Just A Tip. Look For Surprises In State Legislatures This Year

Yes, I know, it’s the national pitched battle for control of the House and Senate that is widely seen as the battle for the soul of democracy. But don’t forget, it’s kind of hard to have a functional national democracy if the state democracies don’t work for shit.

And some interesting numbers are pointing out, at least for me, that the GOP may be in the process of undoing 12 years of gerrymandering work in one midterm election.

Two quick things to set the table before we get to the meat and potatoes. One, The New York Times did a wonderful job of sending teams out to battleground states to check the effect of the Roe v Wade decision on voter registration. And what they found was well worth the effort.

They found that in battleground states like Arizona, Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, new registration for women is outpacing new registration for men by anywhere from 8-15%. Don’t like memorize that statistic or anything, just keep it in the back of your mind for a couple of paragraphs.

Two, a reminder of the ballot initiative in Kansas to enshrine abortion availability in their state constitution in the primary. The GOP did everything it could to rig the vote, including making the wording confusing, and sticking the initiative on a primary ballot, when Democrats traditionally stay home.

The initiative won by a truly whopping 59-41%. Here’s why that total matters. As I wrote at the time, on the best of days, when every single Democrat shows up to vote, they make up maybe 45% of Kansas voters. Which means that at least 14% of GOP voters, including rural voters, crossed the line to vote in favor of abortion rights. Notice the similarity there?

But what does that have to do with the price of cabbages in Duluth, or gerrymandering for that matter? This. As I have written previously, gerrymandering is as much an art as a science. While the SCOTUS has pretty much washed their hands of gerrymandering cases, almost every state has laws involving redistricting. And most of these state courts and Supreme Courts take gerrymandering far more seriously that SCOTUS ever did. Even red states like Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio have had courts overturn GOP drawn maps.

The secret is in the sauce. The object of a successful gerrymander is to make the GOP districts safe, but not ridiculously safe. As such, most GOP controlled states have settled on a ratio of about 4-6% leaning GOP. Safe enough to make the district safe against normal vote fluctuations, but not obvious enough to give Democratic and civil rights groups a good case.

Now, let’s recap quickly. The GOP tends to gerrymander districts with a 4-6% safety net. But according to the NYT, new women voter registrations are outpacing men by 8-15%. And in the Kansas ballot initiative, at least 14
% of GOP voters crossed over to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. See where I’m going?

While the national Democrats can run on codifying Roe v Wade if they retain control of congress, statewide Democrats need to run on a different message. They need to pound home the message to every voter in the state that the SCOTUS didn’t outlaw abortion, it turned it back to the states to adjudicate the issue for themselves. And who makes the laws in a state? The state legislatures do.

Think about it dispassionately for a minute. The GOP gerrymanders their districts to be safe by a 4-6% margin. But what happens when an issue explodes that is so raw, and so personal that it literally transcends district borders and even party affiliation? Like abortion. Do women voters, and presumably at least some of their husbands, if they ever want dinner again, just satisfy themselves by voting for a Democratic House and,or Senate member, and leave it up to a far right SCOTUS to decide? Or do they go to the mattresses, and oust all of the far right, anti abortion local legislators and Governors out on their eatr, codify abortion in their states, and take SCOTUS out of the loop?

This is why I say to watch for surprises in the state legislatures this year. Roberts and his far right freebooters copped a chickenshit mope, and sent abortion rights back to the states to decide. But if the Kansas results, as well as Michigan, where their pro choice initiative got more petition signatures than any other initiative in state history are anything to go by, voters in the states got that memo. And if the data is any indicator, they’re ready to take care of business once and for all. As Wednesday Addams said, Be afraid. Be very afraid.