On Tuesday night I stopped blogging at 8PM, mostly because all the news coverage was all about the stunning Republican landslide. The idea of Republican control of the Senate, even without the 60 vote filibuster proof majority, troubles me.

It’s been a few days and I’m starting to feel a little more hope. While things on the national level didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, things in California generally went well. We re-elected California Governor Jerry Brown for a 4th term. By all accounts he’s done a remarkable job of reversing the downward slide we experienced from Arnold Schwarzenegger and he was able to win re-election with little campaigning.

Two years ago Scott Peters narrowly unseated incumbent Brian Bilbray. The race was so close that it took 10 days after the election to be sure Scott won. A congressman faces his toughest re-election after his first term and this was no exception. From Scott’s first day on the job Carl DeMaio, a former city council member, announced his intention to run for Scot’s seat in 2014. The race was neck and neck and on election night Carl was winning the counted votes by 752. On Wednesday night it was reversed and Scott was ahead by 861 votes. At this point all the votes cast on election day and most of the mail in votes had been counted; all that was left were the mail in votes that were dropped off on election day and provisional ballots.

Frankly this time last night I was pretty optimistic. Most mail in ballots skew Republican and were mailed in early. I’m not sure I’m proud of this but most people who wait until the last minute vote Democrat. I also believe that most provisional ballots would skew Democrat.

In any case I was pretty anxious waiting for the results. I was hoping that Scott’s momentum would continue and afraid it would reverse. The results were so good I had to check a few places to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Scott’s lead went from 861 votes to 4,491 with somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 votes left to count.

In my mind this finishes the election. For the sake of simplicity I’ve rounded the number up from 4,491 to 4,500. If there are 15,000 ballots left to count, Carl would have to win 9,750 of them. If there are 10,000 ballots left to count, Carl would have to win 7,250 of them. Either way it’s a hard hill to climb.

On the Republican side I’m impressed that Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham beat back challenges from the tea party (I refuse to link or capitalize). I’m hoping that will make moderate Republicans more willing (or less fearful) to actually work with President Obama.

Finally, I read an excellent column by David Broder who speaks eloquently about the reality that Republican demographics are diminishing. Almost nobody who has recently become an American citizen or has recently become old enough to vote thinks their future lies with the Republican party. I think David is right and I’m happy to think so.

It’s my tradition to blog on election as we follow the races. I may not follow them as far into the night as I usually do for a few reasons. The first is that I’m generally disappointed with how the candidates are running the election.

The Republicans are running this as a referendum on a President with two years left on his political life. The Democrats are running like President Obama doesn’t exist. I’m proud of my votes for him, I think he’s done an excellent job given what he faced in January of 2009, and I’m angry that my party is trying to pretend he’s not there.

The other reason is a more simple one: I don’t think there is as much at stake tonight. Nobody believes the leadership of the House of Representatives will change, the Presidency will certainly not change, and while the majority may shift in the Senate we likely won’t know tonight. There are close Senate races in North Carolina and Louisiana but they likely won’t be decided now. Both races have more than 2 candidates and require 50% plus one to win. In other words it’s a fair bet that both races will require runoffs.

7:00PM Pacific Time, 10:00PM Eastern Time, 3:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time: The polls don’t close for another hour here in California so I have nothing to report. I’m disappointed but not surprised to see that Mitch McConnell survived a strong challenge. He had to fight for the Republican nomination from Matt Bevin, a member of the Tea Party. He won the nomination and I had hoped he would be so wounded that the Democrats would unite against him. Alas, Mitch won, and if the Republicans win the Senate he will be the majority leader.

I’m also disappointed by the 7th Congressional district of Virginia. In a stunning upset in June, Dave Brat defeated Eric Cantor. Dave is an economics professor at Randolf Macon College, and this placed him against the Democratic nominee, Jack Trammell, who ironically enough, is also a faculty member at Randolf Macon. Jack was supposed to be the guy Eric Cantor would destroy in the election. When Brat won, I hoped the Democrats would unite and defeat Brat, but it didn’t happen. The 7th Virginia Congressional district is still pretty Republican and I’m guessing that moderate Republicans who liked Eric held their noses and voted for Brat.

