This Week in Statehouse Action: Hardly Working for the Weekend edition

Deadly, actually.

Happy almost-Labor Day!

I know we’re all anxious to get on with our holiday weekend (for those lucky enough to get to enjoy it), so I’m going to get right to the point.

Two months from today, Democrats across the country have their very last chance to prevent Republicans from controlling the next round of redistricting.

In most states, the legislators elected in November will play a role in drawing congressional and state legislative district lines.

These lines will impact the quality of our democracy for the coming decade.

These lines will either affirm or usurp voters’ ability to make meaningful choices at the ballot box.

These lines will help determine the balance of power in our nation for the next ten years.

Takin’ Care of Business: The admittedly super obvious point of that intro is to get me back to my ongoing series of analyses of the legislative chambers most ripe for flipping this fall.

It’s been a few weeks, so that list again (and number of seats Democrats need for a majority in the chamber):

• Arizona House (flip two)
• Arizona Senate (flip three)
• Michigan House (flip four)
• Minnesota Senate (flip two)
• North Carolina House (flip six)
• North Carolina Senate (flip five)
• Pennsylvania House (flip nine)
• Texas House (flip nine)

I’ve already done deeper dives on Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, and this week, I’m adding Texas.

• That “flip nine” bit looks a little intimidating, but there’s good reason to target this admittedly heavy lift of a state.
  • While the state Senate is safely in GOP hands (it’s a heavily gerrymandered 19 R/12 D chamber), the House is a viable target.
  • If Democrats can flip this chamber, they can block a sure-to-be severely gerrymandered Republican congressional map.
    • This would kick the process over to the courts, which is likely to result in districts that are more fair than anything drawn by the GOP (though the bar is extraordinarily low on that).
    • And fairer districts are likely to give Democrats and Latinos more opportunities to win congressional seats than any Republican map.
  • State legislative redistricting, however, would effectively remain in GOP hands, based on the process currently in place.

So, given the state of things (83 R/67 D), why am I kinda bullish on Democrats flipping those nine Texas House seats?

• Because in 2018, Democrat Beto O’Rourke won exactly nine GOP-held House seats in his U.S. Senate race against Ted Cruz.
  • And yeah, that’s an awfully narrow path, but on top of that, eight other Republicans represent districts Cruz won by fewer than four points.
• The nine GOP districts Beto won are
  • HD-26
  • HD-64
  • HD-66
  • HD-67
  • HD-108
  • HD-112
  • HD-121
  • HD-134
  • HD-138
    • HD-26 is an open seat after incumbent Rick Miller decided not to run for reelection after being publicly rebuked by GOP leadership for saying that his primary opponents decided to run against him because they’re Asian. Democrat Sarah DeMerchant faces Republican Jacey Jetton.
    • HD-64 is currently represented by Lynn Stuckey, who’s facing Democrat Angela Brewer this fall.
    • HD-66 is a rematch between incumbent Matt Shaheen and Democrat Sharon Hirsch, who lost by just 391 votes in 2018.
    • HD-67 is represented by Jeff Leach, who faces Democrat Lorenzo Sanchez in November.
    • HD-108 is a rematch between incumbent Morgan Meyer and Democrat Joanna Cattanach, a race decided by just 220 votes in 2018.
    • HD-112 is a rematch between incumbent Angie Chen Button and Democrat Brandy Chambers, who lost by just over 1,000 votes in 2018.
    • HD-121 is a rematch between incumbent Steve Allison and Democrat Celina Montoya.
    • HD-134 is represented by Sarah Davis, who faces Democrat Ann Johnson.
    • HD-138 is an open seat (the incumbent Republican retired after winning reelection by just 47 votes in 2018). Republican Lacey Hull faces Democrat Akilah Bacy.
  • The additional districts Democrats are targeting because Beto lost by under four points are HDs 14, 28, 54, 92, 93, 94, 96, and 97.
• But Republican woes in the Lone Star State are built on more than just numbers.
  • The party is coming off of many months of infighting and (as you may recall as an erudite consumer of this missive) have already lost their House speaker to a scandal arising from intra-party conflict.
  • Further, having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket might not do the GOP any favors this year.
    • According to Civiqs’ ongoing tracking poll, Trump’s approve/disapprove numbers are underwater in Texas (48%/49% as of this writing).

So yeah, Texas.

Two years ago, it was hard to conceive including the state on any kind of single-election flip list.

But in November of 2018, Democrats picked up 12 seats, and voila! Here we are.

Work It: While we’re doing the data thing, let’s take a quick detour through Kansas, where my amazing Daily Kos Elections colleagues have crunched the requisite numbers and have broken down the 2018 gubernatorial results by legislative district.

• After Donald Trump carried Kansas 57-36 in 2016, Democrat Laura Kelly came in two years later and defeated Republican Kris Kobach 48-43 in the 2018 governor’s race (independent Greg Orman took third with 6%).

But why should we care? you ask. The Kansas House is 84 R/41 D and the Senate is 29 R/11 D—these aren’t flippable chambers!

