Voting Rights And World War G

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog::

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, in the case of Louisiana v. Callais, struck down a Louisiana congressional map that a group of voters who describe themselves as “non-African American” had challenged as the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. By a vote of 6-3, the justices left in place a ruling by a federal court that barred the state from using the map, which had created a second majority-Black district, in future elections. Although Wednesday’s ruling did not strike down a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, as Louisiana and the challengers had asked the court to do, Justice Elena Kagan suggested in her dissent (which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson) that the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito had rendered the provision “all but a dead letter.”

Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns at POLITICO:

Excitable Republicans hailing the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act as the start of a golden age of neverending House majorities may need to pause and take breath.
...

How far can they go this year? With the ruling less than 24 hours old — and with the midterms just six months away — there’s uncertainty about what’s possible. But even in a maximalist scenario for Republicans, none of the experts Playbook spoke to believed this ruling will net the GOP more than a handful of House seats in November.

...

ABOUT THAT UNCERTAINTY: Four big factors will ultimately decide the extent of further Republican redistricting this year.

1. TIME PRESSURE: This was an extraordinary moment for the Supreme Court to drop this ruling. (In Louisiana, absentee ballots for next month’s primaries have already been sent out.) Those Southern states keen to redistrict before November are in for an almighty scramble. What’s possible will vary state to state.

2. GOP APPETITE: Not every state-level Republican will want to redraw maps on short notice. Some may see 2028 as a more realistic target. Others may be reluctant to move mid-decade at all. Don’t forget that state legislatures in Republican-run Indiana and Democratic-run Maryland already resisted pressure to accept redrawn maps this cycle.

3. TRUMP: The president remains the decisive factor. How hard the White House pushes for new maps this cycle remains an unknown factor, but may prove critical in how many states move immediately. Trump sounded keen yesterday —- “I would think that they would want to do it,” he told reporters — but had only just learned about the ruling.

4. LEGALITY: This wasn’t the “clean kill” Republicans hoped for, watering down rather than completely gutting Section 2 of the VRA. Experts believe there are legal uncertainties still to be ironed out. Pro-VRA litigation — even if ultimately fruitless — could slow the process down.

Democrats will likely retaliate.  (And after the midterms, they might control more legislative chambers.)

Reid J. Epstein at NYT:

Some Democrats who backed new redistricting commissions in the 2010s now look back on those efforts as tying one hand behind their back for the future.

“It seemed like a pitchfork moment. It did seem good,” said Michael Li, a senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The lesson is that there are some states that are never going to be able to do this. If you’re not going to do it nationally, you’re going to have an unlevel playing field.”

The California and Virginia referendums to let Democrats seize redistricting power represented mea culpas about political idealism that could spread to other blue states.

One of the nation’s oldest redistricting commissions is in Washington State, where voters in 1983 adopted a provision to shift map-drawing power from elected officials. Now Shasti Conrad, the state’s Democratic Party chairwoman, said that it could be undone if Democrats were to flip a handful of seats in the State Legislature and seize supermajority control next year.

If they do, Ms. Conrad said, Washington voters are likely to be asked in 2027 to allow lawmakers to enact a new congressional map. Now, Democrats hold eight of 10 House seats in the state.

“People have been asking, ‘What can Washington do with redistricting?’” Ms. Conrad said. “They’re seeing other states like Virginia do it, so why can’t we?”

Democratic regrets over their redistricting hurdles tend to quickly morph into the party’s most reliable political stance over the last decade: blaming Mr. Trump.

Very Important Primary Night

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.   Despite deep economic problems, are some favorable signs for Democrats in the 2022 midterms.

Gregory Krieg at CNN:

The wording of the question was convoluted, but the answer was crystal clear: No. Voters in Kansas on Tuesday, in dramatic numbers and by an overwhelming margin, rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed lawmakers to ban abortion in the state.

As Republican-controlled state legislatures around the country race to outlaw the procedure in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, traditionally conservative Kansas, given the chance to directly respond at the ballot box, denied their own elected leaders’ the chance to revoke a right that has broad support across swaths of independent polling.

The rejection of the measure highlighted the increasingly stark divide between the activities of Republican state lawmakers, often in legislatures gerrymandered to effectively guarantee GOP control, and the political and policy desires of American voters. In more immediate terms, the ballot measure’s defeat – on a day of extraordinary turnout – also provides a clear indication that the desire to defend abortion rights could be a potent issue for Democrats in the coming midterm elections.

