Statehouse One-Acts: Showers of Elections edition
... which suggests the existence of Flowers of Elections, too, I suppose
Well hello there, you gorgeous human.
Apologies for the absence – since I’m no longer on typical nine-to-five schedule, I have to undertake projects as they come, and I was undertookening a couple pretty hard recently.
Anyway, lots going on, not the least of which are [[drumroll]] … elections!
A special election in Alabama a couple of weeks ago garnered a ton of national headlines, and for good reason.
Democrat Marilyn Lands flipped a swingy state House district in the Yellowhammer state on March 26, and she flipped it in a BIG way – winning House District 10 by 25 freaking points (after losing it by seven in 2022, by the by; Trump carried the seat 49-48 in 2020).
Lands’ victory is largely credited to the fact that she ran a campaign focused on reproductive rights and IVF, which is very much on Alabamians’ minds since the February state Supreme Court ruling that defined frozen embryos as human beings (thus attaching all the liabilities that come with ending a human life to tiny chilly clusters of cells in test tubes).
And yes, I know the Alabama legislature passed a law that supposedly protects IVF providers from the liabilities attached to destroying unused/unviable embryos, but it actually really doesn’t, because the root issue is that Alabama’s Supreme Court defines embryos as human beings, which the new law in no way addresses.
So while, yay, the Alabama House Democratic Caucus grew its membership by one, and Democrats who run strongly pro-reproductive freedom campaigns are still winning, the results don’t actually mean anything for the balance of power in the Alabama legislature: Republicans still hold supermajorities in both chambers.
But Democrats haven’t had a pickup in Alabama since Doug Jones’ victory over a(n alleged) child predator in 2017, so that’s nice.
And this gives Democrats nationally a big fat data point when it comes to running pro-abortion campaigns in deep-red states: They work.
Turns out people of all stripes don’t much like losing rights and freedoms, who knew?
Another set of elections I watched closely in March: Ohio’s legislative primaries.
As an erudite consumer of this missive, you probably already know why I was so captivated by these contests, but for any newbs or folks who have, like, anything else on their minds (Earthquake! Eclipse! OJ’s dead! etc.), here’s a quick refresher.
The short version is that, after big GOP wins in the 2022 elections, right-wing extremist Rep. Derek Merrin thought he was going to be Ohio House Speaker in the 2023 session.
Alas for the forces of true MAGAdom, Merrin was stymied by an alliance of more moderate members of the GOP caucus + all the chamber’s Democrats (after they extracted some favors for their votes, of course).
These strange bedfellows instead elected the (... somewhat, everything’s relative) less extreme Rep. Jason Stephens to preside over the state House for 2023-2024.
Merrin felt, like, super wronged (conservatives seem increasingly unable to stomach electoral defeats of any and all kinds, hm) and just would NOT let it go.
Instead of accepting Stephens’ speakership, Merrin proclaimed himself “the leader of the House Republicans,” and 37 of the 43 extreme right GOPers who supported his effort to become Speaker began calling themselves the “Republican Majority Caucus.”
I mean, cue the popcorn, but the stakes of this disagreement escalated pretty quickly: Speaker Stephens and the pro-Merrin Republicans soon started fighting over cash money.
Stephens claimed that he was in charge of Ohio’s House Republicans and of the Ohio House Republican Alliance (OHRA), which is the campaign fund that spends millions every two years electing Ohio House Republicans.
But Rep. Phil Plummer, a Merrin supporter, also claimed that he was in charge of the OHRA.
These guys weren’t arguing over chump change.
In 2022, the OHRA spent $4.5 million on GOP House candidates, to say nothing of the $1.8 million in in-kind contributions.
By the by, the Speaker is traditionally also head of the majority House caucus, but that’s certainly not required by any law or rule.
Plummer even took his fellow Republicans to court over the matter in a lawsuit.
But Stephens retained control of the OHRA checkbook, and he used some of those millions (at least $3 million, according to one accounting) to wage ad campaigns against the pro-Merrin candidates who challenged 15 of the Republican House members who supported his speakership.
Stephens claims his opponents (which includes Ohio’s Americans for Prosperity chapter) outspent his own supporters two-to-one.
For all that cash outlay, the anti-Stephens crowd only picked off four of the Speaker’s supporters – which would be the max number of votes he could lose of the coalition that gave him the House gavel last year and win the speakership for another two years.
But it’s absolutely possible that some of his former supporters could defect. Or some of his former opponents could defect.
Additionally, with new state House maps in effect for this year’s elections, everyone’s running in a seat that’s at least a little different, and it’s possible that Democrats could pick up one to four seats in the chamber (some estimates put the number as high as six).
Ohio’s term limits come into play, too – which is why the “Merrin faction” really can’t be described as such any more: the always-the-bridesmaid-never-the-speaker is termed out.