You’re right, they’re not. But that doesn’t mean Democrats should ignore them this fall.

Here’s why:

• Kansas Republicans currently have veto-proof majorities in both the House and the Senate.
  • … but only technically.
• In reality, the past few years have seen the rise of a faction of moderate Republicans that have periodically sided with their Democratic colleagues—particularly when it came to matters of the state’s fiscal health.
  • Once upon a time, in the long-ago year of 2016, Kansas Republicans were facing something of a reckoning.
  • The Sunflower State was in a whole world of fiscal hurt, thanks to then-Gov. Sam Brownback and the extreme tax cuts he and his GOP cronies passed in 2012 (known as the Kansas Experiment in some circles).
    • Kansas found itself in an increasingly untenable financial situation, unable to fund its schools and stealing money away from its own highway funds in failed attempts to make ends meet.
  • As a result, the Kansas legislature underwent a significant facelift, so to speak, in 2016.
    • That year, even as Trump was winning the presidency, not only did Democrats flip 13 seats in November, but 14 moderate Republicans ousted conservative incumbents while seven more centrists won nominations for open seats in that year’s primary.
      • The power shift away from the conservative Republicans who’d controlled the legislature was so massive that the moderates forced the conservatives to share power in the House, with a conservative Republican assuming the speakership and a moderate becoming majority leader.
      • The moderates joined with Democrats to roll back Brownback’s disastrous tax cuts in 2017.
  • But then things … changed.
    • Even as Democrat Laura Kelly was winning the governorship in 2018, the legislative GOP caucus was regressing.
      • Six Republicans lost their state House primaries that year, and at least five of those losses were moderates who got bumped off by more conservative challengers.
    • And the 2020 primaries were no more forgiving to centrist Republicans, thanks in part to the clear priorities of conservative campaign funders like the Kansas Chamber and Kansans for Life.
      • At least seven Republican state senators lost their primaries last month.
      • At least five House Republican incumbents were ousted, mostly from the right.
• The resurgence of hard-right conservatives in the GOP-controlled legislature is more than internal partisan warfare; it also spells likely doom for Gov. Kelly’s key priorities of Medicaid expansion and legitimate tax reform (not the Republican version of tax “reform,” which is just slash-and-burn revenue cutting).

Unless!

What if Democrats were able to break the GOP’s veto-proof majorities this fall?

• In the Kansas House, Democrats need to flip just one seat (net) to deprive Republicans of their supermajority.
  • Kelly carried 64 of the 125 districts in 2018―a bare majority, despite her clear statewide win―while Kobach took 61.
    • This means that Kelly won all at 34 seats that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, plus an additional 30 Trump districts.
    • There are two Republicans in districts that both Clinton and Kelly won, while another 21 represent districts won by Trump and Kelly.
  • There’s some potential defense to play, though.
    • Nine Democrats hold Trump/Kelly districts.
    • But! No Democrats represent districts Kobach carried.
• In the state Senate, Democrats have to net three seats to be able to sustain Kelly’s vetoes.
  • Kelly carried 21 of the 40 seats: all seven Clinton districts and 14 Trump districts.
    • The one Republican in a seat won by both Clinton and Kelly is Majority Leader Jim Denning, who is retiring; his SD-08 went from 47-46 Clinton to 57-36 Kelly.
    • Nine Republicans and six Democrats are in seats won by Trump and then by Kelly.
      • Like in the House, no Senate Democrats represent Trump/Kobach districts.

So, not only is breaking the GOP’s veto-proof majorities in the Kansas legislature important—it’s doable, too.

Hungry for more hot number action? You can find Daily Kos Elections’ master list of statewide election results by congressional and legislative district here, and you can find all the data from 2018 and past cycles here.

Money For Nothing: Last week in this space, I noted that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers had called the Wisconsin legislature into a special session this Monday to address police reform.

• I also mentioned that the GOP-controlled legislature was likely to pull the same stunt they did when Evers called a special session on gun safety legislation last fall: gavel in as is required by law, but then immediately gavel session right back out.

I didn’t want to be right, but …

• The Wisconsin Assembly convened for a whole 30 seconds on Monday.
  • Somehow managing to achieve even higher levels of disrespect, not a single Republican even bothered to show up for the Senate session—they tasked the clerk with banging the fancy hammer for them.
• Vos claims that lawmakers aren’t acting now because they “need time to review the legislation” ...
  • … never mind that they’ve literally had months to do so already. The bills under consideration are not new.
• In lieu of actual action on police reform and racism, GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos announced he’s forming a “task force on racial disparities, educational opportunities, public safety and police policies.”
  • Vos appointed a fellow white Republican to lead said task force.

[[tears hair out]]

Welp, that’s a wrap for this week. You’re (hopefully) so close to a long weekend!! Hang in there!

And then less than two months until the election!

Are they going to feel like two years?

… yes. Yes, they very much are.

So whatever you get up to for Labor Day, take care of yourself.

We need you.