GOP supermajority

4 23 sparked by ND school lunch v raise

see red states

SEE DIRTY TRICKS

SEE MISSOURI 86 PROPOSITIONS? --> GERRY 4

see gerry / voter suppress

TEXAS 7 25 MID TERM GERRY?!

KTY 3 26 JUDGE IMPEACH BS

Voting rights act scotus

ggl 6 26 gut eco law // epa clint woods gov braun

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Indiana's General Assembly has had Republican supermajorities in both chambers since 2010, with Republicans holding 70 of 100 House seats and 40 of 50 Senate seats as of 2024, allowing them to override gubernatorial vetoes and pass legislation without Democratic support.

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GGL 9 25 Search Assist

The Missouri GOP is currently pushing to gerrymander the state's congressional districts, which would favor Republican candidates and potentially silence voters' voices. This effort is part of a broader strategy to maintain their supermajority in the legislature. komu.com democraticredistricting.com

Overview of Missouri GOP's Redistricting Efforts

The Missouri Republican Party is currently pushing for significant changes to the state's congressional districts. This effort is part of a special legislative session called by Governor Mike Kehoe.

Key Proposals

Gerrymandering Congressional Districts: The proposed congressional map aims to favor Republican candidates by altering district boundaries, particularly affecting the Kansas City area. This would extend districts into more conservative rural regions.
Changes to Initiative Petition Process: Another proposal seeks to modify how citizens can place measures on the ballot, potentially making it more difficult for voters to pass amendments to the state constitution.

Legislative Actions

Filibuster and New Rules: Senate Republicans used a controversial tactic to end a Democratic filibuster against these proposals. They passed new rules that prioritize House bills, allowing them to fast-track the redistricting measures.
Democratic Opposition: Democrats argue that these changes undermine their ability to propose important legislation and are primarily aimed at maintaining Republican power.

Public Response

Protests and Criticism: There has been significant public outcry, including rallies organized by Democrats and various voting coalitions opposing the redistricting efforts. Critics claim that the proposed changes do not address pressing issues like unemployment and economic challenges in Missouri.

komu.com democraticredistricting.com

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AN 3 26

The Washington Monthly reports the Republican super-majority is taking President Donald Trump’s lead in putting independent judges under Republican control.

Trump has called for the impeachment of judges when he disagrees with their decisions, creating the “kind of partisan screed against the independent judiciary that has infected Trump’s presidency, undermining the public’s faith in judges and the rule of law,” saidWashington Monthly reporter Joshua A. Douglas. “Unfortunately, in Kentucky, lawmakers are taking it a step further by impeaching a judge simply because they do not like her rulings.”

“Kentucky law allows ‘any person’ to initiate an impeachment proceeding against a state judge. In January, a former state legislator who lost reelection two years ago and is seeking to regain their old office filed an impeachment petition against Julie Goodman, a state trial judge,” said Douglas. The petition alleges that Goodman ‘abused her office’ based on her rulings in six cases in which she allegedly violated statutory law and refused to follow precedent.

But Douglas said the petition “says little” about what makes [the judges'] decisions an impeachable offense, other than getting reversed by an appeals court. The highest profile of Goodman’s cases is the 2023 prosecution of Cornell Denmark Thomas II, who was charged with wanton murder in a car crash. Goodman dismissed the case, believing that Thomas, who is Black, was overcharged because of his race.

The state judiciary already has an internal process and guardrails to contain judges who allegedly violate their ethical responsibilities in a proceeding, said Douglas. Nevertheless, last week, the Republican-super-majority Kentucky House of Representatives voted to impeach Goodman, mostly on partisan lines.

Douglas points out that there have been only 15 impeachments of federal judges in U.S. history, with only eight convictions by the U.S. Senate. In every example, the impeachments involved abuse of the office in some way, like bribery, not disagreements on case or whether or not you like the judge. And there have been only two instances in the past few decades of a state legislatures impeaching judges. One involved drug abuse by the judge, and another involved the judge seeking outside counsel from a friend on a case.

Seventy Kentucky lawyers signed a letter pushing back on the impeachment, arguing that the issue is about “separation of powers, equal branches of government, and judicial independence. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also weighed in, warning the impeachment “can create a chilling effect,” and might herald other petitions being filed “by parties that didn’t get a ruling they wanted.”

These are only some of the opponents of the impeachment who critics say lawmakers are seeking Goodman’s removal “because (they) don’t like her rulings.”

“The legal community should denounce impeachment based on disagreements with specific rulings as an improper political weapon,” argued Douglas. “Removing a judge because of their decisions undermines the rule of law, ultimately harming democracy.”

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11 24 lost NC;

North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, speaks while state Republican Party Chairman Jason Simmons listens at a news conference in Raleigh, N.C., on Nov. 6, 2024.

In a strong showing up and down the ballot, Republicans were able to flip two and possibly more state legislative chambers on election night, although Democrats can console themselves with some smaller-scale gains in a range of states.

