Federal government facing a shutdown? Ugh, nauseating.
But no matter, because this is your home for statehouse action, and as of this week, 35 legislatures are meeting and voting on stuff and holding hearings and generally doing that whole governing thing.
(Okay, they don’t all do that governing thing so well all the time, but Republicans in D.C. are making even the worst of them seem pretty doggone functional right now.)
If you’ve got shutdown fever, everyone knows that the only prescription is more cowbell $240 worth of pudding … special elections!
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A Case of the Tuesdays: If it’s a Tuesday, odds are pretty decent that there’s a state legislative special election happening somewhere in these United States (fun fact: only 25 states fill state legislative vacancies through special elections!), and this week was no exception.
- Six special elections were held on Tuesday, January 16, although two of those races went uncontested—a Republican seat in the South Carolina House and a Democratic seat in the Wisconsin Assembly.
- The remaining four were all Republican open seats, and Democrats performed well in all of them—including Iowa House District 6, where the Republican spent $117,000 (yes, that’s a huge amount of money in an Iowa state House race) just to keep a seat Trump won in 2016 by over 30 points.
- The Democrat in Iowa HD-06 improved on Clinton’s performance by 22 points, a common thread among all the contested elections on Tuesday: Democratic performance in these four races improved over 2016 by an average of 21 points.
- But that’s just four races; of the 70 contested special elections held last year, Democrats over-performed 2016 presidential numbers by an average of 10 points (and flipped 15 seats from red to blue).
But okay, sure, losing well in deep-red districts is fine, but winning is better.
Fun fact! Winning IS better!
- Democrats pulled off the first election upset of 2018 on Tuesday, where Democrat (and reality TV show Wife Swap alum) Patty Schachtner defeated Republican Adam Jarchow 55-44 percent to flip a northwestern Wisconsin state Senate seat the GOP has held since 2000.
- Tuesday’s shocking win could put the Wisconsin Senate majority in play this fall (which is now 18 Republicans to 14 Democrats, with one vacancy).
Another fun fact about Wisconsin SD-10, which Trump won 55-38 percent? Republicans outspent Democrats in this race at least two-to-one.
Virginia is for Loss of Memory: Virginia Republicans should maybe get their heads checked, because they seem to have forgotten awfully quickly that they only held on to their state House majority by virtue of a shady recount court decision, a metaphorical coin flip, and a heavy dose of gerrymandering.
Also, Virginians just elected Democrats as governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general by pretty doggone solid margins.
- But Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox says he feels his party has “a mandate.”
- And while most House committee membership is divided proportionately between the parties, Republicans maintain an 11-6 advantage on the House Rules committee.
- Now, this usually wouldn’t be a big deal, except Virginia Republicans have repurposed the Rules Committee this year, which normally handles mundane stuff like setting up state commissions, rule tweaks, and study resolutions.
- Now Speaker Cox is using it as a choke point for signature pieces of Democratic legislation.
- As of last week, all 11 bills referred to this committee were sponsored by Democrats and included signature progressive measures like raising the minimum threshold for felony grand larceny from the (absurdly low) current $200 limit and three separate bills that would prohibit politicians from using campaign donations for personal expenses.
- Republicans in the closely divided (21 R/19 D) state Senate also don’t seem to much care that Virginia voters overwhelmingly elected a governor who wasn’t exactly shy about his pro-gun safety policy stances on the campaign trail.
- GOP senators wasted no time in killing several modest measures (including closing the gun show loophole) designed to prevent gun violence on party-line votes.
Infectious Paternalism: It’s not actually a disease, but it should be.
Also, Ohio Republicans are trying to “reform” congressional redistricting in the state, except by “reform” they actually mean “give one party more control over the process.”
- The proposal (which you can read for yourself here) removes the governor from the redistricting process completely (currently s/he has the authority to veto the congressional map).
- The map could only win approval if one-third of the members of the minority party supported it (currently, that’s just three Democrats in the Ohio state Senate and 12 Democratic members of the state House)—except that actually the map can still be approved anyway.
- If the minority party doesn’t roll over and approve the map, a seven-member commission (on which the minority party is only guaranteed two spots) draws the map.
- If at least two Democrats don’t approve that map, it goes into effect anyway, and the majority party gets a chance to re-gerrymander the state four years later.
Take two Democratic-majority chambers and call me in the morning: Meanwhile, in Washington (where Democrats just won a majority in the state Senate because of a special election last November), Democrats are considering a raft of bills designed to remove barriers to voting, increase election transparency, and boost turnout.
- The Senate has already passed legislation allowing eligible residents to register to vote on Election Day. The bill’s now on its way to the Democratic-majority House.
Fun fact! The six states with highest percentage of voter turnout in the last presidential election all allow same-day voter registration.
Home State Remedy: The FCC’s recent vote to repeal net neutrality rules has led to fears that this deregulation of internet providers could lead to blocking and throttling of internet traffic.
Well, that’s enough action for one week—don’t want to overexert yourself. Until next week, stay healthier than the president!