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 win on 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: Pennsylvania Republicans 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.