The 12 Days of Session edition (parts 1 & 2)

For those of you who observe and are keeping track, Christmas is a mere five days hence.

Is your shopping done? Gifts wrapped? Packages shipped? Booze bought?

(Remember, stuff’s closed on Tuesday. Stock up.)

Yes, even this close to a pagan holiday cleverly co-opted by Christians, there’s still statehouse action galore.

So, yeah, I guess it’s time to start singing that classic holiday tune: The 12 Days of Session.

What, you don’t know it?

Here, I’ll hum a few bars, you’ll get the hang of it in no time.

On the 12th day of session, my legislator gave to me ...

12, the number of seats Minnesota House Democrats needed to flip to win the chamber (they flipped 18): In any other week, this item would have gotten something along the lines of a “#Demsindisarra … wait no the other thing” header, but this will have to do.

• Because being soundly drubbed at the ballot box in November wasn’t enough of an injury to Minnesota House Republicans, some members of their own caucus are adding a solid dose of insult.
• Four rural GOP members blindsided their colleagues late last Friday when they announced their plan to split from their ilk and form the extremely creatively named “New House Republican Caucus.”
  • Unfortunately for their former fellow caucus members, these defections will further undermine their representation on House committees. Womp womp.

11, the time of night Michigan Republicans passed a bill to restrict ballot measures: Late Wednesday night, the Michigan House approved a measure that effectively gerrymanders the signature-gathering process for ballot measures.

• Currently, citizens must gather hundreds of thousands of signatures to get a measure on the ballot (the total varies based on the type of measure and the number of votes cast for governor in the most recent election—over the past decade, this figure has ranged from 157,827 to over 380,126 signatures).
  • Because of high turnout in this year’s gubernatorial contest, the number of signatures required to get a measure on the ballot for the next four years will be bigger than ever.
• Currently, these signatures can come from any voter anywhere in the state.
• But the law House Republicans just passed in the lame duck session requires that no more than 15 percent of the signatures come from any one of Michigan’s 14 congressional districts.
  • That’s not only a garbage requirement intended to make signature-gathering harder by preventing canvassers from racking up totals in accessible and densely populated urban areas, but it also effectively gerrymanders the ballot measure process by creating arbitrary caps based on Michigan's extremely GOP-skewing congressional map.

10, the day of April GOP Gov. Matt Bevin signed this terrible legislation: On Thursday, the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down the controversial law the GOP-controlled legislature rammed through during the final days of this year’s legislative session that would have gutted teachers’ pensions.

• The anti-pension measure was attached to a completely unrelated bill about sewage treatment on the 57th day of Kentucky’s 60-day legislative session.
  • As a sewage bill, it had received public hearings and the necessary floor readings.
  • As a pension-attacking Trojan horse, it had not.
• Because the anti-pension measure did not receive the required three readings on three separate days on the House floor, the court ruled it in violation of the state constitution, which specifically requires those three pesky readings.
• This doesn’t mean that the GOP-controlled legislature won’t try to pass the measure again—properly, this time.
  • But if the thousands of education supporters who mobilized against the proposal last time it came up are any indication, lawmakers will do so in the face of serious public opposition.9, the total the numbers two and seven in North Dakota House District 27 add up to: Sure, Election Day was over a month ago, but that’s no reason to not give props to North Dakota Rep.-elect Ruth Buffalo.
    • She’s the first Native American Democratic woman elected to the state’s legislature, which is extremely important all by itself.
    • But more deliciously, Buffalo ousted the Republican lawmaker behind the legislation aimed at disenfranchising the state’s Native voters by requiring a new kind of ID to cast ballots in this year’s election.
      • Notably, the new law backfired.
        • Daily Kos was one of several organizations who helped raise tons of money to support getting Native Americans the new IDs they needed to vote.
    • In the end, turnout in counties that are home to three of the state’s largest Native populations increased dramatically over the 2014 midterms—it was up 105 percent in Sioux County, home to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

9, the total the numbers two and seven in North Dakota House District 27 add up to: Sure, Election Day was over a month ago, but that’s no reason to not give props to North Dakota Rep.-elect Ruth Buffalo.