Going into Election Day, the GOP controlled 56 legislative chambers, while the Democrats controlled 41 chambers, including the Minnesota Senate which was temporarily tied due to a vacancy. (This counts Alaska’s Senate, with its cross-partisan alliance in the majority, as “other,” while Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is formally nonpartisan.)

Republicans appear to have flipped the Michigan House, and the GOP moved into a tie in the Minnesota House, pending recounts of close races. It initially looked like Republicans had flipped the Pennsylvania House, but late-called races suggested that Democrats would keep a one-seat majority.

Republicans achieved a new supermajority in the South Carolina Senate, and the party broke a Democratic state House supermajority in Vermont. The GOP was also optimistic about a new supermajority in Iowa’s House, adding to its existing supermajority in the Iowa Senate.

The GOP was able to stave off a Democratic supermajority in the Nevada Assembly, and possibly in the Nevada Senate. Kansas Republicans held off a push by Democrats and preserved their supermajorities in both chambers. The GOP was also on track to keep control of the Pennsylvania Senate.

Ballots are still being counted, but it looks like Republicans were able to expand their majorities in the New Hampshire House. In Arizona, control is up in the air for the Republican-held House and Senate, with Republicans optimistic about a small gain in the House, which they already controlled, and Democrats hoping to force the GOP-held Senate into a tie.

READ:

How Key Demographic Groups Voted in 2024

In Alaska, vote-counting takes a long time and both the House and the Senate have ended up with cross-party alliances for control at various times in recent years. The parameters of majority alliances will take some time to sort out.

The Democrats played successful defense in the Minnesota Senate, where they won the only race in the chamber on the ballot this year, a special election that determined which party would control the chamber. And Democrats appear to have held their majorities in the Maine House and Senate, though there’s some uncertainty about the Maine House.

Democrats did make some modest advances in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Montana and Ohio.

In Wisconsin, new, court-ordered maps designed to undercut district lines that had been sharply GOP-leaning produced Democratic gains in both chambers, but not enough to flip either one. However, the Republicans’ Senate supermajority is now gone, which would help Democratic Gov. Tony Evers exercise his veto.

[### Final Results Give GOP Senate Control

After all the races were called, Republicans held a 53-47 advantage that gave them control of the Senate for the first time in four years.

[Aneeta Mathur-Ashton](https://www.usnews.com/topics/author/aneeta-mathur-ashton)Nov. 5, 2024

](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/senate-election-results-which-party-has-control)

In North Carolina, Democrats broke the Republicans’ state House supermajority. That’s important because it puts Democrat Josh Stein, who won the gubernatorial race, into a stronger stance.

In Montana, where new maps took effect with this election, Democrats appear to have ended the Republican supermajority in both chambers. Democrats also appear to have broken the GOP supermajority in the Ohio Senate. However, both states have Republican governors, making the supermajority distinction less relevant.

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AN 7 25

Republican lawmakers’ decision to overturn a voter-approved expansion of paid sick leave means benefits Missouri workers accrued in recent months will disappear on Aug. 28.

They also placed a question on the 2026 ballot rolling back abortion rights that voters enshrined in the state constitution in November.

It’s not the first time the GOP-dominated legislature overturned voter-approved laws in recent years. But this time, the backlash could have long-lasting consequences.

In the short term, proponents of the paid sick leave law are eyeing a new initiative petition to reinstate the benefit in the state constitution, while abortion-rights supporters expect to raise millions to fend off a new ban.

But another coalition hopes to go even further.

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Respect Missouri Voters, a bipartisan constellation of organizations, this month submitted 38 versions of a new initiative petition seeking to undermine the legislature’s ability to overturn voter-approved measures.

Most would require 80% of the legislature to agree before a law or constitutional amendment enacted by initiative petition could be revised or repealed. They also would prohibit the legislature from making the initiative and referendum process more difficult.

The group’s PAC reported $200,000 cash on hand on July 1, with another $170,000 in large donations since then. That includes $10,000 from former Republican U.S. Sen. John Danforth.

“This is our one shot,” said Benjamin Singer, CEO of one of the coalition’s members, Show Me Integrity. “If we don’t act now, they’ll succeed in silencing us forever.”

Missouri Gov. Kehoe signs bill repealing paid sick leave

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Republicans have taken notice, with some pondering a preemptive strike to change the initiative petition process before any campaign gets off the ground. But others worry it may already be too late and wonder if the GOP overplayed its hand with its recent moves.

“The legislature doesn’t really seem to understand, they’ve kicked the hornet’s nest,” said James Harris, a veteran Republican consultant in Missouri. “We may be about to cross the rubicon… where the legislature loses a lot of its power.”

The showdown is decades in the making.

After Missourians approved a constitutional amendment to limit taxes in the 1980s, the Democratic-led legislature tried to make changes to the initiative petition process that were criticized at the time by GOP Gov. John Ashcroft as an attempt to silence voters. He ultimately vetoed the bill.

