On Sunday, actors and celebrities and luminaries of all stripes will don their finest duds and traipse along a long scarlet rug before settling in to their seats at the Oscars. All that finery will then spend several hours scrunched up in theater seats as small golden statues are doled out to various “bests”—picture, actor, director, etc.
But with 40 legislatures in session this week, there’s plenty to recognize state lawmakers for in the meantime. Behold—the Staties!
Campaign Action
Best Special: This category had three contenders this week, with special elections to replace Republicans in a deep-red Kentucky House seat, a Connecticut House seat that had been held by the GOP for 44 years, and a New Hampshire House seat.
- Democrats won two of these races, making them the 38th and 39th red-to-blue flips of the cycle.
- The Connecticut House win was impressive in that it ended decades of Republican control of House District 120, but the New Hampshire victory in House District Belknap-3 is definitely the winner in this category.
- Democrat Phil Spagnuolo won this race 54-46 percent—a 19-point swing from Trump’s performance in this district in 2016.
- Also, this was Democrats’ fifth pickup in the New Hampshire House this cycle.
Best Swan Song: Speaking of special elections, the member of the Wisconsin Assembly who lost the Senate District 10 special election to Democrat Patty Schachtner in January (in Democrats’ 34th red-to-blue flip of the cycle) has decided not to run for re-election to the seat he currently holds.
Politicians, like diapers, should be changed often, and for the same reason.
Okay!
Best Picture: Okay, it’s the worst picture, actually, since Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens took it without the consent of his mistress and threatened to make the nude photo public if she failed to keep mum about their affair, but it might qualify as Most Powerful Picture, in that this little photo has resulted in Greitens’ indictment on a felony charge and arrest.
- Now members of his own party have launched an investigation that could lead to the Republican’s impeachment and removal from office.
- On Monday, the GOP House speaker created a seven-member committee (five Republicans, two Democrats) to investigate the charges against Greitens.
Best Timing: But Missouri Republicans can walk and chew gum at the same time, in that they can investigate their governor AND work to screw working families at the simultaneously.
- The state’s new so-called “right to work” law is set to appear on the ballot this November, when voters will have the chance to repeal it.
- But now GOP lawmakers want the “right to work” repeal measure to appear on the ballot for the August primary instead—an election that is sure to bring fewer voters to the polls than the general election.
- The GOP sponsor of the bill to move the RTW repeal from November to August claims that she just wants to give voters a chance to weigh in as soon as possible.
Sure.
- What Republicans really want to do is shrink the size of the electorate voting on this measure—a move that tends to reduce Democratic turnout and will likely result in fewer progressive voters showing up to cast ballots against this union-busting law.
Best Screen Pass: Florida lawmakers are advancing bills that would arm teachers and require schools to display “In God We Trust.”
They’ve also rejected proposals to ban assault weapons.
That’s an awful lot of Trust …
- The conflicting measures making their way through the GOP-controlled state House and Senate would also raise the age to purchase firearms to 21 and increase funding for mental health and school safety programs. We’ll see what shakes out, and what the governor is willing to sign.
Best Short Film: You have just got to watch this amazing video from the Utah House of Representatives.
- “Fresh Prints of Bills Here” tracks roughly (VERY roughly) with the tune of Fresh Prince of Bel Air and seeks to explain how a bill becomes a law in the state.
You’re welcome/I’m sorry
Best Legal Action: A few weeks ago, I wrote in this space about how Republican governors (specifically Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Florida’s Rick Scott) are refusing to call special elections to fill vacant legislative seats.
Well, someone’s doing something about it—in Wisconsin, anyway.
- This week, the affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee filed suit on behalf of voters in the two unrepresented districts (Senate District 1 and Assembly District 42).
- Fun fact about those districts: Trump’s performance in SD-01 is roughly the same as his performance in SD-10, the seat Democrats flipped from red to blue in January. His performance in AD-42 is actually a little worse. Small wonder Walker doesn’t want to have specials and risk losing these seats.
Best Recruitment: For the first time in decades (and possibly ever), North Carolina Democrats filed to run in all 170 legislative districts—50 Senate seats and 120 House seats—while Republicans filed to run in all but one House seat.
- Democratic recruitment is outrageously robust here—218 candidates filed to run, and 81 of them are women.
But Democratic recruitment is outrageously robust everywhere this cycle.
These historic Democratic successes are reflected in the numbers you’ll find in the extremely useful Daily Kos Legislative Open Seat Tracker.
- In the seven states with partisan legislative elections where filing has closed,
- 98 Republicans are retiring (vs. 43 Democrats)
- 18 Republicans are term-limited out (vs. 12 Democrats)
- 174 Democratic seats are uncontested (vs. 123 Republican seats).
Stay tuned as more filing deadlines pass and we learn more about the lay of the land for the 6,066 legislative seats on the ballot this fall!