• She’s the first Native American Democratic woman elected to the state’s legislature, which is extremely important all by itself.
• But more deliciously, Buffalo ousted the Republican lawmaker behind the legislation aimed at disenfranchising the state’s Native voters by requiring a new kind of ID to cast ballots in this year’s election.
  • Notably, the new law backfired.
    • Daily Kos was one of several organizations who helped raise tons of money to support getting Native Americans the new IDs they needed to vote.
• In the end, turnout in counties that are home to three of the state’s largest Native populations increased dramatically over the 2014 midterms—it was up 105 percent in Sioux County, home to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

8, the day of January Floridians convicted of felonies were supposed to get their right to vote back: In November, 64.5 percent of Floridians voted to end a terrible and racist practice: permanent denial of the right to vote to anyone convicted of a felony.

Republicans in Florida dgaf.

• The current state government—run by Republicans—has put implementation of the new constitutional amendment “on hold” until the new governor—also a Republican—is sworn in.
  • GOP lawmakers want to see if they can mess with the amendment before it restores voting rights to (among others) the 23 percent of Florida’s black adults who were convicted of felonies and have completed their sentences.
  • Gov.-elect DeSantis claims that the (GOP-controlled) legislature must approve “implementing language” before the amendment takes effect.
• Amendment 4 is self-executing—it needs no legislative action.

7, the Kansas Senate district represented by a GOP party-switcher: Kansas state Senator Barbara Bollier announced Wednesday that she’s leaving the Republican Party and will caucus with Democrats henceforth.

• Bollier had already earned her now-former colleagues’ ire when she endorsed the Democratic candidate for governor, as well as some Democratic legislative candidates, earlier this year.
  • She credits the Kansas GOP’s anti-LGBT platform and Donald Trump with pushing her to make the jump.
• Bollier will be up for re-election in 2020.

6, Ann Arbor’s rank in Michigan cities according to population size: Two years ago, Ann Arbor began an animal control program that used sterilization to bring down exploding deer populations.

• Michigan lawmakers voted Wednesday to take that option away from localities and force hunting on them as the only way to cull herds.
• Ann Arbor used hunting to reduce its deer population, too, but in densely populated areas, capturing, sterilizing, and returning the deer seemed like a better option than letting people shoot guns near lots of other people.
  • This “offended” some legislators, who maybe thought they don’t already have enough deer to shoot (they do), or veterinarians were taking jobs away from hunters, or something.
  • One lawmaker even saw it as a sort of … cultural exchange program.
    • GOP Rep. Triston Cole, who sponsored the bill prohibiting deer sterilization programs, regards this as “a wonderful opportunity for urban residents to learn about quality deer management and the benefits of hunting to the entire state.”

ctfo

5 special legislative session daaaaaaaaaays: So, remember that terrible teacher pension-gutting measure Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin signed on April 10 that was ruled unconstitutional and thrown out on its proverbial ear last week?

• Bevin tried to call a five-day special session on Monday night to force a new version through the legislature before the end of the year.
• But leadership in the GOP-controlled legislature couldn’t get it together.
  • Hell, Bevin didn’t even send a new bill to lawmakers for review until Monday night.
  • He confessed on Tuesday that he hadn’t read the full legislation himself, which was allegedly just a version of the original anti-pension measure with a few bits removed to make it more palatable to the court it would inevitably be challenged in.
• After convening for just two days (costing taxpayers $130,000 in the process), Republicans couldn’t muster the votes needed to move forward, so they threw up their hands and went home.

4, the total the numbers two and two in House Bill 2002 add up to: A Republican lawmaker in Arizona is still pretty pissed at all the educators and their supporters who descended on the capitol last April with the temerity to protest inadequate funding for public education.

• Rep. Mark Finchem has introduced legislation that would “prohibit teachers in taxpayer-supported schools from engaging in political ideological or religious advocacy in the classrooms.”
• The thing is, this bill seeks to address a nonexistent problem.
  • Why doesn’t it exist?
  • Because it’s already against the law.
• But more problematic is the part of the legislation that seeks to subjectively censor teachers’ instruction that may involve current events.
  • The bill prohibits teachers from addressing "any controversial issue that is not germane to the topic of the course or academic subject being taught."
  • The bill further defines a "controversial issue" as one that is a point in a political party platform at the local, state, or federal level, but it offers no guidance as to who or what determines “germaneness” or how this would be enforced (snitches get Cs?).