The Dobbs decision engaged women in Kansas to an unprecedented degree.

This chart shows the percent of new registrants in the state who were women (as a 7 day average). Note the spike after the Dobbs decision leaked, and huge jump after the Supreme Court handed it down. pic.twitter.com/pvi3WpuR86

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) August 3, 2022

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 Amanda Carpenter at The Bulwark:

Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, only those who went on to compete in non-traditional Republican primaries have, so far, fended off Trump-backed rivals.

On Tuesday, three pro-impeachment Republicans: Peter Meijer of Michigan and Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington were on the ballot. Meijer was defeated by a Trump-backed rival, John Gibbs. And, at the time of this writing, Herrera Beutler and Newhouse, appear to be headed to a general election for their races.

The difference? Washington is a state that has an open, non-partisan system that allows the top two finishers in each contest to compete against each other in the general election. This is the model, known as a “jungle primary,” that also facilitated pro-impeachment California Republican David Valadao’s advancement to a general election.

Those three–Herrera Beutler, Newhouse, and Valadao–are the only pro-impeachment Republicans, to date, to survive their primaries.

The GOP's Off-Off-Year Wipeout

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's impact down the ballot.

At WP, James Hohmann sums up the GOP wipeout in the off-off-year elections:

Democrat Ralph Northam was elected governor of Virginia Tuesday by an unexpectedly large margin of nine percentage points. He won more votes than any previous candidate for Virginia governor.

Republican Ed Gillespie could not escape Trump’s unpopularity, despite his best efforts to thread the needle. Four in 10 Virginia voters yesterday approved of the job that the president is doing, according to preliminary exit polls. Gillespie received over 9 in 10 votes from Trump approvers, but among the larger group of Trump disapprovers, Northam had nearly as large an advantage: 87 percent.

Trump’s impact on the race was also clear from other questions in the exit polling: 34 percent of voters said expressing opposition to Trump was a reason for their vote, with almost all of this group favoring Northam, per our in-house pollster Scott Clement. Half as many (17 percent) sought to express support for the president, while 47 percent said Trump was not a factor in their choice.

The GOP also suffered big losses in the VA House of Delegates.  But wait, there's more:

• Maine, where Trump won an electoral vote last year, became the first state to expand Medicaid via ballot initiative. Despite active opposition from the Republican governor and an influx of outside money, the measure passed by a nearly 20-point margin. This will mean health-care coverage for an estimated 70,000 low-income residents.
• Democrat Phil Murphy, a former banker and first-time candidate, won the New Jersey governor’s race by 13 points over Chris Christie’s lieutenant governor. That’s on par with Clinton’s margin a year ago, but it’s a remarkable turnabout from four years ago — when Christie got reelected with a 22-point margin of victory. It means that Democrats will have unified control of the Garden State’s government.
• By winning a special election, Democrats took control of the Senate in Washington State.This gives the party full control of all three states on the West Coast: a blue wall of sorts.

-- Democrats didn’t just run up the score on blue turf, though:

• In Georgia, Democrats picked up three seats in the state legislature — replacing Republicans who stepped down to lead the state forestry commission, become a judge and run for governor.
• In New Hampshire’s largest city, Manchester, the incumbent Republican mayor went down. Joyce Craig is the first Democrat elected mayor there in 14 years.
• In the beating heart of Florida’s crucial Interstate 4 corridor, the former Republican mayor of St. Petersburg unexpectedly failed in a comeback bid after his Democratic opponent tied him to Trump and defined him as a denier of climate change.
• In North Carolina, the Republican mayor of Fayetteville lost his bid for a third term. In Charlotte, despite being heavily outspent, Democrat Vi Lyles will become the city’s first African American female mayor.

Sanders Wins 3 States, But...

Philip Bump reports at The Washington Post:

Sen. Bernie Sanders had the best night of his presidential campaign on Saturday, dominating Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the Washington, Hawaii and Alaska state caucuses by wide margins. He cut into Clinton's pledged-delegate lead by at least one-sixth and potentially more. It was the sort of night that he needs more of.
But which he's almost certainly not going to get.

The reason it was such a big night for Sanders was that he dominated in Washington state, beating Clinton by more than 40 points. Washington has a big delegate total, so splitting up the delegates gave Sanders a big margin. His giant wins in Alaska and Hawaii were icing on that cake.