But Senate President Matt Huffman is termed out of the state Senate, too, and he’s not only looking to return to the state House, but he’s also taken up the extremist Merrin cause as his own; the candidates who won their primaries against Team Stephens candidates claim that Huffman helped them out.
Huffman is expected to both win election to the state House in the fall and challenge Stephens for the speakership.
Even though the primary was weeks ago at this point, this messy-ass Buckeye State saga just will not quit.
The latest wrinkle is that, just this week, the anti-Stephens faction of the House GOP (which, remember, is a majority of that caucus, but not a majority of the chamber itself – Merrin had 43 Republican votes in 2023, and Stephens had to add Dems to his 22 to win the gavel) assembled and voted to strip Stephens of his control over the OHRA campaign coffers.
Those 38 Republicans (out of the House’s current 67) voted to instead give control to Rep. Phil Plummer, who, as noted above, is staunchly anti-Stephens and will almost certainly support Huffman in the speakership contest next year.
Without control of the Ohio House Republicans’ campaign cash, Stephens is going to lose a lot of his ability to trade financial support this fall for speakership support next year.
And the pro-Huffman folks might even be content to withhold funds from any pro-Stephens members in competitive seats – after all, a couple of extra Democrats won’t meaningfully change the balance of power in the chamber, but a couple fewer Stephens supporters will make all the difference in House leadership.
But enough on elections that have already happened. A couple of bangers are coming up, so it’s time to look ahead.
A few months ago in this space, I mentioned that Michigan Democrats were going to lose their two-seat majority in the state House because a couple of their members went and got themselves elected to other offices last November.
But thanks to smart rules passed by Democrats when they assumed majority control in 2023, they still functionally control the chamber, even if they can’t win floor votes without at least one Republican breaking ranks.
Republicans, for their part, have jumped at the opportunity to slow down Democrats’ legislative agenda in the intervening months.
Next week, we’ll find out if Dems are able to reconstitute their 56-54 majority or if … well, something else happens.
The Detroit-area seats are blue as hell (Joe Biden won HD-25 59-40 and HD-13 64-35 in 2020), so they shouldn’t be hard for Democrats to keep in their column, but special elections are, well, special, so you just never know.
Something we do know, though, is that the Republican in the HD-25 contest wants to ban all abortion without exception, so, well, there’s that.
Meanwhile, the Republican in the HD-13 race apparently really really hates talking to the media. Ronald Singer lost the general election for this seat in 2022 67%-33%.
So, not exactly nailbiters, but still something to keep an eye on for Tuesday.
Also worth noting: We’re four months into an election year (for most but not all states, yes), so special elections are going to slow waaaaaay down pretty soon.
A couple more hit later this month, and then there’s one in May, one in July, and another in October.
After that, most specials will be held to coincide with Election Day 2024.
One very special election that will apparently not be happening this year is the attempted recall of Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
Our fave!
Earlier this year, some MAGA types who find Vos insufficiently election denier-y started organizing to trigger a recall election to bounce him from office.
The same folks tried – and nearly succeeded in – taking Vos out in the 2022 primaries.
This week, we learned that the conservative activists behind the Vos recall attempt definitively failed to gather enough signatures to trigger such an election.
There’s some confusion over which district a Vos recall would be held in – and, thus, which district the required signatures would have to be gathered in – now that new, way-less-gerrymandered legislative maps are in place for the November elections.
It didn’t end up mattering in this instance, though; organizers submitted signatures both from Vos’ existing district and his new one, and neither batch met the 25%-of-the-voters-who-cast-ballots-for-governor-last-time threshold.
But the anti-Vos conservatives aren’t giving up; they’ve already launched a second recall attempt against him.
For this go-round, the recall petition signatures are due on May 28.
We’ll see if these “whack-jobs, morons, and idiots” (Vos’ words for them, not mine) can get their act together this time.
Okay, one note before I bounce:
Because I value your trust and strongly believe that not disclosing such affiliations and associations is pretty gross, I want to let y’all know that I’m doing some work with Sister District these days (which, if you’re not familiar with them, you totally should be! They’re doing some of the most impactful work in the state legislative space out there).
Also, with all the above talk of elections, I wanted to plug some cool research (and an associated event) they’re dropping in a week and change.
Not-so-fun fact: One of the biggest problems in state legislative elections is one that you, even as an erudite consumer of this missive, might not be tuned in to: downballot roll-off, which is that thing when a voter checks a box or two at the top of the ticket (president, senator, governor, etc.) but doesn’t keep voting down the rest of the ballot.
Turns out there are big differences between which party’s voters are more likely to do it, and, well, it’s Democrats.
As a result, even in a state with fair district maps, Democratic legislative candidates often have to outperform their up-ticket counterparts to win seats and majorities in legislative chambers.
More on this to come, but if I’ve piqued your interest at all, you can sign up for a briefing Sister District is holding announcing some cool new research and polling data on this issue next Monday, April 22, at 3 p.m. ET. right here.
Anyway, thanks for hanging in, and stay awesome.