In 1999, Missouri voters rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed concealed carry of firearms. Despite the defeat, the legislature revisited the issue after Republicans took the majority and ultimately passed a concealed carry bill in 2003.

Voters passed a ballot measure in 2010 called the “Puppy Mill Cruelty and Prevention Act” that specified appropriate living conditions for breeding operations with at least 10 female breeding dogs. It also capped the number of animals that a business could use for breeding at 50.

Soon after, lawmakers passed a bill that peeled back key parts of the new law, including the cap on the number of breeding dogs.

The puppy mill vote inspired advocates to forgo changes to state law and instead put their focus on putting policy changes in the state constitution — making it much harder for lawmakers to make changes because it would require another statewide vote.

In subsequent years, voters approved constitutional amendments legalizing marijuana, expanding Medicaid eligibility, creating a nonpartisan redistricting plan and repealing a ban on abortion.

But the GOP supermajority wasn’t ready to quit without a fight.

Lawmakers refused to fund Medicaid expansion until the Missouri Supreme Court said they had no choice. They pushed through a ballot measure of their own, approved by voters, that repealed the nonpartisan redistricting plan.

Next year, voters will weigh in on an amendment passed by the legislature putting the state’s abortion ban back in place. The paid sick leave expansion was not a constitutional amendment, allowing lawmakers to repeal it without a new statewide vote.

“I don’t understand the legislature’s strategy at all,” said Sean Nicholson, a progressive strategist who has worked on numerous initiative petition campaigns in Missouri. “A very pro-Trump electorate spoke very clearly on abortion rights and paid sick leave in November. And now we head into a midterm, and we’ve seen in Missouri and other states that shenanigans from politicians become part of the story. The legislature has given voters plenty of motivation to double down on what they’ve already said.”

Missouri Republicans shut down Senate debate to pass abortion ban, repeal sick leave law

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Republicans, who held legislative super majorities as these progressive ballot measures have been approved by voters, have long complained that out-of-state money from anonymous sources have largely fueled these initiative petition campaigns.

They’ve vowed for years to make it harder to change the constitution through the initiative petition process, but the push always fizzled amidst GOP infighting or other legislative priorities.

The threat of an initiative petition that would weaken the legislature’s hand in the process has reignited calls for Republicans to take action quickly. The Missouri Freedom Caucus, a group of right-wing legislators who regularly quarrel with GOP leadership, is calling on Gov. Mike Kehoe to convene a special legislative session to change the initiative petition process.

“Missouri’s Constitution should not be up for sale to the highest left-wing bidder,” the group said in a statement last week. “Without immediate reform, left-wing activists will continue to use this loophole to force their unpopular agenda on Missouri citizens with a mere 51% of the vote.”

Whether Missourians will get another chance to vote on paid sick leave is still up in the air.

Missouri’s law allowed employees to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, starting May 1. By the time it’s officially repealed, 17 weeks will have elapsed. That means someone working 40 hours a week could have earned 22 hours of paid sick leave.

If workers don’t use their paid sick leave before Aug. 28, there’s no legal guarantee they can do so afterward.

The sick leave expansion was a “job killer,” said Kara Corches, president and CEO of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, adding that “one-size-fits-all mandates threaten growth.”

Richard Von Glahn, policy director of Missouri Jobs with Justice, which advocated for the paid sick leave ballot measure, noted 58% of voters approved the proposal. It was also upheld unanimously by the Missouri Supreme Court.

“Now workers may again face the reality of having no paid sick time to take care of their families without losing out on a check,” Von Glahn said shortly after the governor signed the paid sick leave repeal earlier this month. “This move by the Missouri legislature sets a dangerous precedent for democratic processes in our state.”

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AN 12 24

Give the people what they want.

That’s the grumbling I’ve heard from more than one progressive in Kansas after voters strengthened GOP supermajorities in the Statehouse. New political math mean legislators likely won’t expand Medicaid or legalize marijuana anytime soon. Rather than support families in need, these lawmakers likely will erect further barriers to nutrition, health care and secure housing.

So what, these profoundly irritated people say. *Voters wanted this. Let them suffer the consequences

The same sentiment can be heard in national post-election dialogue. Voters can select leaders who harm them, experts warn.

“Authoritarianism is often popular. Many people support a strong and decisive leader,” said Timothy Longman, a professor of international relations and of political science at Boston University. “In Africa, which is the focus of my scholarship, military coups have frequently been greeted with dancing in the streets, because people think that military rule will bring order.”

People want a state government that throws the needy to the wolves. Let them feast.*

I understand why people feel this way. I understand the temptation to throw up one’s hands and retreat, leaving callous lawmakers free rein to slash taxes for oligarchs, pare budgets to the bone and legalize discrimination against minority groups. After an election in which consequences were clearly spelled out — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly explicitly connected Medicaid expansion to state legislative races — a majority chose callousness.

But here’s my modest proposal: Forget that nonsense.

