Some are heroes, some are villains, but all state lawmakers have a superpower: They make laws.
No, it’s not as cool as as flying or having a magic hammer or … okay, lots of things, but it’s still a pretty big deal.
And with that great power comes great responsibility.
… seriously though some of these folks could use a serious talking-to from Uncle Ben.
Avengers: Age of Moron: Republican lawmakers in Kansas made like Loki last summer and totally acted like good guys for a hot minute, but in the end we really should have all seen their eventual betrayal of their state coming.
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- Just last summer, Democrats and pragmatist Republicans joined forces to override Gov. Sam Brownback’s veto of a plan that rolled back many of the extreme GOP tax cuts of 2012 and 2013.
- This may seem like an wacky, counterintuitive move by Kansas GOP lawmakers, but, seriously, they didn’t have much of a choice. Those tax cuts were totally villainous.
- Not only did those cuts fail to generate the jobs Republicans promised, but they resulted in the state’s bond rating getting downgraded multiple times.
- The massive budget holes created by the lost revenue (almost $700 million per year) spurred GOP lawmakers to take some serious shortcuts.
- Republicans raided the state highway fund, which postponed or scrapped many needed road projects.
- They also gutted public education funding to such an extreme degree that the state Supreme Court ruled it in violation of the state constitution.
- Voters ousted a slew of GOP anti-tax hardliners in 2016, which is what enabled that alliance of Democrats and moderate Republicans to override Brownback’s veto of a plan that undid many of those cuts.
- And it worked! Revenue is up, the budget has stabilized, and officials are predicting a surplus of hundreds of millions of dollars next year.
But it’s an election year. So what are some Kansas Republicans doing? They’re hoping voters have the memory of goldfish and are proposing new tax cuts.
- The measure has passed the state Senate; the House has seven more days to consider the bill.
Not-so-fun fact: Despite 13 red-to-blue flips in the Kansas legislature in 2016, both chambers are firmly controlled by Republicans.
Stay tuned!
Captain America: Civil Disobedience: On Wednesday, a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota concluded a 24-hour sit-in on the state House floor in protest of the GOP-controlled legislature’s failure to act on gun safety proposals.
- On Monday evening, Rep. Erin Maye Quade contemplated the ongoing activism prompted by the Parkland shooting in February, last week’s anniversary of the 1999 Columbine shooting, and recent polling in the state that found that 90 percent of respondents believe Minnesota should require criminal background checks on all gun sales.
- But every gun safety bill that’s been introduced during this year’s session died in (GOP-controlled) committee; not a single one made it to the House or Senate floor for full debate or a vote.
- Quade wanted students and activists to know that their voices were still being heard—at least by some lawmakers. So she began her sit-in on Tuesday to demonstrate this.
- As Quade shared stories of Minnesotans affected by gun violence, she was joined over the course of the day by some other Democrats—and even one Republican.
- As Quade stood up and walked off the House floor around midday on Wednesday, she was greeted with applause from gun safety activists who had gathered outside and in the gallery. She urged them to keep up the pressure on elected officials.
Democrats planned to make another push for several new gun safety measures on Thursday, but as of this writing, those bills remain … just sitting.
Thorvember: The Dark World: The November electoral landscape got just a little dimmer for Team Red on Tuesday night.
Yeah, Republican Debbie Lesko won by the relative skin of her teeth in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, but y’all know that’s not what I’m talking about. (That was pretty great, though.)
Two Senate retirements this week make it increasingly likely that he won’t have that power after November.
- On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Kathy Marchione announced she wouldn’t run for re-election to Senate District 42.
- Trump won this seat 49-47, but Obama won it 54-45 in 2012, so this definitely presents a pickup opportunity for Democrats.
- But an even juicier opportunity presented itself on Thursday, when Republican Sen. (and Deputy Majority Leader) John DeFrancisco announced his retirement, too.
- His Senate District 50 was carried by Clinton 50-45 and by Obama 55-43, so this seat is going to be an especially tough hold for the New York Senate GOP—along with their fake majority in the chamber.
Ironic Man: Remember those two Wisconsin special elections that Scott Walker did, like, EVERYTHING to try to prevent including try to literally outlaw them but are happening in June anyway?
Well, Republicans have gone from having an extremely undemocratic problem to an actual democratic problem. (And yes, I mean democratic, not Democratic. Though that’s the GOP’s problem generally these days, so ….)
- Democrats quickly selected one great candidate each in Assembly District 42 and Senate District 1, and now they’re galloping straight towards the June 12 special election.
- Republicans, on the other hand, have messy primaries in both districts.
- A current GOP member of the state Assembly and a local businessman are duking it out in SD-01.
- In AD-42, no fewer than four Republicans are vying for the nomination.
Personally, my money’s on the guy who owns the karate school (“Your Success Is Through Our Front Door”) but this isn’t a physical fight so that doesn’t actually matter but it would be kinda fun if there were crane kicks
- The primary in both of these elections is on May 15, after which the Republicans who emerge from these contests will have less than a month to finally be able to focus on their Democratic opponents.
- Democrats Ann Groves Lloyd and Caleb Frostman, in the meantime, get to focus on talking to voters and raising money for June (instead of spending it for May).
Captain America: The November Soldiers: Recruitment news continues to be pretty freaking great for Democrats all the way down the ballot.
- When filing closed in Colorado late last week, Democrats had candidates running in every congressional, state legislative, and statewide race this fall.
- Democrats hadn’t fielded candidates in every legislative race in at least the past four elections, “and likely going back plenty of years before that,” according to one state paper.
- This wealth of candidates positions Democrats to expand their majority in the state House and end Republicans’ one-seat majority in the state Senate.
- If a Democrat wins the gubernatorial contest this fall, Colorado is likely to join California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island on the list of Democratic “trifecta” states.
- Republicans, of course, do not have candidates in every race. A state GOP spokesman offered a delightful excuse, explaining that “those who stand little to no chance of winning can be a drain on resources.”
And those who don’t run at all stand an even littler chance of winning.
Oh hey y’all, this seems like a great time to check in on the amazing and beautiful Daily Kos Elections 2018 Legislative Open Seat Tracker, which has been updated to reflect the status of 3,679 partisan legislative seats that will be on the ballot this fall (2,300 or so yet to go)!
Here’s where each party is currently situated in terms of retirements and open seats at the state legislative level this fall.
- 354 Republicans are retiring (vs. 171 Democrats)
- 141 Republicans are term-limited out (vs. 69 Democrats)
- 493 Republicans will skate into office unopposed, while 626 Democrats will do the same.
- In percentage terms, the difference is even more, like, whoa: 46 percent of Democratic-held seats are going uncontested by Republicans, while the reverse is true of just 22 percent of GOP-held seats.
- And in raw numbers, the differences is even starker still: So far, Democrats are fielding candidates in 1,794 GOP seats, while Republicans are doing so in just 727 Democratic seats.
- That’s almost 2.5 times as many Democratic legislative candidates versus Republican candidates.
Cool, right?
Until next week … who wants shawarma?