It’s Oscar season, but the thousands of lawmakers in the 39 states whose legislatures are in session this week probably have other things on their minds.
Like legislators in Florida, who are clearly being lobbied to support Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri by this one billboard placed by an anti-Trump super PAC in Pensacola. The billboard features a mug shot of former state Rep. and current U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz and demands to know “how many DUIs” he’s had.
Campaign Action
(The mug shot is from Gaetz’s DUI arrest in 2008, before he ran for office. The charge was dropped, and despite the fact that Gaetz refused to take field sobriety and breathalyzer tests, his license somehow wasn’t suspended—as required by Florida law. Video from the arrest was later “destroyed,” and the sheriff’s deputy who arrested Gaetz was forced to resign less than a month later, though there’s no evidence the resignation was necessarily tied to the Gaetz incident.)
(Oh, and Gaetz’s daddy was a powerful state senator at the time.)
According to state records, the 2008 arrest was Gaetz’s only DUI charge, but he’s received 16 traffic tickets since 1999.
He really hates that mug shot, though—so much so, in fact, that he sponsored legislation in the Florida legislature that would keep people’s mug shots off the internet unless and until they’re convicted.
But, enough about my favorite law school classmate who’s currently a member of Congress (he’s also my least favorite—he’s my only law school classmate who’s a member of Congress).
Darkest Hour: Once upon a time in 2010, Republicans flipped a whole bunch of state legislative majorities and won a slew of governorships. A lot has been written, and rightly so, about how that impacted this decade’s redistricting and shaped federal politics over the past seven years.
But another consequence of that red wave at the state level was just as politically impactful, yet was cloaked in the guise of policy: legislative union-busting.
- After remaining virtually static for decades (after Idaho became a so-called “right to work” state in 1985, the only other state to become anti-union until this decade was Oklahoma, in 2001), six states raced towards becoming “right to work” after 2010.
- Wisconsin was especially memorable because of the February 2011 walkout of Democratic state senators that temporarily blocked the passage of Act 10 (although Indiana House Democrats don’t get the credit they deserve for doing basically the same thing shortly thereafter), bringing the tally to six states that have become RTW since 2010: Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.
It’s no secret that Republicans rushed to decimate union power as soon as they had the votes to do it because they wanted to undermine labor support for Democrats and Democratic infrastructure. But now we have real evidence of the GOP’s success in this nefarious endeavor.
- A new study from some Very Smart People (and written up by the Also Very Smart Sean McElwee) reveals the consequences of anti-union laws on Democratic power, and … well, it’s not pretty.
- In places with these new RTW laws, Democratic presidential vote share decreased by 3.5 percent.
- That impact persists in down-ballot races: Democratic vote shares similarly declined in U.S. House and Senate races, gubernatorial races, and in state legislative elections.
- In fact, the study’s authors estimate that Democrats control 5 to 10 percent fewer seats in state legislatures after “right to work” laws are enacted.
- And this evisceration of Democratic power at the legislative level leads to a sort of vicious cycle where Republicans use their increased numbers to gut voting rights, further undermining Democrats’ chances for success at the ballot box.
Are these findings surprising? Nah. But it’s both kind of gratifying and depressing to have hard evidence of the impact of the GOP’s effort to bust unions.
Get Out: Speaking of Wisconsin and the consequences of increased Republican power resulting from union-busting ...
- On Tuesday, Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate voted to oust the state’s top elections and ethics officials.
Fun fact! The administrators that Senate Republicans booted both used to work for the Government Accountability Board (which Wisconsin Republicans disbanded in 2015).
Funner fact! When these guys worked for the GAB, the agency investigated a lot of shady things Republicans were getting up to—so of course Republicans have targeted them.
love too have power over the agency that exists to investigate things I do while running for and serving in office
Marzian’s Game: Superhero movies don’t typically get a lot of Oscar nominations, but while one fierce woman lawmaker from Kentucky doesn’t wear a cape, she definitely deserves recognition.
- Democratic state Rep. Mary Lou Marzian—who happens to be a nurse—filed legislation this week that would require schools that train doctors and nurses “to cease all training of any health care providers” and “require all medical and nursing schools to refer citizens who are requesting advice or health care services to their state representative or state senator.”
- This snarky bill is Marzian’s response to Kentucky’s men lawmakers who, year after year, push bills to regulate and constrict abortion, birth control, sex education, and other issues affecting women’s health.
- I mean, check out this legislation introduced by one of Marzian’s Republican colleagues this session that requires doctors to give women “a written medical description of images depicted during a required ultrasound” before an abortion.
Marzian is fed up.
“It’s obvious that our legislators think that they know more about women’s health than women and their physicians do, so why bother training medical professionals anymore?” Marzian asked. “Let’s just have everyone consult their lawmakers when they get sick. Lawmakers are clearly the ones who know best.”
The Election Disaster Artists: Republican lawmakers in Alabama are responding to a Democrat winning of one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats in December’s special election in an entirely predictable way: They’re trying to get rid of U.S. Senate special elections entirely.
Uh huh. Sure. And the fact that Doug Jones owes his election to massive support among black voters definitely has nothing to do with it.
The Shape of Winning: It’s no secret that Democrats have been killing it at the ballot box since Trump’s election.
- Democrats have flipped 34 state legislative seats this cycle. Republicans, for their part, have picked up just four seats, and one of those didn’t even have a Democrat on the ballot.
- It’s also not exactly news that congressional Republicans are retiring in droves, creating scads of open seats for Democrats to run in this fall. (You can keep tabs on just how many are heading for the hills using our handy tracking spreadsheet.)
- But down-ballot Republicans aren’t immune from this trend, either.
- For example, several suburban Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature have already announced their retirements, and a handful more are reportedly considering calling it quits.
- But with 6,066 state legislative seats on the ballot this fall, how can one possibly keep track of all the Republicans dropping like proverbial flies?
Glad you asked!
- Because spreadsheets are the absolute best, we’ve created another handy tracker—this one, for state legislative open and uncontested seats. Check it out here.
- You’ll notice that only two states are listed so far—Texas and Illinois. That’s because those are the only two states in which filing has closed for state legislative elections, so we know for sure who’s running and who’s not. Those thousands of seats up in November make following one-off announcements and rumors something of a fool’s errand, so we’re only updating this list when we have hard data.
- In these two states alone, we already know that 30 Republicans are retiring, vs. just 13 Democrats.
I suddenly have a hankering for popcorn. Until next week!