What’s right is right, no matter the majority’s whims. In Kansas, sizable numbers either voted another way or chose not to vote at all. Should we blithely accept policy that harms these folks as well?

A rising tide lifts all boats. But a sinking tide lowers all boats. Giving the people what they want could hurt everyone and everything.

Before starting at Kansas Reflector, I spent nearly four years in nonprofit children’s advocacy. My former boss, John Wilson, laid it out in a column published here Wednesday. Children will suffer the consequences of a neglectful Legislature. They can’t vote. They can’t make the kind of decisions that hand political power to one party or another. Their fates are up to the adults who take care of them.

“We cannot let the next legislative session go by without providing targeted relief to Kansas kids in need,” Wilson wrote.

He added: “We need every lawmaker to go into the 2025 session with the belief that there are tangible answers to the complex issues we’re facing.”

That means transcending rigid ideological frameworks. That means working across the aisle. That means accepting that sometimes government can provide solutions rather than simply create problems. That means opening lawmakers’ minds to the possibility that they can build and create, rather than slash and burn. Sometimes, the right thing to do — making sure that children grow up healthy and educated — transcends any one election.

This goes for Kansas’ delegation in Washington, D.C., too. Our U.S. senators and representatives will confront an dizzying array of choices in the coming months, along with great pressure from the new presidential administration. Can they chart an independent course, one that includes the folks who didn’t vote for them last month? Hope springs eternal, as Alexander Pope wrote.

I’m making a narrow point here, one that I don’t want folks to misconstrue. Lawmakers will reflect ideologies and policies supported by the voters who elected them. That’s natural. That’s the electoral name of the game. I raise no objection to such representation, even if I object to the policies that result.

Give the people what they want.

On the other hand, not all governmental functions can or should be viewed through an explicitly political lens.

Basic human rights transcend any election. These include the right to necessities such as housing and health care; the right to live unimpeded by prejudice; and the right to raise one’s voice in opposition, no matter the circumstances. They are elemental. They are foundational. While partisans may view such rights as liberal, they are in fact just reflections of our shared humanity.

In the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, speaking in 1941: “Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.”

Some might say Wilson’s column sounds too optimistic. Some might say my column sounds too confrontational. (Some might say Roosevelt was just another liberal Democrat.) They might be correct. Or maybe we — and a huge number of Kansans — understand that politics can only take us so far.

Working together, let’s give the people what they need.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary,[here

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.

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ohio super maj and all const officers? recently passed law no election in aug, then 180 to jam thru prop to derail 700k sigs fall election.

2nd big midwest abortion loss after kansas

no lnx

Ohio’s GOP secretary of state brutally mocked after his amendment goes down in flames

Brad Reed and Raw Story August 09, 2023

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose put a lot of political capital on backing "Issue 1," a ballot initiative that would have raised the threshold for future ballot initiatives to succeed from 50 percent to 60 percent.

Voters in Ohio subsequently rejected the measure by 14 points -- but that didn't stop LaRose from issuing a defiant statement blaming out-of-state spending for the loss.

"We were dramatically outspent by dark money billionaires from California to New York, and the giant 'for sale' sign still hangs on Ohio's constitution," he complained. "Ohioans will see the devastating impact of this vote soon enough."

Many critics were quick to mock LaRose for his statement, including Rachel Petri, the campaign manager for Sen. Sherrod Brown, who wrote on Twitter that "you can't spell 'a loser' without 'LaRose.'"

Atlantic editor Ronald Brownstein, meanwhile, noted that LaRose's defiant statement didn't even mention the role that protecting abortion rights played in the amendment's defeat, which he said reflected Republicans' "uncertainty on how to handle abortion backlash."

Shannon Freshour, a Democrat who is running for Congress in Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-OH) district, celebrated the win and argued LaRose got exactly what he deserved.

"It's best to fight on the side of history, of democracy, of the people," she wrote. "Thankfully Ohio understands that."

Former Democratic Ohio candidate Paul Filippelli, meanwhile, mocked LaRose's suggestion that keeping the old ballot initiative process would put Ohio's state constitution at risk.

"Frank LaRose hates the Ohio Constitution and thinks it has a "for sale" sign on it because it... allows voters to make decisions about how our state is governed," he wrote.

And Tristan Rader, a progressive city councilman from Lakewood, Ohio, gave LaRose a sarcastic "thank you" for blowing his election.

"Thank you for your incompetent leadership on all the worst issues," he wrote. "Keep it up!"

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GOP tries to keep abortion rights off ballot after major losses: 'Can’t win, so they cheat' ›

'Corrupt': OH Secretary of State admits proposal would avert abortion rights after denying for months ›

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Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose launches GOP Senate bid ›

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https://apnews.com/article/state-legislatures-supermajorities-extreme-policies-5cff2be330289aa034dce295fa0a3a56

no lnx

BY DAVID A. LIEB

Published 9:15 PM PDT, June 16, 2023

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Lawmakers in state capitols this year have been flexing their superpowers.