On the other hand I’m pleased with New Hampshire. Senator Jean Shaheen was challenged by Scott Brown. Scott was born in Maine, but moved to Massachusetts as an infant. In 2010 he won a special election to fill the seat vacated by Ted Kennedy who died of cancer. Scott expected that this would lead to him holding that seat for a long time, but he lost to Elizabeth Warren in the general election in 2012.

Scott then moved to New Hampshire and challenged Jean. Tonight’s projections show that he will lose to Jean. I find this good news because it shows Scott as an opportunist. He doesn’t care who he represents, he just wants to be a Senator. This makes the charge that he is a carpetbagger who will go anywhere and say anything to gain power.

8:00 PM Pacific Team, 11:00 PM Eastern Time, 4:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time: The polls have closed in California but almost nothing is certain where I live. My congressional race pits the incumbent Scott Peters (Democrat) against Carl Demaio (Republican) and almost certainly won’t be settled tonight. In fairness, two years ago Scott’s victory wasn’t announced until 3 days after the election. It may happen again. While my district is trending Democrat, it may be a few more years to turn it blue.

We voted on several ballot measures, but the measure that I cared the most about was Propsition 46. As most of you know I’m married to a doctor. If you’ve been harmed by a doctor on a medical procedure you can sue the doctor. If it’s found that it was malpractice you can sue on a few grounds. If the doctor’s malpractice prevents you from ever working again you can sue the doctor for the wages you would have earned for the rest of your career and there is no ceiling on what you can sue for. If the doctor’s malpractice causes you to need medical care for the rest of your life you can sue for the care you need for the rest of your life.

So what is left? Well if you sue somebody you can claim the money you need to care for the injured person and to replace his (or her) wages but you can also sue for “pain and suffering.”

“Pain and suffering” is the money you get for saying that the plaintiff was irresponsible. It’s meant as a scare tactic against large companies who feel that settling lawsuits is a good financial decision. Right now in California there is a cap of $250,000; that is, no matter what happens a plaintiff can’t collect more than $250,000 for pain and suffering. Proposition 46 would raise that immediately to $1,100,000 and index yearly increases to inflation. To be fair the $250,000 cap has not moved since 1975. But Prop 46 would have had a catastrophic effect on malpractice insurance and the ability of doctors to practice medicine in the state. There may be room for an intelligent discussion on pain and suffering caps, but this was nothing more than a money grab for lawyers.

OK, I’m getting sufficiently depressed that I need to stop blogging and get a night’s sleep.

A few days ago I was talking with my father in law about Pope Francis. While the pope had been much more open and enthusiastic than Benedict XVI, he hasn’t changed or updated any church teachings. My father in law wondered aloud of he would give a new look to the Church’s current understanding of artificial birth control.

Most Christian Churches opposed artificial birth control until 1930. In 1931 Pope Pius XI wrote an encyclical titled Casti Connubii reaffirming the Church’s opposition to birth control. After the reforms of Vatican II many Catholics thought the Church would update its teachings. To this end Blessed John XXIII appointed a commission to explore this issue. Pope Paul VI expanded this commission and in 1966 they advised Paul VI to explore updating Catholic teaching. Instead he published Humanae Vitae that reaffirmed the ban.

This was a cause of great pain for couples of child bearing age (including my father in law). While some couples lived with this, many chose to ignore the teaching. The teaching has had a smaller and smaller place in the lives of most Catholics, and by the time I was ordained in 1994 the subject virtually never came up. Polls show that Catholics couples use birth control at the same rate as non Catholics in the United States.

So this has gotten me to wonder: what would happen if Francis updated the teaching? There is certainly a small but vocal minority who would go crazy. Perhaps this would give some couples the permission they’ve sought, but statistics show that this is a small number.

I suspect that since most Catholics of child bearing age were born after 1968 (if we think of child bearing until age 50), it wouldn’t make much of a difference. In that sense perhaps the Church should let this teaching just fade away. In a sense that’s what we did with Galileo; he was denounced in 1615 for claiming the earth revolved around the sun and the Church didn’t officially change that until 1992.

On the other hand it I think it would be a strong statement that would be of great benefit to the Church’s image. In a sense it would probably be seen as throwing Paul VI under the bus, but that may not be a bad thing. I have nothing against Paul VI, but I suspect that he didn’t update the teaching out of concern of throwing Pius XI under the bus. Some pope, some day, should have the courage to do what the overwhelming number of us think he should do. I’d like to this it’s Francis.