I Want To Know What Law Is edition

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Valentine’s Day is next week

So here’s an appropriately themed statehouse update for you

… sorry.

Love is in the air in state legislatures across the country, and by “love” I mean that 41 statehouses are currently in session, and they’re all just awash in sexy things like holding public hearings on bills and passing resolutions honoring local sports teams and voting on legislation.

Shhhhhhhhhh don’t judge my perception of sexy. Everyone’s got their own thing.

But everyone thinks winning is hot. And Democrats are positively on fire.

Burning Love: This past Tuesday, Democrats flipped yet another state legislative seat from red to blue. (It’s Democrats 35th state legislative pickup of the cycle.)

• Four open Republican seats in Missouri were in need of filling on Tuesday night, and Republicans held on to three of them—albeit by significantly smaller margins than Trump won in those seats in 2016.
• But one of those four Republican open seats gave Democrat Mike Revis the winon Tuesday with 52-48 percent, shifting 31 points from Trump’s win percentage in the district.

Want to feel the heat of more special elections? Next week features five contests on back-to-back days—two seats in Minnesota on Monday, Feb. 12, and seats in Florida, Oklahoma, and Georgia on Tuesday, Feb. 13.

Draw Me Two Times: PennsylvaniaRepublicans did not take late January’s state Supreme Court ruling against their gerrymandered congressional maps well.

If you’re just now tuning in, yeah, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that the state’s outrageous Republican gerrymander violated the state constitution’s guarantee of “free and equal” elections. It was rad.

• Pennsylvania’s GOP lawmakers were, shall we say, less than thrilled. Statements decrying the order flew out of Republican legislative leaders’ offices. The state Senate President pro tempore announced that he wouldn’t comply with the court’s order to draw a new congressional map.
• And then Republican Rep. Cris Dush proposed impeaching the Democratic justices on the bench, all of whom had ruled in a way that made him super mad.

Histrionics? Sounds like it. But threats are only idle until they’re not, and Pennsylvania’s Republican lawmakers have both the means and the motivation to make impeachment happen.

Here’s how they could do it:

• Articles of judicial impeachment need only be passed by a majority in the state House, which Republicans have.
• And removal from the bench requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in the state Senate—which Republicans also have.

Here’s why they could do it:

• Democrats have a 5-2 majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and Republicans have almost zero chance of flipping the court back to a GOP majority before 2021.
• In 2021, a commission of two Republicans, two Democrats, and a fifth member agreed upon by the other four create new state House and Senate maps.
• If (when, let’s be real) the two Republicans and two Democrats fail to agree upon that fifth tie-breaking member, the state Supreme Court steps in to select the member. A Democratic-majority Supreme Court is likely to select a tiebreaker who will reject any map that unfairly benefits Republicans.
• Additionally, legal challenges to the state House and Senate maps are normally handled by the state Supreme Court, placing another anti-GOP gerrymander trump card in Democrats’ hands.

The Democratic majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court thusly constitutes an existential threat to Republicans’ lopsided majorities in the the state legislature.

• Fairer maps would help undo the massive majorities the GOP enjoys in both chambers: 120 Republicans, 81 Democrats, and two vacancies in the state House; 34 Republicans and 16 Democrats in the Senate—all despite the fact that Trump carried Pennsylvania by less than a single point in 2016.
• Pennsylvania Republicans finally are grumblingly complying with the court’s order to redraw the congressional maps, but they’re also not ruling out the possibility of going after the Supreme Court justices who are making them do it.

Stay tuned!

When A Voter Loves A Woman (candidate):

...can’t give his vote to no one else

He’d trade the GOP

For the good thing he’s found

...

...read the full post here