Powerful Supermajorities Elected to Statehouses

AP via Yahoo ^ | 11/20/12 | DAVID A. LIEB

[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."

[Graewoulf]

Thanks for this thread.

[generally]

Those states need to band together. Time for Republicans to grow a spine and push back against the federal government.

[WVNan]

Sometimes I think we learn too much. It makes us ill-content. LOL

[hopespringseternal]

If they had a clue they would start bringing the 120% blue rat districts under control.

Time to stop giving the parasites a say in how much they get to loot.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Of course, the above does not take into account congressional districts which vote for congressmen and presidents of opposite parties.

There were a lot of them this election. That is why I asked. If presidential electors were selected in every state the way Maine and Nebraska do now, would it have changed the result this year? I honestly do not know, and your post doesn't answer it.

[Lurking Libertarian]

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,

I don't know if you're joking, but that would be blatantly unconstitutional. As the Supreme Court has ruled, under the 14th Amendment, "citizens can pick their states, but states cannot pick their citizens."

[Lancey Howard]

As the Supreme Court has ruled, under the 14th Amendment, "citizens can pick their states, but states cannot pick their citizens."

Okay then, see post #39. States can certainly help people find (and move to) more accomodating states.

[Jane Long]

bkmk

[Fledermaus]

The TN one actually.

[Fledermaus]

Good

[nutmeg]

bookmark

[Vigilanteman]

No, but it does tell you that there would have had to been a NET 281-268 = 13 net seats which would have had to have elected GOP congressman and still voted for Obama. Considering that is nearly double the number of house seats which flipped nationwide, I think it unlikely.

Dave Leip's presidential atlas might eventually post the district information. They have done so in the past.

[Vigilanteman]

Pennsylvania had exactly such a bill introduced in our last session (2011) and a governor pledged to sign it. It was our Quisling state GOP chairman who strong-armed a handful of wavering GOP legislators into not even letting it come to the floor for debate on the grounds that it might diminish his influence in the national party. Selfish bastard.

Had BO been forced to compete for electoral votes in Pennsylvania from the get-go, they might not have had the resources to build the fraud machines in Ohio, Florida, Virginia and elsewhere.

Instead, they gave us a toothless voter ID law as a booby prize.

[Kolath]

can they reintroduce in 2013?

[Kolath]

seems his influence got knocked down a peg...didn’t deliver the bacon (20evs)

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Because the Congressional Districts are set by the state legislatures each decade - and because of the requirement, cheerfully followed by Republican state legislators, that blacks be concentrated in CDs which will elect black representatives, the CDs are gerrymandered in favor of the party controlling the legislature of each state.

This has the redeeming characteristic that, although the Senate no longer represents the state governments, the House of Representatives, to some extent, does. In a milieu in which the Republicans have been controlling the state legislatures, that would favor Republican presidential candidates if they enacted the per-CD rule for allocating electoral votes.

I’m sure the Democrats would be delighted to switch from the unit rule to the CD system if it favored them - and equally certain that they would cry “foul!” if they thought it favored the Republicans. They would really cry “Foul!” if the Republican legislatures appointed the Electors directly, or simply ruled the incumbent POTUS off the ballot - as the Constitution

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

certainly would seem to permit.

[Vigilanteman]

There would be nothing to stop them other than the fear of making the Democrats really, really mad or being called racists. I plan to contact my own representative and Senator Dominic Peliggi (who introduced it in the first place and was comfortably reelected) to do just that.

Governor's announced priorities are to fix the state's roads (which the Obama stimulus money was supposed to do) and privatize the state liquor stores. Gov. Corbett faces reelection in 2014.

[RipSawyer]

Judging from all the reports I have read it is much harder to make a case that the presidency was NOT stolen this time than to make the case that it WAS stolen. There will be many who voted for Romney who will never admit that it was stolen because they would rather blame the Romney campaign than face up to what has happened to this country but then some people will never admit that this is not still the same great country that used to make heroes of people like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, John Wayne etc. and elected General Dwight David Eisenhower to the presidency twice. If someone like Ike were running today he would be made out to be an ogre that eats puppies and kittens for breakfast.

[RipSawyer]

If we could overturn the seventeenth AND the nineteenth and require that all persons voting must own property, pay taxes, speak English and be able to read, write and understand the constitution in English things would absolutely take a turn for the better, no doubt about it. It wouldn’t be a big deal whether they were actually citizens or not if they met the above qualifications.

[RipSawyer]

If Mr. Booke based the accent on Strom Thurmond it was not Georgia or South Alabama, Strom came from Edgefield, South Carolina. I am 68 and was born and raised here so I can attest that there used to be many, many different accents in this state. In fact it was forty years ago that I took a job based here where I am now, just fifty miles from the little farm where I grew up and when I first came here every time I opened my mouth someone would comment that I was obviously, “not from this part of the state.”
Fifty years ago a man from Orangeburg and a man from Spartanburg might have had a difficult time understanding each other. I can drive from the high school I attended to Lake City, SC in about two hours maximum but in 1960 a young teacher who grew up on a tobacco farm near Lake City and had just graduated from Clemson came to our school to teach vocational agriculture and we were amazed how different his accent was from ours. He told us that, “Peepal frum da lowa pot de ste-at tawk different.” Some of us used to read the State Newspaper which was published in Columbia but people in some parts of the state read, “Da Ste-at Peppa”.
I actually preferred it that way, now everyone is beginning to sound a lot more alike, I have a nephew age 26 who grew up at Fort Mill, SC which is close to Charlotte, NC, he sounds like a radio announcer in comparison to what I grew up hearing. I would like to hear just once more, “You set yoseff down rye cheer in da rockin’ cher an’ make yoseff at home.” I miss Ol’ Strohm and the way he used to say “hoose” instead of house.