In North Carolina, a new supermajority of Republicans enacted abortion restrictions. In Vermont, a new supermajority of Democrats imposed a climate-sensitive home heating law. And in Montana, a GOP supermajority booted a transgender lawmaker from the House floor.

In each case, the views of their political opponents ultimately were irrelevant.

OTHER NEWS

Attorney Taylor Meehan talks with Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson during a break in oral arguments for a case challenging the state's congressional districts before the Utah Supreme Court in Salt Lake City, Tuesday, July 11, 2023. (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool)

Utah high court scrutinizes process that sliced state’s most Democrat-heavy county into 4 districts

FILE - Members of the Ohio Senate Government Oversight Committee hear testimony on a new map of state congressional districts onNov. 16, 2021, at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. The Ohio Supreme Court will take yet another look at the legality of the state's congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, June 30, 2023, set aside a ruling striking down the districts and ordered further consideration of the case. (AP Photo/Julie Carr Smyth, File)

Supreme Court directs Ohio’s top court to take another look at redistricting lawsuit

FILE - Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper speaks to The Associated Press in a year-end interview at the Executive Mansion in Raleigh, N.C., Dec. 14, 2022. On Friday, June 16, 2023, Cooper vetoed GOP legislation that would ban the promotion of certain beliefs that some lawmakers have likened to critical race theory in state government workplaces. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum, File)

North Carolina GOP bars promotion of certain beliefs in state government, 1 of 6 veto overrides

FILE - Reggie Weaver, at podium, speaks outside the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C., Feb. 15, 2022, about a partisan gerrymandering ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has ruled that North Carolina’s top court did not overstep its bounds in striking down a congressional districting plan as excessively partisan under state law. The justices on Tuesday rejected the broadest view of a case that could have transformed elections for Congress and president by leaving state legislatures virtually unchecked by their state courts when dealing with federal elections. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson, File)

Supreme Court rejects GOP in North Carolina case that could have reshaped elections beyond the state

By at least one measure, political power is at its highest mark in decades. That’s because Republicans or Democrats hold majorities so large in 28 states that they could override gubernatorial vetoes without any help from the minority party.

“Supermajorities give one party a lot of power to do what they want to do,” said Steven Rogers, a political scientist at Saint Louis University who focuses on elections and state legislatures.

There is no single standard for a supermajority, though the term generally is equated with whatever threshold is needed to override a gubernatorial veto. In many states, that’s a two-thirds majority. In some, that’s a three-fifths majority. In six states — Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia — it takes only a simple majority to override a veto. But those states all have Republican majorities around 70% or greater — easily exceeding any definition of a supermajority.

The number of states with supermajorities is at its highest level since at least 1982, with 19 Republican supermajorities and nine Democratic ones, according to research by Rogers.

This year began with supermajorities in 26 legislatures, including new Republican ones in Florida and Montana and a new Democratic one in Vermont. That total grew in March when Louisiana state Rep. Francis Thompson — who had served nearly 50 years as a Democrat — switched to the Republican Party to give the GOP a supermajority. Thompson cited his conservative voting record while asserting that Democratic leaders were pushing issues that didn’t align with his Christian values.

In April, North Carolina state Rep. Tricia Cotham switched from Democrat to Republican to give the GOP another supermajority. Six weeks after Cotham’s switch, she provided a pivotal vote as the new GOP supermajority overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of legislation banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Some North Carolina Republicans already are eying other proposals they could pass with a supermajority, including an elections bill containing provisions that Cooper previously vetoed and an expansion of taxpayer-funded vouchers for students to attend private schools.

The supermajority creates an opportunity to “adjust the playbook” to ensure “that we are scoring more touchdowns, so to speak, than we might have previously,” said North Carolina Republican state Rep. John Torbett, chair of an education committee.

The new Republican supermajority in Louisiana also could soon be put to the test.

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has said he intends to veto a package of bills that targets the LGBTQ+ community, including a ban on gender-affirming treatments for transgender minors. Louisiana lawmakers have convened for just two veto sessions since 1974. But Republicans now have the two-thirds majority necessary to override an Edwards veto.

Vermont’s Democratic-led legislature is to return to the Capitol next week to consider overriding vetoes by Republican Gov. Phil Scott, including one of a bill expanding child care subsidies for some families. The Democratic supermajority already notched one victory in May — overriding Scott’s veto of a clean-heating-standard bill that credits utilities for energy-efficient technologies and penalizes them for not meeting certain goals.

Scott vetoed a similar bill last year before Democrats obtained a supermajority, but an override failed by one vote in the House.

Republican-led legislatures in Kansas and Kentucky this year also overrode vetoes by Democratic governors, including on bills dealing with transgender issues, abortion and work requirements for food assistance.

Political scientists cite a couple of reasons for the rise of supermajorities.

Over the past decades, Americans have increasingly voted along party lines— picking state lawmakers and even local officials who align with their party choice for president or the top of the ticket, Rogers said. At the same time, politicians in power in many states have gerrymandered voting district boundaries to give their party’s candidates an advantage in legislative elections.

