Finally, a second round of Democratic presidential primary debates is over and done with.
Now we can get back to the actual high stakes of 2019/2020—state legislative chamber control for the next round of redistricting.
Yes, yes, of course winning the presidency is important.
But that’s just a four-year term.
Campaign Action
The outcomes of statehouse races this cycle will have an epic impact on which party draws congressional district lines in each state—and, consequently, which party is best positioned to win majorities in the U.S. House for the next 10 years.
And while that’s obviously super freaking important, we can’t afford to overlook the fact that most legislatures will be drawing their own district lines in 2021, too.
Sure, that’s not as hot and sexy to most folks as congressional line-drawing, but as a sophisticated and erudite reader of this missive, you know that the vast majority of movement on policy over the past decade has happened on the state level, which makes those lines super freaking important.
I mean ...
I could go on, but hey, I have a newsletter to write.
This Is Why We Fight: So I wasn’t talking about redistricting up top just because it happened to be on my mind.
I mean, it’s basically always on my mind, but that’s beside the point.
- Republicans in Michigan and Wisconsin, where some of the nation’s most egregious GOP gerrymanders were executed back in 2011, are worried about losing their unchallenged grip on their cartographer’s pens in the next round of redistricting.
- Unlike last time around, both states now have Democratic governors.
- What’s more, Michigan voters passed a ballot measure last fall establishing a bipartisan citizens redistricting commission.
- But the GOP has a plan for that.
- And by “plan" I mean “lawsuit from a Scott Walker-led pro-GOP gerrymandering organization.”
- Wisconsin’s nefarious former governor now leads the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which had its nonprofit arm file a lawsuit this week seeking to invalidate Proposal 2.
- Never mind that Proposal 2, which amended the Michigan constitution to create a 13-member bipartisan commission charged with drawing legislative and congressional district maps, passed with a whopping 61% of the vote.
- The suit claims that, by preventing Michiganders who’ve been partisan candidates, elected officials, political appointees, lobbyists, campaign consultants, or member of the governing body of a political party in the past six years from serving on the commission, affected citizens’ First Amendment speech and association rights are being violated.
- The thing is, partisanship isn’t actually a bar to sitting on the commission.
- In fact, of the 13 members, four will be Republicans and four will be Democrats.
- The remaining five members will not have affiliations with either party.
- The restrictions Walker and his Republican cronies find so objectionable actually just keep folks with pretty obvious ulterior motives from drawing maps. Heaven forfend.
- Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to “vigorously” defend the commission’s constitutionality.
- Meanwhile, over in the state Walker helped so effectively gerrymander in favor of the GOP last time around, Wisconsin Republicans are already plotting a way to circumvent their new Democratic governor’s likely veto of any unfair maps they draw in two short years.
- Historically, new congressional and legislative maps are passed as bills by the legislature and then are either signed or vetoed by the governor.
- But there’s a certain type of measure that doesn’t require the governor’s signature: a joint resolution.
- Theoretically, a map could be passed by both the GOP-controlled Assembly and Senate via such a mechanism, thus circumventing a veto by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
- There’s one little hitch:
- Republicans actually tried this once before when they had control of the legislature and a Democratic governor—back in the early 1960s.
- That time, the state Supreme Court rejected the effort and overturned the map, ruling that the governor must be part of the process.
- So, 54-year-old precedent is extremely not on Republicans’ side here.
- But I said a little hitch.
Sigh.
Lemon To A Knife Fight: Virginia Republican Del. Nick Freitas had one job: To get his nomination paperwork to the state Board of Elections on time.
- Turns out Freitas sucked at that one job.
- Okay, technically, both Freitas and the local GOP committee chair sucked at that job, since they both failed to submit required paperwork.
- What kept Freitas so distracted that he forgot to file require candidate forms?
- Not his actual re-election, probably—he’s sitting pretty in House District 30, which went for Trump 60-36 in 2016 and for Ed Gillespie 61-38 in the governor’s race a year later.
- Despite the district’s deep redness, Democrat Ann Ridgeway is challenging Freitas this fall.
- Or she would be, if Freitas were appearing on the ballot.
Which … well, it looks like he’s not.
- While the Department of Elections was in the midst of trying to sort out whether he could still qualify for the ballot despite the missing paperwork, Freitas “withdrew” his candidacy—a neat trick when you haven’t actually been certified as a candidate.
- This maneuver was purely tactical in nature.
- State law allows Republicans to replace a candidate on the ballot if that candidate drops out or dies, and Freitas planned for the local GOP to name him as the replacement candidate for … himself.
- Thing is, you can’t actually withdraw your candidacy if you haven’t been certified as the candidate in the first place, which is exactly what the Department of Elections concluded this week.
- Freitas has appealed to the state Board of Elections to place him on the ballot despite his epic fail.
- The board meets on Aug. 6 to decide his fate.
- Ultimately, Freitas will either appear on the ballot despite himself, or he’ll be launching an expensive write-in campaign.
Nick Fritos for delegate!
Eve of Destruction: Let’s revisit Alaska real quick-like, since everything up there was kind of a disaster last week.
- Specifically, GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy had line-item vetoed $444 million from the state budget at the expense of … well, basically everything just to keep an overambitious campaign promise to voters.
- This epic gutting included:
- $130 million for higher education (a 41% cut),
- all Head Start and early childhood education funding,
- all Medicaid dental coverage,
- money for arts and public safety,
- environmental protection program funds,
- as well as a $334,700 cut to the budget of the Alaska Court System—an attempt to sabotage the rule of law in response to repeated rulings by the state Supreme Court that abortion rights are protected by the state constitution.
- You see, Dunleavey needed all that cash to increase the Permanent Fund dividend—an entitlement paid to literally everyone who lives in the state—to $3,000 for the year.
- This would, by the by, be a pretty huge jump from last year’s $1,600, which itself was the biggest payout of all but two years of the past decade.
- The effort to counter these cuts and restore funding vital aspects of the state’s infrastructure and services left the Alaska legislature literally divided—a handful of Dunleavy loyalists convened in Wasilla, while the bulk of the legislature met in the state capitol of Juneau.
- As of last week, the legislature was on its way to restoring a hefty chunk of the $444 million budget cut.
- This week, the legislature adjourned after sending a pair of bills to the governor’s desk that restores most of of the vetoed funding and maintains the Permanent Fund dividend at last year's $1,600.
Is Dunleavy in a compromising mood, or will he just re-gut the state’s budget?
- He has a little under two weeks left to sign or reject the bills, so we’ll see soon enough.
We’ll Meet Again: … but why meet when you can overlap?
Daily Kos has some sexy new data illuminating the overlaps between
… as well as counties and all 435 congressional districts, if you’re into that.
Welp, that’s a wrap for this edition. Thanks for hanging in, despite the debate drain you’re probably feeling at this point. You should probably go ahead and call it a week, knock off early, spend your long weekend contemplating the profound mystery of why John Delaney is even running. Just print this out and show it to your boss, I'm sure she won't mind—and that she's just as stumped by his candidacy as the rest of us.