It hit me like a ton of bricks when I woke up this morning.
Thanksgiving is just a week away.
As in, from today.
I mean, come on. Election Day, like, just happened.
Whoever planned this didn’t think it through.
Campaign Action
So next week you get to be thankful for a bad joke-free day (family notwithstanding).
In the meantime, though, here are a few leftovers from last week and some peeks ahead into things we get to be thankful for (or not) in the weeks and months to come.
Thanks For Nothing: Last week in this space, I mentioned that the Nevada state Assembly was shaping up to be the first woman-majority legislative chamber in the country.
Oops.
Well, it’s not.
- That honor went to the New Hampshire state Senate after to 2008 elections, as a couple of enterprising readers helpfully informed me.
- Thirteen women were elected to the 24-seat chamber that year, and the Democratic majority chose women key leadership positions within the chamber, too.
- Women were elected to the positions of Senate president, president pro tem, and majority whip by their caucus.
- The 2010 GOP wave relegated women to a minority in the Senate once more.
It only took a decade to duplicate this feat somewhere else. [[eyeroll]]
Hopefully it won’t take as long for a third chamber to achieve this, hm?
Thanks For The Misery: People respond to a candidate of not-their-choice winning elections in various—often benign—ways.
- Arizona anti-immigration activist Alice Novoa responded to the victory of Democratic Rep.-elect Raquel Teran by filing a lawsuit challenging her citizenship.
- Teran was one of four Democrats to flip seats in the Arizona House on Nov. 6, and she’s very much an American citizen.
- Novoa filed a similar suit against Teran, a longtime community and immigration activist, in 2012. It was swiftly dismissed when Teran presented her U.S. birth certificate.
- Novoa has provided zero evidence to support her BS claim.
Kind And Generous: I’ve written a bit about the game-changing pro-democracy ballot measures that passed in Florida and Michigan on Nov. 6, but they weren’t progressive policy wins at the ballot box on Nov 6.
- My colleague Stephen Wolf has a deep dive, but here are some other highlights that will impact state politics henceforth:
- Michigan wasn’t the only state that passed a ballot measure creating an independent redistricting commission (though, with Democrats running for the state House winning more votes statewide than Republicans but failing to win a majority of seats in the chamber FOR THE FOURTH CONSECUTIVE ELECTION, it may be the most necessary). Colorado and Missouri passed reforms, too.
- Like Michigan, Colorado’s measure created an independent redistricting commission.
- Missouri voters opted to make it the first state in the country to impose a specific statistical test of partisan fairness on state legislative redistricting.
- Michigan also wasn’t the only state that made voting easier via ballot measure.
- Also, Maryland voters approved extending same-day registration to include Election Day itself. (It previously had been available only during the early voting period.)
Alas, some garbage ballot measures passed, too.
Thank You In Advance: The end of election season 2018 means that Virginia’s 2019 election season is already underway.
- Democrats are just two seats away from a majority in the House of Delegates and one seat away (with the Democratic lieutenant governor breaking ties) from majority control of the Senate.
- But district lines in the House remain up in the air, with a federal court tasked with redrawing the map by March 28, 2019—which would leave time for any last-minute shifts in candidate filings that might result.
- But this week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up state Republicans’ appeal of the ruling against their map, which could delay the process to the point that, even if the Court rules against the GOP, their unconstitutional lines would still be in place for the 2019 elections.
- If that happens, the GOP’s lines will have been in place for every single House election this decade—even if the decision declaring the Republican map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander is upheld.
Welp, that’s it for a little while. You probably ought to take tomorrow off to get a jump on recipe research and ingredient shopping for next week’s festivities. Best to avoid the Thanksgiving rush at the grocery store and all that. (Really, is there anything more fun than driving around and scouring four different produce sections for fresh cranberries?) Just print this out and show it to your boss, I’m sure she won’t mind.