As parties gain more seats in House and Senate chambers, the political ideology of their middle members often shifts further to the right or left, reducing the need to appeal to moderates and virtually eliminating the need to compromise with the opposing party.

“All that we have is our voice,” said North Carolina state Rep. Marcia Morey, a Democratic whip. But now “there’s no need for (Republicans) to have any dialogue.”

Parties with supermajorities also can more easily silence their opponents. In Tennessee, where Republicans hold at least three-fourths of the seats, the GOP supermajority expelled two Black Democratic lawmakers who used a bullhorn on the House floor to protest for gun control after a deadly school shooting in Nashville. Democrats also were upset Republicans had limited debate on various topics.

Following Tennessee’s expulsions, Montana’s Republican supermajority banned transgender Rep. Zooey Zephyr from the House floor. Zephyr initially was silenced after telling lawmakers supporting a prohibition on gender-affirming treatments for minors that they would have blood on their hands; she was exiled for participating in a protest over her right to debate in the House.

When supermajorities run state capitals, some voters may be pleased by the sweeping policies that get enacted. Others may feel like their priorities are ignored.

“On behalf of the voters, it might be a good thing, because it helps clarify responsibility,” said Carlos Algara, an assistant professor of government and politics at Claremont Graduate University in California.

“If you are a voter in California, you know explicitly which party owns policy – it’s the Democratic Party,” Algara said. “So if you don’t like the direction of policy in California, you have a very easy choice.”

Voters in Florida are in a similar situation with Republicans. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis helped build a Republican supermajority by becoming more involved in legislative races, and the candidates he backed remained firmly loyal during this year’s legislative session.

DeSantis had no problem passing a legislative agenda that included a six-week abortion ban, tougher immigration laws, more power for parents to remove books from public schools and an easier ability for prosecutors to win death sentences, among other things. He now is campaigning on that agenda as he runs for president.

House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell said DeSantis “changed the vibe” in the Capitol. She recalled that lawmakers last year had included limits on how the governor could use funds in an emergency management bill.

“That was when they did not have a supermajority,” Driskell said. “This time, we didn’t see anything that would be a check on his power.”

Associated Press writer Brendan Farrington, in Tallahassee, Florida, and Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

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an 7 23 n

no lnx vid atl mo is tenn democ?

'One-party rule' has made 'radicalized' Tennessee Republicans act like far-right authoritarians: report

Alex Henderson July 18, 2023

Republicans in the Tennessee State Legislature sparked a national outcry earlier this year when they voted to expel two Democratic lawmakers, Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson, in response to their participation in a gun control protest. A third Democrat, Gloria Johnson, escaped expulsion during a vote. While Johnson is white, Jones and Pearson are both Black.

The Tennessee Republicans who voted for expulsion had no interest in debating Jones and Pearson on the merits of gun control. They simply wanted to see them removed from office.

Journalist Anne Applebaum takes an in-depth — and very unfavorable — look at Tennessee's political environmentin an essay/think piece published by The Atlantic on July 18. Tennessee, she laments, has become a one-party state ruled by far-right ideologues she compares to authoritarians like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán or Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

READ MORE: 'Miscarriage of justice': Metro Nashville council reappoints Justin Jones

Technically, Orbán and Erdogan are not dictators. They don't enjoy dictator-for-life status like Spain's Gen. Francisco Franco, a.k.a. El Generalísimo, or Chile's Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and they were reelected. But they have seriously undermined their countries' systems of checks and balances, which, Applebaum argues, is also what MAGA Republicans have been doing in Tennessee.

"Just as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán fights with opposition-controlled Budapest — and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fights with Istanbul, and Poland's Jarosław Kaczyński fights with Warsaw — so do Tennessee Republicans fight with opposition-controlled Nashville," Applebaum observes. But ultimately, she says, Tennessee now has "one-party rule," not serious debates. And the state's MAGA Republicans believe they are governing on behalf of God when they push "restrictive voting laws" or try to "shut down debate."

"As in Hungary or Poland or as in Venezuela," Applebaum warns, "the experience of radicalism can make people more radical. Total control of a political system can make the victors not more magnanimous, but more frustrated, not least because they learn that total control still doesn't deliver what they think it should. No county commission or state legislature can possibly meet the demands of a quasi-religious movement that believes it has God on its side and that its opponents herald the apocalypse."

Applebaum discussed her Atlantic essay during a July 18 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

READ MORE: Tennessee lawmaker: 'Partisan' GOP efforts to oust him were a 'gross miscalculation'

The journalist told host Mika Brzezinski, "One of the effects of having a supermajority, which the Republicans have in Tennessee, is that they don't really have to listen to anybody. They don't have to listen to the public. They don't have to listen to the Democrats. They don't have to listen to political opponents…. Because they're there based on a tiny group of partisans who show up to vote. And the lesson, again, is that when you have that kind of control, it doesn't make you nicer…. It's becoming more and more difficult for Democrats to be heard in the (Tennessee State) Legislature and more broadly."

