My November 13 Washington Examiner column led off with a look at the map showing the House seats won by Republicans and Democrats this year. As noted, the map looks very red — because Republicans won more seats than they have since 1928 and because Democratic seats, reflecting the clustering of heavily Democratic voting groups, tend to be geographically tiny.
But there’s another consequence of the Republicans’ House wave, one that became highly visible during the litigation over Florida’s electoral votes in November and December 2000. And that is the under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution if no candidate has a majority in the Electoral College then the House of Representatives chooses the president, with one vote per state delegation. So for that purpose the relevant question is not which party has a House majority, but which party has a majority of seats in at least 26 states.
In the Congress whose session began on Jan. 3, 2001, Republicans had majorities in 28 state delegations, Democrats had majorities in 18 state delegations and 4 state delegations were tied. (Interestingly, they were Connecticut, Illinois and Maryland, which have heavily Democratic delegations now, and West Virginia, which has an all-Republican delegation). So if the election had gone into the House, everyone assumed that George W. Bush would be elected.
In the Congress that comes into being on Jan. 3, 2015, the Republicans’ advantage is even more lopsided. They will have majorities in 33 state delegations (32 if Martha McSally’s current 162-vote lead in Arizona 2 is overturned). Democrats will have majorities in just 14 state delegations. Three delegations will be tied, all in the Northeast: Maine, New Hampshire and New Jersey. Democratic states include the other four New England states — New York, Delaware and Maryland — in the Northeast, and the four Pacific states of California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington. In flyover country, there are only three states with majority-Democratic delegations: Illinois, Minnesota and New Mexico. Which is more or less what you see on that map.
It’s possible that Democrats may reverse Republicans’ majorities in some state delegations in the 2016 election. But it seems highly likely that Republicans will maintain majorities in 26 or more state delegations, whatever happens in the presidential race. Just something to keep in the back of your mind.
