Britannia Radio

Republicans Win Also Big On State Level

From the desk of Johnny Fincioen on Fri, 2010-11-05 09:03

Republicans took over 680 seats from the Democrats in the parliaments of the different States. The number of Republican seats in these Chambers is now well over 50%. They won the majority in at least twenty more Chambers. Although recounts are still going on in a few places, it looks like the voters elected ten more Republican governors. Republicans will now govern in over 60% of the States.

This massive expansion of Republican power on State level has three important advantages for the Republican Party on a national scale.

1. Over the last few months, nineteen American States, each governed by a Republican governor, sued the federal government in Federal Court aiming to declare ObamaCare unconstitutional. If the ten new governors and their States join this lawsuit, the pressure to stop ObamaCare on judicial grounds will rise. Some observers believe the strategy to stop ObamaCare in court has the best chances to succeed.

2. Many States suffer from the same disease as the federal government: buried under ballooning debt, high tax rates in combination with overregulation and control of the private sector. The big clean up will start. Implementing the Republican principles on a local level, and showing results for it, will boost the trust of the electorate in Republicans on the national level. This may translate in extra seats.

3. Governors and their State Parliaments will use the results of the census, organized every ten years and most recently last summer, to redesign the voting districts in their States. The new layout will stay valid for the next five election cycles.

The reason for the existence of voting districts is the particular voting system in the USA, where people run against each other. The winning person takes all, and represents the district. The size of the population in a State changes over the time of ten years. Since the system tries to guarantee every seat will represent about the same number of citizens, districts must be added or annulled. The size of the State doesn’t change, thus the size of the districts must change.

The political reality is that ALL districts are redesigned in function of the results of the latest election to create the possibility for more seats for the ruling party and less seats for the party in opposition. Neighborhoods leaning towards one specific party are thrown in, or specifically taken away from other neighborhoods. Republicans estimate this redistricting may mean 25 extra seats for them in the federal House in 2012 and beyond.

Most neutral observers find the practice to redistrict every ten years rather negative. But, the ruling Party doesn’t like to give away this political advantage. The solution is to take the redistricting authority away from the politicians. Only a couple of States opted to give this authority to an independent commission. The referendum question on this subject last Tuesday in California gives the redistricting authority from now on to a commission, composed of politicians from both parties and a number of ‘independents’.