READ MORE: Tennessee pride celebrations showcase queer joy amid neo-Nazi threats and legal attacks

Watch the video below or at this link.

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roll back super maj states?

wife and clarence scandals a factor? supermaj state --> tenn 3

an badash

it’s being called a “surprise decision,” a “landmark win,” and a “a major victory for the Voting Rights Act (VRA),” but some legal experts are warning that heralding the U.S. Supreme Court’s Thursday decision as anything except upholding the status quo is a mistake, and other experts suggest it means the Court’s earlier rulings wrongly threw control of the House of Representatives to Republicans. Some experts say a Democratic-majority House in 2024 is now more likely.

In short, in its 5-4 decision in Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Alabama discriminated against Black voters, which make up a quarter of its population, by drawing congressional maps to exclude them.

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who writes about law and the courts, exclaimed, “WHOA!” as he explained: “The Supreme Court’s final decision of the day is a 5–4 ruling that AFFIRMS the Voting Rights Act’s protection against racial vote dilution! Roberts and Kavanaugh join the liberals. This is a HUGE surprise and a major voting rights victory.”

Democracy Docket, the website founded by Marc Elias, the voting rights attorney who won 63 of the 64 court cases Donald Trump and his allies filed to contest the 2020 presidential election, also served up a similar response on social media, calling it “a massive victory for voting rights.”

On its website, Democracy Docket calls it “an overwhelming win for Alabamians, specifically Black voters, whose voting power was found to be diluted under the current congressional map. Importantly, the conservative Supreme Court did not make the drastic decision to strike down Section 2 of the VRA, leaving an important tool in voting rights litigation in place.”

It adds the Supreme Court’s decision in Allen v. Milligan “leaves Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) intact and, in a landmark win for voters, struck down the state’s congressional map. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, is joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson and joined in part by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.”

Democracy Docket also notes the decision “will have major positive implications for outstanding redistricting lawsuits.”

Stern agrees, writing: “It’s a boon to Democrats’ chances of retaking the House in 2024. The Supreme Court had blocked multiple lower court rulings striking down congressional maps that diluted Black voting power. At least some of those rulings should now be implemented.”

Democracy Docket adds: “The Court’s decision in Allen likely means that litigation challenging Louisiana’s congressional map can move forward and paves the way for a favorable outcome for Louisiana voters. Louisiana’s situation directly mirrors Alabama’s. In both states, voting rights advocates argued that a second majority-Black congressional district is needed to ensure compliance with the VRA. The Supreme Court paused Louisiana’s litigation pending a decision in Allen.”

Dave Wasserman, U.S. House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report calls the decision “a major surprise,” and says: “This could reverberate to LA, SC and/or GA, forcing creation of 2-4 new Black majority districts and netting Dems 2-4 seats” in the House.

Wasserman, known for his keen knowledge of congressional districts and iconic “I’ve seen enough” early and accurate predictions of House election races, offered this view of how the Court’s decision could impact current districts:

“The Alabama Republicans in most jeopardy owing to the SCOTUS ruling: Reps. Jerry Carl (R) #AL01, Barry Moore (R) #AL02 and Mike Rogers (R) #AL03. Moore could be squeezed the most in any map reconfigured to feature a second Black majority seat.”

University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck, author of a book on the Supreme Court, “The Shadow Docket,” offers up a stinging reminder of how the Court has damaged voting rights and helped Republicans in the process:

“If you assume that additional majority-minority districts in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, & 1–2 other states would’ve been safe Democratic seats, then today’s #SCOTUS ruling strongly suggests that the Court’s 2022 shadow docket stays [decisions/rulings] wrongly gave Republicans control of the House.”

Professor of law Anthony Michael Kreis, pointing to Vladeck’s remarks, adds: “there’s a House majority built on discriminatory lawlessness.”

Also taking note of Thursday’s SCOTUS ruling: House Democrats. Axios’ Andrew Solender reports House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ office is “inviting Dem[ocratic] congressional staff to a Friday briefing on recent Supreme Court cases, including the Alabama congressional map case.”

Meanwhile, the well-known NYU professor of law, Melissa Murray, is stepping in to properly frame reactions to what she sees as the Court’s “weak sauce” decision on the Voting Rights Act.

“Some initial thoughts on Allen v. Milligan,” she writes on Twitter. “Media is trumpeting this as a ‘victory’ for the Voting Rights Act. And it is. And I don’t want to be a turd in the punchbowl… but this is pretty weak sauce from this Court.”

Professor Murray says, “this doesn’t ‘strengthen’ the VRA. It preserves the status quo. And the status quo is that this Court has done an A+ job of hobbling the VRA over the last 10 years.”

Murray offers up some quick historical background.

