In 1980 when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, Reagan stepped on the stage in California to thank his supporters and then also called attention to his admiring flock of knuckleheads that the Republicans had won majorities in state legislatures across the country. This was deemed important by the victorious right-winger because he knew it would lay the foundation for many more victories in the future. Waves like last night occur like stock market corrections. But it is the wise investor that profits following a correction. Well follow me past the bump to see our good news.
Apparently our 2006 wave was strong enough to make this happen...
(Via Yahoo News)
Democrats win majority of state legislatures
Wed Nov 8, 7:16 AM ET
The wave of voter discontent that put Democrats in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives also hit state legislatures, where the party won control of more chambers than Republicans.
Democrats picked up control of at least nine chambers in Tuesday's election, winning the House and Senate in Iowa and New Hampshire, the House in Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, and Indiana, and the Wisconsin Senate, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"The Democrats have won pretty much across the board," said Tim Storey, an elections analyst at the nonpartisan group.
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So far, Democrats control both chambers in 21 states, while Republicans control 15 and 9 were split between the two parties, according to Storey.
Heading into the election, in which 6,181 out of 7,382 legislative seats were on ballots, 20 legislatures were controlled by Republicans, 19 by Democrats and 10 were split between the two parties. In terms of overall legislative seats, Democrats had 18 more than Republicans.
Democrats and progressives need to shore up these legislative races. They are imporatant. So much legislation occurs at this level in an an average 120 day session. Because politicos are so frequently focused on big national election federal races, a lot of political mischief can occur at the legislative level. They are the incubators for the agenda and the "bad idea testing and establishment centers" for every bad legislative action around. The R's have used this method to test out their ideas and translate them to the Congress. We can do the same thing - but for the progressive agenda of America.
But one thing that many Legislatures do is REDISTRICT. Reapportionment of congressional districts can have a devastating effect as we sadly learned via Tom DeLay and his redistricting efforts in Texas. Utah Democrats have, for example, been effectively redistrict into near legislative extinction. Legislatures also provide the farm team training and development of our up and coming leaders. Jon Testor> for example is currently the President of the Montana State Senate and and is now the presumptive winner of the US Senate seat in Montana!
If you want to know more about the cause to keep America Blue at the legislative level then check out the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) http://www.dlcc.org/ . Our Legislative Assembly victories across America need to be fostered and maintained.