Election season

When you're on a two-year cycle, if you're not in session, you're running for office. Of course, all 100 House seats will be up for election in 2008. In addition to the 29 seats that are open seats due to term limits (see the list at the bottom of this post), two additional seats will be coming open due to sitting members in those districts making a run for the Senate. They are Rep. David Johnson (District 38), a Democrat from Little Rock, and Rep. David Wyatt (District 72), a Democrat from Batesville.

Here's a map showing the current makeup of the House (for a larger and interactive version, scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page) -- Red=Republican (25); Blue=Democratic (75):

Here is a map of Johnson's District 38:

Here is a map of Wyatt's District 72:

I recently read a report that Rep. Earnest Brown (D-Pine Bluff) may be considering a run for the Senate. I saw him in court in Hope on Monday and forgot to ask him (many people forget he's from over here at Fulton and apparently has a good part of his law practice over here because of it), but I caught up with him yesterday, and he assures me that he's going to stay in the House for at least one more term -- besides, he tells me, that particular Senate seat is not up this cycle.

Here are the 29 seats that are coming open due to term limits (almost half of the Republican Caucus is term-limited, but the seats coming open have been some pretty solid districts for them). These are organized by seniority:

District 50: David Evans (D-Searcy) is term-limited;
District 36: Linda Chesterfield (D-Little Rock) is term-limited;
District 96: Keven Anderson (R-Rogers) is term-limited;
District 70: Stan Berry (R-Dover) is term-limited;
District 15: Lenville Evans (D-Lonoke) is term-limited;
District 14: Speaker Petrus (D-Stuttgart) is term-limited;
District 43: Jeff Wood (D-Sherwood) is term-limited;
District 32: Sid Rosenbaum (R-Little Rock) is term-limited;
District 7: Robert Jeffrey (D-Camden) is term-limited;
District 44: Will Bond (D-Jacksonville) is term-limited;
District 48: Susan Schulte (R-Cabot) is term-limited;
District 99: Horace Hardwick (R-Bentonville) is term-limited;
District 42: Sandra Prater (D-Jacksonville) is term-limited;
District 45: Betty Pickett (D-Conway) is term-limited;
District 85: James Norton (R-Harrison) is term-limited;
District 81: Johnny Key (R-Mountain Home) is term-limited;
District 53: Denny Sumpter (D-West Memphis) is term-limited;
District 21: Scott Sullivan (D-DeQueen) is term-limited;
District 29: Janet Johnson (D-Bryant) is term-limited;
District 58: Tommy Dickinson (D-Newport) is term-limited;
District 100: Daryl Pace (R-Siloam Springs) is term-limited;
District 62: Shirley Walters (R-Greenwood) is term-limited;
District 49: Mark Pate (D-Bald Knob) is term-limited;
District 64: Jim Medley (R-Fort Smith) is term-limited;
District 97: Mike Kenney (R-Siloam Springs) is term-limited;
District 94: Eric Harris (R-Springdale) is term-limited;
District 74: Chris Thyer (D-Jonesboro) is term-limited;
District 68: Michael Lamoureux (D-Russellville) is term-limited;
District 88: Marilyn Edwards (D-Fayetteville) is term-limited.

There are going to be some real battles for some of these seats. Let me know what you're hearing about these and possible other House and Senate races.