Large swaths of the country have recently found themselves at the mercy of some pretty extreme weather patterns—hurricane-force wind gusts, thundersnow, nor’easters, and the like. But neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night stays state legislators from passing laws this March, so let’s check out this week’s statehouse action.
Golfball-sized hail (of bullets): Some good news! The GOP-controlled Florida legislature actually passed some gun safety measures.
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- Some bad news: They voted to arm teachers in the same bill.
- The compromise bill lawmakers sent to the governor’s desk also bans bump stocks, raises the minimum age for rifle purchases from 18 to 21, and imposes a three-day waiting period for all gun sales.
- The Mississippi legislature wants to arm teachers, too.
Meanwhile, in states run by Democrats …
- Oregon became the first state to enact new gun safety legislation since the Florida school shooting.
- On Monday, Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill that bars convicted domestic abusers and people under restraining orders from buying or owning firearms or ammunition.
- On Tuesday, Washington became the latest state to outlaw the manufacture, sale, and ownership of bump stocks.
Drip Drip Drip: That’s the sound of Kentucky Republicans working to gradually and selectively erode women’s reproductive rights.
- The latest corrosive scheme being deployed by the GOP is a bill that would ban a specific type of abortion after 11 weeks.
- House Bill 454 uses intentionally graphic language to describe a procedure commonly known as D&E and would drastically limit women’s access to safe abortions.
Not-so-fun fact: Two other GOP-controlled states—West Virginia and Mississippi—already ban the procedure.
Keep an eye out for similar measures making their way through other GOP-majority legislative chambers.
OMG democracy is, like, SO overrated: We already know that the Republican governors of Florida and Wisconsin are so sick of losing state legislative special elections that they’ve decided to just not hold them for the rest of the year.
- Well, Alabama Republicans are upping the anti-democracy ante; in the wake of last December’s stinging loss of a U.S. Senate seat to a Democrat, they basically want to do away with ALL THE SPECIAL ELECTIONS.
- First, Republicans pushed a measure that would eliminate special elections for U.S. Senate seats; a gubernatorial appointee would instead occupy the seat until the next general election.
- Republicans also want to eliminate most special elections to fill vacant state legislative seats.
- If a vacancy occurs after nearly three years into a lawmaker’s term (fun fact: state representatives and senators all serve four-year terms in Alabama), a special election would not be called to fill the seat.
- Instead, the governor would appoint someone to the post until the next general election.
- Republicans claim that both proposals are aimed at saving money.
Funny how they didn’t care about election costs until they got their butts handed to them in one of those special elections they suddenly want to do away with.
I-owe-a: Iowa Republicans sure seem like they’re in a hurry to screw the heck out of their state budget, core services, school funding … but TAX CUTS WOOOOOOOO
- The GOP majority in the Iowa state Senate fast-tracked a sweeping tax bill that drastically reduces state revenue (to the tune of $1.2 billion annually once it’s fully implemented) and will cut the state’s tax receipts by over $200 million just next year.
- The measure, which awaits consideration in the GOP-controlled state House, is reminiscent of extreme tax-cutting schemes implemented by Republicans in Kansas and Oklahoma several years ago.
Iowa Republicans should maybe Google “tax cuts Kansas Oklahoma” and see how those states fared when they gutted state revenue.
(Spoiler: Not well!)
- In Oklahoma, which slashed its taxes in 2014, many state agencies’ budgets were cut by 40 percent.
- Nearly 100 of the state’s 513 schools have been forced to cut a day out of the week, unable to afford more than four days of classes.
- Troopers on highway patrol are warned to not fill their gas tanks all the way.
- Drunk drivers have been able to keep their licenses because the state can’t afford to employ enough administrative staffers to revoke their driving privileges.
- Teachers haven’t gotten a raise since 2008 (and are considering going on strike if lawmakers don’t fix that right quick).
- In Kansas, not only did their extreme 2012 and 2013 tax cuts fail to generate the jobs Republicans promised, but they resulted in the state’s bond rating getting downgraded multiple times.
- The massive budget holes created by the lost revenue (almost $700 million per year) spurred GOP lawmakers to take some serious shortcuts.
- Republicans raided the state highway fund, which postponed or scrapped many needed road projects.
- They gutted public education funding to such an extreme degree that the state Supreme Court ruled it in violation of the state constitution.
- Voters ousted a slew of GOP anti-tax hardliners in 2016, and just last summer, Democrats and moderate Republicans joined forces to override Gov. Sam Brownback’s veto of a plan that rolled back many of the cuts.
Will Iowa’s state House have a little more fiscal foresight than the Senate and reject these cuts?
We’ll see.
From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee: A dark arc of state legislative intrigue in Colorado reached a dramatic conclusion last Friday as the state House voted to expel Rep. Steve Lebsock—the first member of the chamber to face that fate since 1915.
- Calls for Lebsock’s exit from the legislature began in November, when nine lawmakers, staffers, and lobbyists accused the Democrat of harassment, intimidation and numerous unwanted sexual advances.
- Democratic House Speaker Crisanta Duran called on Lebsock to resign; he refused.
- Just before the legislative session convened in January, Lebsock sent a 28-page manifesto to every House member purporting to demonstrate the falseness of the allegations against him, and he continued to ignore calls for his resignation.
- Last week, House members debated the results of an independent investigation into Lebsock’s harassment.
- The investigation found sexual misconduct allegations against him “credible”; the Democratic majority leader introduced a resolution calling for his expulsion last Tuesday.
- As lawmakers debated Lebsock’s expulsion over the course of the day on Friday, a couple of the disgraced Democrat’s colleagues revealed just how tense the situation had become when they told a reporter they’d taken to wearing bulletproof vests to the Capitol in recent weeks “out of fear of retaliation from Lebsock.”
WTF.
- Ultimately, Colorado House members voted 52 to 9 to expel Lebsock—far more than the two-thirds requirement for such an action.
- But Lebsock decided to go out in a blaze of sour grapes.
- In Colorado, legislative vacancies are temporarily filled by a member of the same party as the lawmaker who vacated the seat.
- So Democrat Lebsock would have been replaced by another Democrat.
- Except that, minutes before the expulsion vote, he changed his party registration from Democrat to Republican.
- So technically Republicans have the right to replace Lebsock with a member of their own party. But they might choose to keep their distance from this ugly situation and decline to do so.
- It was a futile gesture, anyway; even if Lebsock’s replaced by a member of the GOP, Democrats safely retain their majority in the state House.
- And considering that Clinton won this seat (HD-34) by almost 10 points in 2016, any Republican occupying it would likely be replaced by a Democrat this November anyway.
It’s raining women, hallelujah: Democratic candidate recruitment is going extremely well in Pennsylvania this cycle.
- Filing closed on Tuesday, and 56 percent of the candidates vying to run for one of the state’s 228 legislative seats this fall are Democrats.
- Keystone state political observers report that Democratic interest in running for office “appears to be much higher than it has been in at least a decade.”
Fueling this influx of candidates? Women, of course; 98 Democratic women have filed to run for the Pennsylvania legislature.
This delightful data point continues a clear trend.
- 81 Democratic women running for legislative seats in North Carolina.
- 50 Democratic women are running in Arizona (and candidate filing has yet to close).
Also, a fun fact about the state legislative special elections Democrats keep winning: of the 39 red-to-blue flips so far this cycle, 24 of these seats were picked up by women.
Until next week, stay warm/dry/not blown to Oz!