Yeah yeah, I know we’re barely past Hanukkah and not even to Christmas yet, but this bonkers year is almost over, and I’m taking a little break next week to catch my breath before legislative sessions in some 38 states get under way in January. And what better time to reflect on the past 12 months than right now, when things are kind of slow ….
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no. The insanity of 2017 isn’t actually done with us yet.
- Just take Virginia, where a super amazing election night propelled Democrats in the 100-member House of Delegates from 34 seats all the way to 49.
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- Four of these races proceeded to recounts, but considering how rarely recounts change the results of Virginia elections, most observers only expected one of those to be at issue: House District 94, a Hampton Roads seat where Democrat Shelly Simonds trailed GOP Del. David Yancey by just 10 votes.
- The HD-94 recount got underway on Tuesday, and by the end of the day, Simonds had a one-vote lead over Yancey—a margin of victory seen in Virginia just once in the modern era, when Democrat Jim Scott prevailed over his opponent in 1991 by a single vote, earning him the nickname “Landslide Jim.”
- None of the decisions on whether or how to count the recounted ballots had been challenged by the time the recount concluded, so the only thing left was for a three-judge panel to certify the decision on Wednesday.
- Simonds’ victory would break the GOP’s majority in the House of Delegates, giving each party 50 members in the chamber.
- But Virginia House Republicans weren’t going to let their two decades-old majority go so easily. Yancey’s attorney contacted one of the recount observers, who claimed he’d had misgivings about one of the ballots that had been rejected as an “overvote”—bubbles next to both Simonds and Yancey had been filled in.
- The observer wrote a letter to the judges who’d be finalizing the recount results (my favorite part is where he implicates a “female observer” while explaining his confusion at the time). Even though challenges to recount ballot decisions are supposed to be made during the actual recount, Yancey waited to challenge the ballot before the three-judge circuit court panel the next day.
Fun fact! These judges (and every other current judge in Virginia) were selected and approved for appointment (or reappointment) by Republicans in the legislature.
- After conferring for hours, the judges decided to count the reject ballot as an additional vote for Yancey and certified the election results as a tie.
- The tie will be resolved next Wednesday, when officials at the Virginia State Board of Elections will convene to draw lots—in this case, pick out one of two opaque 35mm film canisters containing a slip of paper with Yancey’s or Simonds’ name from a glass bowl. (Yes, I’m serious.)
But!
Yesterday’s decision to count the ballot (which you can see here) was potentially problematic enough that Simonds may yet have recourse if the drawing doesn’t go her way.
- In the section of the ballot for delegate, the voter in question filled in ovals for both Simonds and Yancey, then appears to have made a slash through the bubble for Simonds (there’s also a squiggle leaking out of the right side of the bubble for Yancey).
- Making matters more confusing, the same voter darkened the bubble for Republican Ed Gillespie in the governor's race and crossed it out with an "X," while they filled in no other bubble in that contest.
- The judges determined that the voter intended to cast a ballot for Yancey, but that actually runs counter to what’s indicated in the Virginia SBE’s super handy list of ballot examples for manual recounts.
- In fact, based on the manual, the extra marking in the oval for Simons looks like an “additional clarifying mark,” so if anything, the ballot could very well have counted for Simonds, and not Yancey. At the very least, the ballot is extremely ambiguous.
- An attorney for Simonds said that Democrats are “assessing all legal options,” and Simonds won’t have been “harmed” by the judges’ decision in a legal sense until after canisters are drawn on Wednesday. Even then, though, a path forward isn’t clear-cut. While one provision of state law says that recount proceedings "shall be final and not subject to appeal," that can't preclude litigation in federal court. Adding another wrinkle, a separate statute says that whoever loses the drawing of lots may seek another recount.
This is a lot of craziness for one statehouse chamber …
… But wait! There’s more!
- Legal action is still pending in House District 28, where a separate recount knocked Republican Bob Thomas’ lead over Democrat Joshua Cole down to just 73 votes from 82 votes. However, at least 147 ballots in this race were cast in the wrong district. (A hearing in the case is set for Jan. 5.)
- Virginia Democrats are asking a federal judge to order a new election here, and if they get their wish, hold on to your butts: With House control at stake, the race for HD-28 would likely be the most expensive special election Virginia’s ever seen.
So, all of this is nuts, and majority control of the Virginia House of Delegates might not be resolved with any finality for weeks. But it’s actually not quite as insane as the fact that ending Republicans’ House majority is even at issue.
