In Minnesota, Democratic lawmakers are threatening to stay away from the state capital this week to prevent Republicans from trying to claim control of the House of Representatives.
In Michigan, Republican senators, just one seat behind Democrats, are calling for a special election as soon as possible to fill a seat they believe can be flipped.
And in Virginia, Democratic candidates in last week's special election have been pushing hard to keep their majorities in both chambers, as Democrats try to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
As state legislatures convene across the country this month, a series of knife battles for party control have heightened the degree to which political racism has permeated, not just in Congress, but in statehouses across the country.
The battle for office is putting pressure especially on Democratic lawmakers, who, unlike four years ago, face even higher stakes. They are already playing defense as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office again, bolstered by the Republican takeover of Congress.
“As Trump and his MAGA allies in the states return to office, it is important to build and protect Democratic power in the states,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Republicans now control most of the state house. But Democrats captured four state legislatures in 2022, and consolidated that power on progressive laws related to abortion, voting rights and more.
In 2024, however, Republicans, arguing that the Democrats had gone too far, regained a majority in the Michigan House, tied the Minnesota House and stormed into Vermont.
Since Election Day, the most dramatic battle has been unfolding in Minnesota. State Senator Kari Dziedzic, a Democrat from Minneapolis, died of cancer, leaving the chamber deadlocked 33-33.
“Nothing can be done until a special election,” said Representative Lisa Demuth, the House Republican leader and speaker-designate at the hearing. “The problem of, 'Well, it's going to be a few weeks, we have to pretend we're 67 anyway' – that's not how math works.”
He also suggested that a majority of Republicans would refuse to seat Representative Brad Tabke, a Democrat who won re-election by 14 votes after losing 20 absentee ballots. Six of those 20 voters later testified that they voted for Mr. Tabke, which gives him an insurmountable edge. The judge is expected to rule at any time, but Ms. Demuth said there should be a special election, regardless of what the judge decides.
In response, the Democrats passed the opportunity to boycott the session, with the aim of denying the Republicans the necessary number – a majority of the full members must be present – to kick it off.
Recent moves elsewhere have underscored the divisions. In Texas, House Democrats fled the state to Washington in 2021 to temporarily deny Republicans the two-thirds quorum needed to pass a limited ballot measure.
In Oregon – which also has a two-thirds quorum requirement – Republican senators intending to stop bills on climate policy, taxes and abortion are so frequent that voters change the state constitution to prevent such absences. Most Republican senators are also barred from seeking reelection.
But an exit of the type being discussed in Minnesota would be without precedent, said Bill Kramer, vice president and consultant for MultiState, a local government relations firm.
“I don't remember when it was like this when the meeting started,” he said. “You set the rules, you elect the Speaker, you elect committee chairs – all those kinds of things that set the agenda for the next two years.”
In Virginia, the two contests last week were for the Senate and the House; before this special election, Democrats were holding on to the majority vote in both chambers, which they claimed when they won the House in 2023. At stake, to some extent, was the agenda of outgoing Republican governor Glenn Youngkin, who is barred by the state constitution from running for a second term.
Voting was light in Loudoun County, where one House race and one Senate race were up for grabs. Harish Sundaraman, 24, said he votes for both Democrats, although he does not fully follow the party's policies. He would like to know a little more about the candidates, he said. But buoyed by his views on abortion rights, Democrats hope to push ahead in the upcoming legislative session.
“I thought that if I voted for the Democratic Alliance in this local election, it might be useful,” said Mr. Sundaraman, who works in information technology in Washington, DC.
In the end, two Democrats and one Republican won, leaving the balance of power unchanged.
In total, Republicans now control the legislature in 28 states, and Democrats in 18. (Other states are divided, undecided or led by a bipartisan coalition.)
One vote can be big, even in districts where one party is in power. In North Carolina, a legislature that abruptly switched its party from Democrat to Republican enabled Republican leaders to put a 12-week limit on most abortions in 2023, overriding Gov. Roy Cooper, Democrat.
Few sitting state legislators have more experience with the whiplash of paper thin lines than members of the Pennsylvania House. After 2022, Pennsylvania became one of only two states where different parties controlled both chambers of the legislature. Although Republicans hold a comfortable majority in the Senate, the Democrats' hold on the House has been precarious, sometimes vanishing entirely.
In 2024, despite the Democrats losing the presidential race, a US Senate seat and several Congressional seats, there is not a single seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. So the Democrats kept the same number of seats they had two years earlier.
Then in December, the Democrat had a medical emergency, and has been in the hospital ever since. As has been the case many times over the past two years, the House has returned to a working tie.
But when members of the House met on Tuesday, the first day of the new session, the selection of the speaker moved forward smoothly and quickly, without the backroom deals and long drama that surrounded the vote two years ago. Partly because of a compromise with Republicans over House rules of procedure, the legislature quickly re-elected the previous Democratic speaker on a voice vote.
“I think everyone has learned their lesson,” said Representative Michael Schlossberg, a Democrat, describing himself as “a majority whip with no margin for error.” The past two years have had their challenges, he said, but the team's narrow margin has its advantages, forcing compromise and discipline.
As for lessons for colleagues in other states, he offered this: “Don't confuse short-term gain with long-term gain.”
And, referring to the various strategies for the club's profits that have backfired, he added: “Don't be too nice.”
Courtney Mabeus-Brown contributed reporting from London County, Va.
Source link
