Spratt’s In: Paperwork Filed For 2010 Bid

U.S. Rep. John Spratt will seek a fifteenth term in Washington, D.C., according to reporter Diane Gallagher of Rock Hill (S.C.)’s CN2 News.

Spratt, South Carolina’s embattled Fifth Congressional District Representative, has formally filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, a move which will put to bed several weeks of speculation about his political future.

Spratt’s spokesman Chuck Fant told FITS a month ago that the Congressman was “absolutely in,” but websites like The Politico were quoting Democratic sources in Washington as saying that the 67-year-old lawmaker was undecided.

In short, confusion reigned, at least until Ms. Gallagher posted the scoop on her Twitter feed Monday afternoon.

Although Spratt is the incumbent, he will face a tough reelection fight from a hard-charging, fiscally conservative State Senator named Mick Mulvaney.

Mulvaney’s campaign, which kicked off a “Send Spratt Home” effort earlier this week, was not immediately available for comment regarding Spratt’s announcement.

Sources close to the campaign have told FITS in recent weeks that they viewed a race against Spratt as preferable to a race against another Democratic candidate, however.

Why?

Well, according to a recent voting analysis published by the Washington Post, Spratt has voted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the democratic leadership in Congress 97.8% of the time during the 111th Congress.

That tally includes key votes in favor of President Barack Obama’s $787 billion bureaucratic bailout,  a “cap and trade” energy tax increase and most recently, Obama’s socialized medicine plan.

(See the Congressional record of Spratt’s votes in favor of those items by clicking here, here and here).

Spratt is also leading the fight to raise the U.S. debt limit to a ridiculous $14 trillion, and he voted just last week for another $150 billion bailout of state bureaucracies.

Those votes are likely to hurt him in an increasingly conservative district, particularly if the Congressman continues to ignore his constituents while showing up at Town Hall meetings looking dazed and confused (see here and here for more on that).

Plus, he has another vote coming up soon on the latest Senate version of “Obamacare,” which will once again put him in the position of either angering the democratic leadership in Washington (potentially costing him his coveted chairmanship) or further alienating himself from his constituents at home.

Forget the governor’s race … this is the 2010 contest to watch as far as we’re concerned.

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