Yeah, my JD’s a little dusty but I don’t see this one working out too well

3 times is enemy action: First, North Carolina Republicans vented their sore-loserness at a Democrat getting himself elected governor by stripping him of key powers they didn’t mind a Republican governor having. 

Second, Wisconsin Republicans immediately moved to follow North Carolina’s example when a Democrat ousted GOP Gov. Scott Walker two years later.

Third, Michigan swiftly followed suit.

So where are those efforts now?

• In North Carolina, Republicans are prepared to deploy the last gasp of their veto-proof supermajority (they won’t have the required number of votes in the coming legislative session to override vetoes) to try, one last time, to revamp the state's election board.
  • Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, however, looks like he’s going to make life hard for the GOP.
    • He’s slowed his veto roll and may delay rejecting the bill until after the legislature adjourns on Friday, which would force lawmakers to reconvene during after Christmas but before the new year to override it.
    • Many members have trips and other difficult-to-change plans during that time, making corralling the numbers required to override the veto a challenging undertaking.
• In Wisconsin, after a soon-to-be-unemployed Scott Walker signed into law several bills usurping his Democratic successor’s power, Republicans can’t even agree on how to defend the GOP power-grab.
  • Some like to talk about the powers that they magnanimously did not take away from the incoming governor.
  • Others try to pivot to less-controversial aspects of the new laws.
  • And some just lie, like GOP Senate President Roger Roth did when he insisted on TV last weekend that “there will be more legislative oversight in a lot of areas, but no power was taken away from the governor or attorney general.”

Fun fact! Power was expressly taken away from both the governor and the attorney general.

• The power stolen by the GOP-controlled legislature from the incoming Democratic administration includes curtailing the governor’s power to
  • guide economic development,
  • halt litigation on the state’s behalf, and
  • make administrative rules implementing new laws.
    • The new laws also limit the state attorney general’s power to defend legal challenges to state laws.
• Meanwhile, in Michigan, lawmakers are frantically trying to wrap up their lame duck session on Thursday, and some of the Republicans’ power-grabby bills may not make it to the outgoing GOP Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk.
  • Still on track, though, is a measure that would make effectively gerrymander the signature-gathering process for citizen-initiated ballot measures.
    • Currently, these signatures can come from any voter anywhere in the state.
    • But bill House Republicans en route to Snyder’s desk requires that no more than 15 percent of the signatures come from any one of Michigan’s 14 congressional districts.
      • That’s not only a garbage requirement intended to make signature-gathering harder by preventing canvassers from racking up totals in accessible and densely populated urban areas, but it also effectively gerrymanders the ballot measure process by creating arbitrary caps based on Michigan's extremely GOP-skewing congressional map.
  • Already signed: Bills gutting a minimum wage hike and paid sick leave.

2 more Republican defectors in Kansas: Last week, the 7th Day of Session was dedicated to a party-switching GOP senator in Kansas.

• This week, two more Republicans joined her in moving to the Democratic caucus.
  • State Sen. Dinah Sykes and Rep. Stephanie Clayton are abandoning the Republican Party.
    • Sykes feels she can “better serve [her] state and constituents as a member of the Democratic Party.”
    • Clayton switched after hearing legislative leaders discuss abandoning a plan to boost public school funding, describing the strategy as “moves to support chaos in public policy.”
• After these party switches and Sen. Barbara Bollier’s flip last week, the Kansas Senate will be 28 R/11 D/1 I, and the House will be 84 R/41 D.
  • Kansas House Democratic Leader Jim Ward claims that three or four more Republicans may yet defect from their party in the coming weeks.

And the nation’s first majority-women legislature: With the appointment of two women to fill open Democratic seats in the state Assembly, Nevada has become the first state with a legislature made up of mostly women (32 out of 63 total Assembly and Senate seats).

• Also, one of the newly appointed assemblywomen will be the only Asian-American Pacific Islander community member in the legislature.

Welp, there are your 12 days. Congrats!