On election night 2018, the Democrats in California didn’t just pick up a half dozen (or more) seats in the US House, basically cutting the Republican delegation to the US House in half. They also won back the two-thirds supermajority in both the State Senate and the State Assembly, which they lost earlier this year as a result of a recall election.
But the Democrats might win significantly more seats than the 27 state senate seats and the 54 state assembly seats required for a two-thirds supermajority. They have already gained 2 state senate seats (the 12th and the 14th) and are leading in the vote counting in the 34th. If they win all three of these state senate seats they will end up with a 29 to 11 seat majority. In the state assembly the Democrats are on track to pick up the 16th, the 38th, the 40th, the 74th, the 76th and possibly the 77th (though the Democrat is still trailing in the vote counting in the 77th as of this writing). This would mean either a 60 to 20 seat majority or a 61 to 19 seat majority. These kinds of lopsided results have not been seen in the California legislature for many decades.
So, then the question is what will Governor Gavin Newsom and the Democratic supermajority do with their victories when they are sworn in in January 2019? With the two-thirds supermajority the Democrats can raise taxes without relying on any GOP votes in the legislature. Will they enact higher taxes on the rich and the large corporations in order to fund better health care for all Californians and also undocumented immigrants? Will they give teachers a pay raise? Will they hire more teachers so as to reduce class size in overcrowded schools? Will they provide more funding for the state university system, allowing for reduced tuition?
These are the questions that must be asked now that the voters of California have signaled impatience with the status quo.