“In 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, it eviscerated the preclearance formula. The preclearance regime required states with a history of voting discrimination to first ‘preclear’ any changes to their voting rules and regs with the DOJ or a three-judge federal court panel.”

“The Court invalidated the preclearance formula on the ground that progress had been made and minorities were voting and blah blah blah,” she notes. “This progress narrative prompted RBG [the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg] to note in dissent that throwing out the preclearance formula was like throwing out your umbrella in a rainstorm because you weren’t getting wet. She was right.”

Murray also refers to a number of other cases along the way that weakened voting rights.

“So, yes,” she concludes, “today’s decision is a victory that maintains the status quo for Section 2 of the VRA. But it is cold comfort when one considers the way this Court through its decisions has actively distorted the electoral landscape and made true representative government more elusive.”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie, calls Prof. Murray’s remarks, “Crucial zoomed-out context for today’s Voting Rights Act ruling. The 5-4 is a surprise, and it’s a victory—but after a long string of losses, today’s win amounts to…not losing YET MORE voting protections for people of color.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent, Elie Mystal, offers a bit of a more compact and down-to-earth response: “A way to understand what just happened with Roberts and Kav[anaugh] in the Voting Rights Case is that it’s not going to change much in terms of Alabama’s racist maps. This cost them little,” he says. “The *victory* is that these fools could have straight killed Section 2 of the VRA, but didn’t.”

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an raw 4 23

writing for the Arkansas Times, Austin Bailey and Lindsey Millar trashed thestate's new "MAGA" governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, once former President Donald Trump's press secretary, and the GOP-dominated state legislature, saying that they "stomped on the poor" and disadvantaged groups without solving any real problems for their constituents.

"Supercharged by a mountain of MAGA money and an even bigger ego, Gov. Sarah Sanders called all the shots," they wrote. "The supermajority Republican legislature raced to do her bidding. Their rubber stamp on all of Sanders’ priorities (vouchers, prison expansion, tax cuts) marked a vast departure from the last administration, when Asa Hutchinson’s pro-gun, pro-life record failed to impress an increasingly insane right-wing extremist legislative branch.Where Hutchinson recoiled from drama, Sanders pursued it, eager to throw Trumpian blows of staggering cruelty if it landed her on Fox News. Her foot soldiers didn’t seem to mind Sanders’ obvious bid to get out of Arkansas and back on the national stage as soon as possible. It wouldn’t have mattered if they did. Republican lawmakers knew to expect a primary challenger to knock them out of office if they dared veer out of lockstep."

"Saying it’s the worst session ever feels trite, too flip to capture the brutality heaped on all but the wealthiest and most insulated," they continued. "Not only did lawmakers do nothing to protect Arkansans from our chart-topping gun death rates, they voted instead to protect the gun companies from us. A new law passed this session bars state entities from investing with firms that eschew the industry profiting off our homicide epidemic. Protecting children got lots of lip service, but no real action. Requiring proof of age and identity to get a social media account or view online porn, laws passed allegedly to protect kids, will be a boon for identity theft but won’t likely shield many innocent eyes. Threatening librarians with jail time if they allow young people to view or check out books about sex is not only a direct assault on free speech, but also a surefire way to maintain Arkansas’s spot as the state with the most teen pregnancies."

Through all of this, they noted, the state also rolled back child labor laws and refused to compromise on one of the most extreme abortion bans in the entire country — while planning to erect a "monument to the unborn" with taxpayer money.

Sanders has faced personal embarrassment throughout the session; previous reporting detailed how a job application to the state required people to describe something they admired about her, which was quickly walked back as soon as it was reported.

"Arkansas’s wealthy and its businesses are safer than ever, having easily secured tax cuts by simply pointing fingers at transgender children and woke librarians, then grabbing the cash when no one was looking," they concluded. "Most of us didn’t get much of anything beyond the insult that the schools we send our children to — schools that anchor our communities — are hotbeds of inadequacy and indoctrination that anyone with the means should flee at their first opportunity. Is this really what Arkansas voted for?"

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an 4 23

Republican supermajority in the North Dakota State Senate recently approved a measure boosting their meal stipends just days after they rejected funding for providing free school meals to poor students, Heartland Signal reported on Tuesday.

GOP lawmakers "passed Senate Bill 2124, which raises the amount of money state senators and their staff can receive from meal reimbursements. Just days prior, the same body voted down House Bill 1491 23-24, a bill that would cover lunch for school children whose parents’ income falls 200% below the poverty line," according to the outlet.

Social media exploded with outrage and disgust.

Sonny J Lewis: "Zilch for the kids but up to $55/day if I'm reading the law right. They should be more than ashamed of themselves."

Linda Hillemann: "Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Oh, and anyone who knows these people should remind them of Jesus’ story about the rich man and poor Lazarus. (Luke 16: 19-31) It doesn't end well for the rich guy. Or in this case, legislators who steal from children."

badger person: "Pick 50 of those students at random and they'd do a better job running the state."

Elon Sucks: "The cruelty is the point."

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