The 2010 election cycle is over, and aside from the inevitable close recounts and arguments, we’re finally done with the political season. And if you’re like most people, you are already sick of the topic and glad to see the ads and phone calls going away. However, there’s one topic which isn’t getting as much attention in the excitement over the national races, and that’s what happens at the state and local level.
The state level is where tomorrow’s national politicians are found, and they decide far more significantly how your life will be in terms of finance and politics than Washington DC. Conventional wisdom tells us that Democrats in congress are being punished, in a massive backlash against arrogance, vast overspending, corruption, and contempt for voters. It is as if the Democrats saw what Republicans did and said “lets do that, but ten times as much!” But, what about those local races? What happens there says more about the race than at the national level.
Consider Oregon, where there’s been Democrats in the governor’s mansion since 1991, and in the last thirty years, there’s been one Republican governor. Republican Chris Dudley, former Portland Trailblazer, appears to have won a very close race against Democrat and former governor John Kitzhaber. In fact this year, more governor seats were up for grabs than in a long time, a total of 37. Before election day the states were nearly half and half, with 1 more Democrat than Republican in the governor’s office.
As of this writing, eleven states have shifted to Republican from Democrat, one to Independent from Republican, and two to Democrat from Republican. Still unaccounted for are five states still counting. That means the overall shift was nine added Republican governors, which brings the total to 33 GOP and 26 Democrat.
In state legislatures and assemblies, Republicans also gained a lot of ground. Before the election, Democrats controlled both houses in nearly twice as many states as Republicans: 27 to 14. In total, Democrats controlled 60 state chambers (most have 2) and Republicans controlled 36. After the election, Republicans gained majorities in 17 state legislative chambers, including states such as New Hampshire and Indiana, which went full Republican majority in both chambers.
These legislative races are significant in two major ways.
First, as the Kerr article notes, this is the year which states redraw the congressional districts for their states based on new census data. With Republicans in charge, they’ll be the ones gerrymandering the districts to bizarre shapes to best benefit their party rather than Democrats doing it. Historically, Democrats have almost always been the ones in charge of this process, as Jennifer C Kerry writes for the Associated Press:
Over the past four decades, Democrats have enjoyed at least a 2-to-1 advantage in redistricting authority, said Carl Klarner, a political scientist at Indiana State University who has studied more than 2,100 state legislative elections from 1950 forward.
That’s going to be different this time around, with likely consequences for the next few election cycles at least.
Second, a shift in legislatures can give more conservative governors (like Chris Christie in New Jersey and Robert Jindal in Louisiana) an easier time trying to cut the budget back and restrain the fiscal insanity wrought over past decades by both parties.
What’s significant here is that the Tea Party movement has had much greater impact than most people are aware of. It isn’t difficult to get information about the national contests and issues, but local issues, races, and information are a little more challenging to get, even at the state level. The Tea Party rallies and websites had a lot more information for these local issues and races, which seemingly helped turn the tide.
See, if this national mood was merely anger at Democrats in the US Congress, then state politics wouldn’t change much, right? We’d throw out congressmen and put in different ones, then watch them to see if they listened. But there’s a significant shift in the nation’s ideas about fiscal and economic policy going on here.
People are more than simply fed up with congress; they’re suffering economic malaise and want a change. They see the huge debts piled up by government at all levels and the lack of proper service and want that to reverse. They’re sick of police and fire not getting what they need but midnight basketball, public union pensions, and studies of global warming on ants getting a barge full of dollars. People want jobs and they want government to tighten its belt, not get fatter.
That means a lot of cuts and austerity at the state level, too. Democrats are going to have a field day showing sad families who lost their state job and woeful artists complaining that the soul of the country is dying because they couldn’t vomit on a canvas and have it bought by state tax dollars. Make no mistake; the backlash is going to be brutal, because Democrats want to use this to win power, not to argue their position on the issues. I expect all those economic stories, hidden by ‘Recovery Summer’ and other gimmicks we haven’t seen for 2 years are going to suddenly surge to the forefront every night on TV.
The only questions are whether or not the newly elected governments can do what has to be done with spending and austerity to deal with the mess their predecessors created… and whether the public will have the discernment and spine to stand for it until the work is done.
