Hello, and happy Thursday,
Since late last year, I have been intensely focused on the frantic efforts by both major parties to put themselves in the best position to win US House races this fall.
State-by-state, lawmakers are undertaking the once-a-decade task of redrawing all 435 districts in the US House. In most states, legislatures are responsible for drawing the new lines, and to no one’s surprise, both parties have jostled to draw as many districts in their favor as possible. While many, including me, expected Republicans to dominate the process, because they have control of more legislatures, Democrats have been boosted as a result of anti-gerrymandering reforms and an aggressive legal strategy.
Reading lots of analysis about what’s happening at the congressional level, I started thinking that there was a much more significant redistricting story that was being largely overlooked. As they’ve been drawing congressional districts, state lawmakers have also been redrawing districts for their state legislatures (yes, they are setting the boundaries for the districts they run in).
This lack of attention is significant because state legislatures have become the engines of policymaking in the US. Take a second and think about the most controversial pieces of legislation you’ve heard about recently. Maybe it’s the sweeping new voting restrictions in Georgia. The “don’t say gay” bill in Florida. Anti-abortion bills in Texas and Oklahoma. All of these measures were passed in state legislatures, not Congress. With the federal government bogged down in gridlock, state legislatures, where one party often has control, have become the forums to pass legislation on issues such as school funding and public health that directly affect people’s lives.
“The gerrymandering of the state legislative maps, it’s actually more important than even the congressional gerrymandering,” David Pepper, a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic party, told me. “We have this repeat cycle where every few weeks an outrage of some state law that passed somewhere and then we all cover the court case. But very rarely do people go back and look at: ‘What’s the cause of all this craziness in states?’”
Republicans currently control 62 legislative chambers, while Democrats control 36. There are 23 states where Republicans have complete control over state government, and 14 where Democrats do.
While things are slightly better for Democrats than they were a decade ago, control of state legislatures is unlikely to change over the next decade. Just 17.5% of districts are estimated to be competitive, a slight decrease from a decade ago, according to Chris Warshaw, a political science professor at George Washington University.
“Most of the plans are pretty uncompetitive and most are biased in favor of one of the two parties. So I don’t think we’re likely to see many state legislatures flip control over the next decade,” he said.
Perhaps no state better embodies the consequences of state legislative gerrymandering than Wisconsin. The Wisconsin state assembly, the legislature’s lower chamber, is widely understood to be one of the most gerrymandered bodies in the US. It’s so distorted that it’s virtually impossible for Republicans to lose a majority in it – even if they got a minority of the vote, they would still be able to hold a majority of the seats.
Republicans have used that advantage recently to press a slew of anti-democratic policies, including a partisan review of the 2020 election that made the impossible case for how the lawmakers could “decertify” the results of the 2020 race.
Earlier this month, Democrats had hoped they would get a slight boost in the legislative maps. After looking at a range of proposals, the state supreme court picked a new legislative map submitted by Tony Evers, Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, saying it best complied with an earlier court order to make as little change as possible to the current maps.
But on Wednesday, the US supreme court stepped in and threw out those maps, taking issue with the creation of additional Black-majority district in the Milwaukee area. It sent the case back to the state court for further consideration.
“The will of the people is traditionally the law of the land. That is not the case at this point in time,” Tony Evers, Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, told me last week.
Also worth watching…
I spoke with Evers about the stakes for his re-election bid and democracy.
Listen to Pamela Moses, the Black Memphis woman sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote, speak about her case.
This redistricting cycle has blunted the political power of voters of color.
Arizona Republicans are advancing a measure that would do away with no-excuse mail-in and early voting, which is widely used in the state.
Ohio Republicans remain engaged in a high-stakes standoff with the state supreme court, which has refused to let GOP lawmakers enact gerrymandered electoral districts.