But Alaska and Washington had two characteristics that made them very friendly terrain for Sanders: They were caucuses in predominantly non-black states. And there aren't many more of those on the calendar.

At FiveThirtyEight, Harry Enten picks up the story:

So why is Sanders doing better in caucuses than primaries? The most obvious answer is that caucuses reward candidates with diehard supporters. There are often speeches, and sometimes multiple rounds of voting at caucuses. Typically, you have to stick around for a while to vote. That takes devotion, and if you’ve ever met a Sanders fan, you’ll know that many would climb over hot coals to vote for him.

Sanders’s strength in caucuses may also be, in part, coincidental. Every state that has held or will hold a Democratic caucus this year has a black population at or below 10 percent of the state’s total population, and black voters have been among Clinton’s strongest demographic groups. Without those black voters, Clinton just can’t match the enthusiasm of Sanders’s backers. (In Southern states, where Clinton romped, her voters were far more enthusiastic than Sanders’s supporters were.)

State Legislative Switches

On election night, it appeared that Democrats had scored a net gain of four state legislative chambers. Because of post-election switches, however, that number is now down to two.  Coalitions of Republicans and maverick Democrats will now control the state senates in New York and Washington State.

Earlier this month, Stateline reported:

Voters in Washington State last month elected a state Senate with 26 Democrats and 23 Republicans. But starting next month, those Republicans will serve in the chamber’s majority after a coup Monday (December 10) that will bring a bipartisan coalition to power. 

Two centrist Democratic senators, Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon, announced they had banded together with the Republicans to form the new “Majority Coalition Caucus.” The two Democrats will serve in the chamber’s top positions. Tom, a former Republican who became a Democrat in 2006, will lead the Senate as majority leader. Sheldon will serve as president pro tempore. 

Under the plan, Republicans and Democrats will split committee chairmanships, but, as Publicola reported, Republicans will lead many of the committees that are considered most important, including K-12 Education and the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee. 

The coalition presented the arrangement as a way for Republicans and Democrats to join together to solve the state’s problems. “We are Washington State, not Washington, D.C.,” the group wrote in a statement laying out its principles. “We commit ourselves to establishing a style of lawmaking that promotes policy over politics, an approach seen all too rarely in politics today.”

The New York Times adds today:

Here in the capital, legislative staff members and senators alike were pondering where they stood, and where they might sit — office space in the new power-sharing arrangement being one of the unknowns of the holiday season. What seemed increasingly clear, though, is that in the coalition agreement, Mr. Sheldon and Mr. Tom had achieved a kind of coup within a coup, silencing Republican social conservatives on one hand and distancing Seattle Democrats on the other, all in one karate chop.

In New York, The Legislative Gazette reported:

Control of the state Senate during the upcoming session will be shared between Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, and Sen. Jeff Klein, the de facto leader of a five-member independent conference, all but eliminating the power of the Senate Democrats for the time being. 

The two conference leaders together will administer "joint and equal authority" over the daily Senate agenda, the state budget process, board appointments, committee assignments and leadership posts. The title of "Temporary President" will alternate between Skelos and Klein every two weeks.

Tough Night for GOP

Democrats have had some bad luck in Hill races. Last night, they had some good luck, as Josh Kraushaar sums up at National Journal:

Last night's primaries in Michigan, Missouri, Washington state and Kansas couldn't have gone much better for Democrats.

The party saw Republicans nominate their weakest candidate against Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who spent her own campaign money in order to affect the outcome of the primary. They saw Republicans tap a reindeer-farming Santa Claus with controversial views to run for the suburban Detroit seat recently held by Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich. And in a promising gubernatorial pickup opportunity for the GOP in Washington state, the first round of balloting showed Democrats still hold some fundamental advantages in a traditionally Democratic state.

The biggest news came out of Missouri, where GOP Rep. Todd Akin came from behind against self-funded businessman John Brunner and former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, two candidates who Republican party officials viewed as more formidable challengers against McCaskill. Akin, as a longtime member of Congress and ardent social conservative, holds vulnerabilities that McCaskill is hoping to exploit. With the self-funding Brunner as the nominee, Republicans likely wouldn't have had to spend money to hold onto the seat. With Akin, Republicans are very confident about their prospects - a recent poll showed him leading McCaskill by five points -- but they'll need to expend resources against the freshman senator.