State Legislators: The Latest Pawns in the Partisan Battleground

With majority control of the U.S. House and Senate up for grabs, the matter of which political party controls the 98 partisan legislative chambers in the country doesn't get headlines. They're just too far down the food chain -- too local for the chattering class to mess with. (In case you're wondering, it's 98 and not 100 because Nebraska has a non-partisan, single-house system.) Still they're hugely important, and the political professionals are working these races like crazy, with Republicans pouring money into them and Democrats ringing the alarm bell that their party better wake up or risk being the minority in Washington for a decade.

This is a redistricting year, meaning state legislatures, using the 2010 census, will draw up and pass new maps for their congressional districts. Whichever party is in power has enormous leeway to create favorable district lines. There are pitched battles for control in battleground states like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Hampshire, Nevada, to name just a few. A look at how closely divided the parties are in so many legislative chambers echoes the 50-50 nation that has characterized American politics since the 2000 Bush/Gore election, so close it had to be settled by the Supreme Court. There are 23 chambers in 17 states that are within five seats of changing hands, some controlled by the Democrats and some by the Republicans.

There are more than 6,000 legislative seats being contested this election cycle, and if the Republican wave carries enough of them, the GOP could ensure themselves the majority in 2012 even if they fall short this cycle getting the 39 seats they need to control the House. "Losing a few seats in Massachusetts won't cost us any sleep," says Tom Bonier with NEC Services, a group that advises Democrats on redistricting. But losing seats in Ohio, where Democrats have a 53-to-46 edge over Republicans, could cost Democrats three or four House seats next time around.

Legislative chambers are even more important than maintaining the governorship, Bonier says, because only the legislature can write the redistricting map, and it's good for a decade, until the next census. The governor can sign or veto the map, but he can't draft it. Legislators are the first line of defense (or offense, depending on your perspective), for the majority party.

After gaining state legislative seats in the '04, '06 and '08 elections, the Democrats are looking at a scenario where these gains could be swept away in the one election that particularly matters, the one that creates the power grid for redistricting. Of the 98 partisan chambers, Democrats control 60, Republicans 36, and there are two split evenly. But the parties are within a hair's breadth from each other in many states, and Republicans are already claiming victory in six chambers and estimate another 11 are "in play."

Democrats are girding for battle, and seem to be doing better than expected given the overall political climate. They say it's harder for the GOP to demonize local legislators because they're members of the community, they serve part time, and the voters know them. Bonier was in Nevada recently meeting with Democratic legislators when the speaker of the house, who is a deputy fire chief, had to dash out of a meeting to tend to a fire emergency. In Tennessee, another closely contested state (48 Democrats and 50 Republicans with one Independent), Democratic Rep. Mike Tanner made the local news during the recent floods putting families on inflatable air mattresses and pushing them to safety.

Bonier's group was founded by Eleanor Roosevelt and used to work with both parties. "But we ran out of progressive Republicans some time ago," he says. The late Mac Mathias, a Republican from Maryland, was the last one. Asked how much Obama's low approval rating affects state legislative races, Bonier points out that Democratic legislators across the country were not swept in on the '08 Obama wave, just the opposite. "Obama was already not very popular in these districts even when he was at the top of his game," he says. "They're so much more local. Most voters if asked the party affiliation of their state legislator don't even know." And for Democrats in this cruel election season, that's a good thing.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/03 ... tleground/