Welcome to a Democratic primary debate-free zone.
For your own safety and the safety of those around you, please secure all loose items.
Keep your arms and legs in the car at all times.
If you need help adjusting the restraints, please be patient—someone will assist you momentarily.
Now—sit up straight, hold on tight, and enjoy your ride.
Campaign Action
Slow Ride: This week’s journey of disappointment begins in our nation’s capital, where the U.S. Supreme Court has just totally okayed partisan legislative and congressional district map-drawing.
- In a 5-4 ruling on Thursday, SCOTUS held that partisan gerrymandering could not be adjudicated under the U.S. Constitution.
- This effectively removes the issue from federal courts, leaving state courts as the only venue for this kind of battle over skewed district lines.
- The two cases at issue dealt with congressional maps from Maryland and North Carolina, found by lower courts to be unconstitutional Democratic and Republican partisan gerrymanders, respectively.
- The Supreme Court overturned both federal rulings, effectively signing off on a system Republicans have employed to their advantage in the past two rounds of redistricting to lock in disproportionate advantages at both the state and federal levels.
But while this is extremely not good news, all hope for battling partisan gerrymandering in the courts is not lost.
- Remember, just last year, Pennsylvania Democrats successfully sued under the state constitution to throw out the GOP’s partisan congressional gerrymander.
So now what?
The fight moves to the ballot box, that’s what.
- First and foremost, Democrats need to flip state legislatures and win governorships to expand their ability to prevent extreme GOP gerrymanders.
- A veto in the governor’s office is good, but pairing that with a Democratic-majority chamber that can actually produce a map is way better.
- That's why the surest way to combat yet another decade of super-skewed Republican maps is to elect Democratic majorities in at least one legislative chamber in Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida in 2019-2020.
- Virginia and Pennsylvania will have Democratic governors for the 2021 round of redistricting.
- And electing Democratic governors in New Hampshire and Vermont in 2020 would (likely) give Democrats trifecta control of new maps in those states.
- So would flipping the Minnesota Senate that year.
- And so would flipping both the Virginia House and Senate this year.
- Ballot measures are another way to implement gerrymander-countering redistricting reform, but time to do that before the next round of redistricting is almost gone, it’s not an option in many states (notably Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, when we’re talking gerrymandering).
Riders on the Geostorm: The next station in our journey of crap this week brings us back to Oregon.
- Last week in this space, I wrote about how Oregon Senate Republicans up and fled the state rather than lose a vote on landmark environmental legislation that would create a cap-and-trade system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
- I also predicted that Oregon Senate Democrats, having already caved to GOP demands on other progressive priorities during Republicans’ earlier walkout in May, would stand up to their runaway colleagues this time around.
… oops.
- On Tuesday, Democratic Senate President Peter Courtney announced that the bill at issue, HB2020, no longer had the votes to pass and politely asked the Republicans to please come back to work so the legislature can pass a budget and finish other important things before the end of session this week.
WTF??? said basically everybody.
- Well, it turns out that Democrats could afford to lose three members of their own party on the vote and still pass HB2020.
- This week, we learned that those three votes were gone, which Democrats they were, and who helped fund their campaigns.
- Sens. Arnie Roblan and Betsy Johnson have both taken money from Koch Industries, timber interests (which are, like, super opposed to HB2020), and various other corporations.
- That third vote belongs Democratic Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson.
- Boeing is a major employer in her district, and she’d been pushing for more concessions to protect the company from costs associated with the bill.
- Previously, she’d said she supported the legislation, but intelligence reports from the state capitol reveal she’s the third holdout.
Still no word on if/when Republicans are going to return to Salem in time to do the people’s business.
Ride or Die: Sad stop number three is in Virginia, where you may recall that 12 people were brutally gunned down at the end of May.
- On July 9, the General Assembly will convene to consider gun safety legislation, including, one hopes, the sort of bill that died earlier this year on a party-line vote in a Senate committee—legislation that banned the kind of large-capacity ammunition magazine used by the gunman.
- So it’s really no surprise that the NRA, which is, incidentally, based in the Old Dominion, is girding its loins for battle.
- Part of that girding involves holding a series of town halls aimed at rallying gun nuts to the organization’s bloody cause.
- And because the NRA just dgaf, one of those town halls is going to be held in Virginia Beach—the city where the May 31 mass shooting occurred.
- And because that’s just not quite shitty enough, a sitting state senator is scheduled to attend.
- And not just any state senator.
- Republican Sen. Bill DeSteph, whose district include the scene of the shooting and who immediately accused Democrats of “politicizing this tragedy” in the wake of it, plans to attend Monday’s NRA town hall.
By the by, DeSteph has a Democratic opponent this November. You can learn more about Missy Smasal here.
Bull Ride: In other news, the White House is getting a new press secretary!
And she has a history of blocking media access to corridors of power!
Gee, I thought. That name sounds familiar.
- Someone mentioned her Arizona background, and that’s when it hit me: Grisham used to work for the Arizona House GOP, and she’d been behind an unprecedented move by Republican leadership to revoke the credentials of the entire chamber press corps back in 2016.
I wrote about it at the time, but here’s what went down:
- On a Thursday in early April of that year, the Arizona state House leadership (for whom Grisham worked) banned reporters from the chamber floor—access the media had enjoyed for at least 34 years (probably longer).
- To return to the House floor, reporters were told they had to submit to extensive background checks, which included not just reporters' criminal and civil histories, but also their prior addresses and driving records. (Seriously, driving records?)
- But Arizona House Republicans' sudden crackdown on media access was anything but random.
- In fact, the new restriction appeared to be targeting one reporter in particular—a reporter who'd written multiple stories critical of the then-GOP House speaker.
- Earlier that year, Hank Stephenson wrote about Speaker David Gowan’s extensive travel on the state's dime for purposes apparently unrelated to his duties as an elected official (the Speaker later reimbursed the state more than $12,000).
- It just so happened that Stephenson had a conviction of second degree trespass lurking in his history (from a "bar fight").
- Along with the invasive background check requirement, GOP House leadership also unveiled a list of specific prior offenses which would disqualify a reporter from House floor privileges.
- That list included any felony within the past ten years or any misdemeanor within the past five.
- … including “trespass.”
- House Republicans claimed this ban was a result of security concerns, rather than petty retribution. Okay!
- After the state Department of Public Safety refused to perform these bullshit background checks, GOP House leadership backed down after just a few days of this nonsense, and statehouse reporters—including Stephenson—regained their access to the legislative chamber.
So if the White House press corps is expecting a more accessible West Wing under the new press secretary … well, they may not want to hold their breaths.
Welp, that’s all for this week. I dunno about you, but I suddenly have the urge to visit an amusement park. If you do, too, don’t fight it. Knock off early, get started on your weekend, beat the rush to your adrenaline rush of choice. Just print this out and show it to your boss, I’m sure she won’t mind. Chances are, she’s a coaster fan, too.