes Democratic senator to not seek re-election, along with Roland Burris from Illinois. Ohio’s George Voinovich is the only Republican Senator from the region who is retiring. (On the House side, notable Great Lakes defender Rep. Vern Ehlers is also on his way out.)

While a Democrat likely will be elected to replace Burris, Indiana joins Sen. Arlen Specter’s Pennsylvania as a Great Lakes senate seat in real danger of turning from blue to red.

Washington Post columnist Chris Cizilla wrote, “The Cook Political Report, one of the nation’s leading handicappers of congressional elections, now carries 10 Democratic-held seats in its most competitive categories – meaning that if Republicans sweep those races [and lose none of their own vulnerable seats], they will have a 51-seat majority. Cook, incidentally, moved Indiana from a lean Democratic seat to a lean Republican seat in the wake of the Bayh news.”

Of course, that news could be good or bad for the Great Lakes, depending on one’s opinion about which party tends to do the better job as an environmental protector. What do you think?