Posted on 11/20/2012 4:21:51 PM PST by qam1
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — There's a new superpower growing in the Great Plains and the South, where bulging Republican majorities in state capitols could dramatically cut taxes and change public education with barely a whimper of resistance from Democrats.
Contrast that with California, where voters have given Democrats a new dominance that could allow them to raise taxes and embrace same-sex marriage without regard to Republican objections.
If you thought the presidential election revealed the nation's political rifts, consider the outcomes in state legislatures. The vote also created a broader tier of powerful one-party governments that can act with no need for compromise. Half of state legislatures now have veto-proof majorities, up from 13 only four years ago, according to figures compiled for The Associated Press by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
All but three states — Iowa, Kentucky and New Hampshire — have one-party control of their legislatures, the highest mark since 1928.
The result could lead to stark differences in how people live and work.
"Usually, a partisan tide helps the same party across the country, but what we saw in this past election was the opposite of that — some states getting bluer and some states getting redder," said Thad Kousser, an associate political science professor at the University of California-San Diego who focuses on state politics. As a result, "we'll see increasing policy divergence across the states."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Indiana passed Right to Work in 2012.
My state rep is saying that he wants some opinions on right to work in Michigan. He also suggests making sure the governor knows we want it.
With the beating the unions took on election night, Michigan seems ripe.
Well, that's house speaker Straus and lieutenant governor Dewhurst working their greasy grift with the 'Rats to control the agenda -- effectively a minority regime flouting the majoritiy, with the complicity of two Uber-RiNO's and a handful of HemorRhiNO's.
Yep, that’s right. WV is a conservative state with a “good ole boy” network that controls Charleston. A politician running for office has to “speak” conservative and they know exactly how to do that. Think “Boss Hog” and you will understand the democrat in WV. We Tea Parties are working at the local level to make inroads against the strangle hold on the State Legislature. The unions have always been part of the problem because of the supremacy of the coal industry. Since the “0” has killed the mines, things are looking up for changing things.
In our district we elected the first GOP delegate and the first direct delegate for our county ever. He is our Tea Party leader and a former Marine. He has 1/2 the county, so we elected another GOP delegate for the other half too.
Our plan is to take power from the bottom up. It will take time, but we are resolute.
This is good news. But I wish that state lawmakers would wise up to the fact that the only daily domestic government service that Congress has constitutional authority to tax and spend for is the postal service. In fact, justice John Marshall had clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, issues which Congress has no power to address under Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution.
In other words, the states should be much richer than they are now, Congress limited to laying taxes largely to keep the armed forces running.
Thanks for spelling it out for the folks, Lent. That's precisely the situation in the Texas state legislature.
The Texas State House Problem
One of the big problems we have had in Texas is that our prior Speaker of the House (Joe Straus) stacked the deck with "his" people as committee chairs and thus bills wanted by the majority of Texans never even got to the House floor for a vote.
While legislative impediment is good for poorly crafted bills, it has become a major tool of power brokers to block the true will of the people, including for bills that would have 90% or more representative approval.
The 'Powers That Be' asked conservatives for a list of 20 bills they felt were a priority last time and told us to judge them on their performance on them. We have; they passed a paltry 5 of them and some of those were watered down beyond all recognition. This, with a super-majority in place.
This impediment on behalf of the power elites is managed by a handful of committee chairs, assuring popular legislation never even gets a hearing in committee, much less a floor vote; even committee members didn't have a say. This relegates all other State representatives as pawns to be managed by the Professional Political Class through these Chairman.
This must STOP in the name of representative government! And NOTHING changes without a change in Speaker!
Here is some background on Joe & this mess we are in:
http://www.teaparty911.com/blog/tag/joe-straus
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/82nd-legislative-session/
http://www.teaparty911.com/blog/jim-pitts-texas-tea-party-public-enemy-no-2/
There is much more out there on the web covering the underhanded dealings, gambling, and over all unethical dealings lead by Speaker Joe Staus.
The power of the people has been heard and effective in the past. We need to be stronger so the "elite" power brokers of Texas hear us.
· First, contact your Texas House of Representatives member and let him/her know in no uncertain terms that the current way of doing business is unacceptable and they should not support Joe Straus and his henchman -
o By Phone
o By mail
o By email
o In person
o At town hall meetings
· Contact House members in other Districts - yes, they don't represent you, but their actions affect you.
· Another thing is to sign up for all petitions. Here are two:
o http://tinyurl.com/imwithbryan
· Get others involved - we need a ground swell as never before.
It is a puzzle. Republicans in both states definitely need to refine and improve their voting systems to avoid fraud.
Do you remember the panicky, OMG OMG! articles that appeared everywhere four years ago, when the Dems had locks in 10 States, to only four Republican?
Didn't think so.
"Boss Hogg" was actually portrayed by a (recently deceased) character actor from Brooklyn. He did a fine job, although his accent was more South Alabama than Georgia.
Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and he didn’t have a supermajority in the state senate.
Sorrell Booke. He based his character’s accent on Strom Thurmond.
“Here are a couple of good things done in Michigan in the past week.”
The problem with Michigan is that its legislature is *always* in session. Gives them too much idle time to think up nonsense to pass.
The great thing about Texas is that its legislature meets for only a few days once every two years. The session is just long enough to give them time to focus on and pass critical legislation. They lack the time for the nonsense.
Texas politicians are just as goofy as politicians everywhere in the U.S. The ONLY they do so little damage is that they lack the time while the legislature is in session.
Was born in Michigan and moved to Texas in 1979, shortly after graduating from college. When I first moved to Texas I was shocked at the short legislative season. They didn’t do it that way in Michigan. Then after I lived in Texas a few years I realized that was why Texas wasn’t as screwed up as Michigan. Texas did things differently than Michigan. For all the left-behinds in Michigan, consider modifying your state constitution to allow the legislature to use Texas’s legislative schedule.
GA is red, red and red.
Amazingly enough, all 3 Michigan branches went red in 2010.
Thanks, Nan. That's pretty much how I've heard WV politics described here on FR. It's amazing, the education I get around this place.
Remember “hope for the best prepare for the worst” take hope out of the picture. I see nothing positive moving forward.
some states getting bluer and some states getting redder,”>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yep. Thats been predicted, as some states have a population which KNOWS what the Obama Junta represents, while others have yet to discover the truth of history.Its an uphill battle because the MSM covers FOR Obama.
Discover this truth yourself:
Good read:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html
The red states need to pass laws prohibiting the scum that flee the blue socialist states they’ve destroyed from voting in statewide elections for a period of ten years, allowing amnesty (and the ability to vote) only to those who can prove they have been registered Republicans for at least the past two elections.
This kind of legislation might at least slow the Democrat scum who migrate like locusts and destroy one state after another.
Another tactic I strongly recommend to the red states is to put up posters in all the welfare offices showing the moochers and eaters who comprise the Democrat party base where they can move to (one-way ticket to blue Democrat state provided for free [of course]) to get all the food stamps, welfare, and housing they could ever dream of.
State winners:
RATS 26 states x 2 =52 + 3 from DC = 55
GOP: 24 states x 2 = 48
Add in the congressional districts won or leading:
RATS 201 districts + 52 from the state wins + DC = 256 electoral votes
GOP 233 districts + 48 from the state wins = 281 electoral votes.
Of course, the above does not take into account congressional districts which vote for congressmen and presidents of opposite parties. But it does serve as a reasonable guideline of what would happen on the national level if every state adopted the district system.
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