I mean, Democrats were down 66-34 on election night, and then, BOOM, they added (at least) 15 members to their caucus—which is also (and this is no accident) the most diverse freshman class in the chamber’s history.
And this was made possible by a record number of Democratic candidates challenging a record number Republican incumbents. No prognosticators (including moi) forecast anything close to a 15-seat pickup—underscoring the importance of supporting as many good candidates as possible in any election year, no matter how long the odds may seem.
Okay, one more piece of business before taking a gander backwards at this bananas year.
Recall Claus is Comin’ to Town: And by “Recall Claus,” I mean the D.C.-based organization apparently bankrolling the sad attempts to hijack a Nevada state Senate majority that Republicans know they can’t win next fall.
For those just joining, a little background:
- Being the minority party sucks (Republicans lost the Nevada Senate in 2016, resulting in an effectively 12-9 chamber), and the GOP is understandably worried about flipping the chamber back in November 2018.
- Only three of the 10 seats that will be up next year are held by Democrats, and all three went decisively blue in 2014.
- At the same time, of the six Republicans up in 2018, one represents a Clinton seat (51-43 percent), making it tough turf to defend.
- So faced with a tough general election, Republicans turned to sham recalls to oust two Democrats who’d just been elected and one independent who started caucusing with them this year (and isn’t even running for re-election).
- Using lies and distortions of voting records, Republicans gathered signatures to recall these three lawmakers—who all just happen to be women.
But signatures don’t gather themselves; these things cost cash money. And thanks to one recently-filed campaign finance report, we’re starting to get an idea of who’s behind this effort.
- The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which works to elect GOP candidates to state offices (including legislatures), was the sole donor to the effort to recall the independent senator, to the tune of $160,000.
- That recall petition failed miserably, so Republicans shifted $118,000 from that account to the recall efforts for the two Democrats. (The RSLC may have also contributed directly to those efforts, but we won’t know until those recall committees file finance reports.)
The other two bogus recalls are poised to move forward … maybe.
- Election officials announced this week that the petition to recall Democratic state Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro exceeded the required number of signatures (albeit by margin of just 43).
- That follows the petition against Democratic Sen. Joyce Woodhouse, which was ruled sufficient in early November.
- But it’s lawsuit time, baby! Democrats had previously sued to challenge that signature count, and they will likely follow suit with Cannizzaro.
So.
The year is almost over, and it’s both flown by and been the longest 12 months EVER.
But old acquaintance should not be forgot, by which I mean that this year has been chock full o’ really great statehouse action—especially when it comes to elections.
- The year started ordinarily enough; the first 11 or so contested D-vs.-R legislative special elections were holds for each party. No seats changed hands. Ho-hum.
- … except it wasn’t ordinary at all. We started noticing a trend, even in seats where the Republican won: Democrats were over-performing both Clinton’s numbers in these districts from the previous fall and Obama’s from 2012 with astounding consistency.
- And then in May, Democrats started flipping seats from red to blue.
- The first and second were in the New York Assembly and the New Hampshire House.
- The next came over the summer, in the Oklahoma House and Senate, of all places.
- In September, Democrats flipped another Oklahoma House seat, two more New Hampshire House seats, and a Florida Senate seat.
- On Nov. 7, while Democrats were busy flipping a record number of seats in Virginia (15 and counting), a Democrat won a majority in the Washington Senate by winning a key special election there. Democrats flipped seats in the Georgia House, Georgia Senate, and New Hampshire House on the same night.
- Democrats flipped yet another Oklahoma House seat a week later.
- Oh, and Democrats flipped four seats in New Jersey on Nov. 7, too.
Anyway, notwithstanding the outcome of Virginia HD-94, Democrats have flipped 33 state legislative seats this cycle. (Republicans have flipped four.)
- And in the seats Republicans are hanging on to, they’re winning by smaller margins than ever in the majority of them.
This year hasn’t been all sunshine and roses—far from it. Trump and Republicans on both the federal and state levels have done some extremely awful things.
But Democratic performance in down-ballot elections in 2017 is not only good news in its own right, but it’s also great news in terms of fighting Trump’s Republican Party and its disastrous agenda at every level.
All available election data points to big losses for the GOP in November 2018—not just in Congress, but also in the states. Governorships, secretaries of state, attorneys general, and state legislative majorities are all on the table for Democrats to flip next fall.
The only New Year’s resolution Democrats need is to commit to doing what it takes to win as many of those seats as possible in 2018.
