NYT
The State-by-State Revival of the Right OCT. 7, 2014 < _Thomas B. Edsall _ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/contributors/thomasbedsall/index.html) While politics in Washington remain gridlocked, the conservative revolution has been thriving outside the Capitol beltway. Republicans in states across the Midwest and the South are determined to eviscerate liberal policies and to entrench the political power of the right. Twenty-three state governments are now _under the complete control_ (http://www.statescape.com/resources/partysplits/partysplits.aspx) – governor, house and state senate — of the _Republican Party_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inlin e=nyt-org) , more than at any time since Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidency in 1952. Democrats control 14 states. The rest are divided. Not only are Republicans today in charge of more states, they are exercising their power to gain partisan advantage far more aggressively than their Democratic counterparts. The state-based revival of the right has the strong backing of conservative groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, Americans for Tax Reform, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS and the network of tax-exempt organizations tied to the Koch brothers. There are some common themes to the current Republican state-based agenda. The most visible effort is the drive to gut public sector unions, a key source of votes and financial support for Democrats. Wisconsin, under Republican Governor Scott Walker, has led the charge on this front. With _support from the Koch brothers_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/us/22koch.html) , the state has _severely restricted_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/us/12wisconsin.html) collective bargaining rights for public employees, ended mandatory union dues and limited wage hikes to the rate of inflation. Both supporters and opponents of Walker’s initiative realized that this was a key battleground – pathbreaking, in fact – hence _the rallies, the recall_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/politics/walker-survives-wisconsin-recall-effort.html) and so on. Many Republican-controlled states have weakened or eliminated laws and regulations protecting the environment. In _North Carolina_ (http://southernspaces.org/2013/north-carolina-state-shock) the state legislature cut the budgets of regulators and prohibited local governments from enacting strict pro-environmental rules. The state chapter of the League of Conservation Voters has _rated_ (http://nclcv.org/assets/pdfs/scorecard_2013.pdf) members of the legislature every year since 1999. Between 1999 and 2012, the group issued North Carolina a total of 48 scores of zero. In 2013 alone, 82 North Carolina Republicans got zeros. The anti-abortion movement has held sway in many of the 23 Republican-led states, successfully winning passage of legislation designed to force the closing of abortion clinics and to make access to related services as onerous as possible. The Guttmacher Institute publishes _a description_ (http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/sfaa.html) of state-level abortion laws. The measures adopted in conservative states generally include some or all of these restrictions: a woman must wait 24 hours and accept counseling designed to discourage abortion; a minor must obtain parental consent; public funding is restricted to abortions in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest; the woman must undergo ultrasound and the provider must show and describe the image to the woman. Perhaps the most controversial action taken by Republicans in states where they have power has been the approval of legislation designed to restrict minority and student voting through photo ID laws and limitations on early voting. In 2013, the North Carolina legislature _enacted_ (http://www.democracy-nc.org/downloads/NewVotingLawSummaryAug2013.pdf) a major revision of state voting laws that Dan T. Carter, a prominent historian of the South, _describes_ (http://southernspaces.org/2013/north-carolina-state-shock#sthash.xRAyCsve.dpuf) as the “nation’s most extensive effort at voter suppression.” Carter writes: Every change in North Carolina’s new election code was targeted at reducing potential Democratic voters regardless of race, creed, color or national origin. The state’s VIVA/Election Reform law, passed on a straight party line vote, now requires a government-issued photo ID card to vote, but rejects student IDs, public-employee IDs, or photo IDs issued by public assistance agencies. Other provisions end Sunday voting (African Americans have a tradition on voting after church) and straight-party ticket voting (fifty seven percent of straight ticket votes are by Democrats), shorten the early voting calendar, (Democratic voters are thirty percent more likely to vote early than Republicans), ban same-day registration during early voting, (a majority of same day registrants are Democrats). State level Republicans have taken a cue from tax bills passed at a national level during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush _to push through tax cuts_ (http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2013-TaxCutRoundup.pdf) with the lion’s share of benefits going to the top of the income distribution. Last year, for example, Mike Pence, the Republican governor of Indiana, signed legislation that slashed rates across the board and eliminated the state _estate tax_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/planning/estate-planning/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) . In an analysis of how the Indiana cuts are distributed by income groups, the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic policy _found_ (http://itep.org/itep_reports/2013/04/5-cut-in-indianas-income-tax-is-stacked-in-favor-of-t he-wealthy.php) that the bottom 20 percent are getting an average cut of $10, those in the middle are getting $56, while the top 1 percent get $1,181. In many respects, the agenda promoted by Republicans at the state level gives the lie to the arguments presented last year by the _Growth and Opportunity Project_ (http://goproject.gop.com/) . The project, an initiative of the Republican National Committee, called for a more welcoming approach to Hispanics and African-Americans and for increased tolerance and less ideological rigidity across the board. The _Goproject report_ (https://goproject.gop.com/RNC_Growth_Opportunity_Book_2013.pdf) warned that voters increasingly see the Republican Party as “‘scary,’ ‘narrow-minded’ and ‘out of touch’ and a party of ‘stuffy old men.’ ” The election on Nov. 4 offers Democrats an opportunity to end Republican Party domination in _as many as five states_ (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/governor/) by defeating incumbent governors in Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia. But even if they win, Democrats will not have the power to reverse conservative legislation. Wherever possible, Republicans in these 23 states _redrew legislative district lines_ (http://www.redistrictingthenation.com/whatis-who.aspx) after the 2010 census with the express purpose of preventing any Democratic bid to dislodge conservative majorities for the rest of this decade. In the battle for control of state legislatures, Democrats are likely to suffer further setbacks this year, according to most pre-election _analyses_ (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/2014-states-legislatures-111440.html) . “The Democrats have more chambers at risk this cycle — and fewer options for flipping chambers held by the GOP,” the magazine Governing _reported_ (http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-2014-state-legislative-races-dem ocrats-play-defense.html) . Republicans currently hold 58 state legislative chambers to the Democrats’ 40. (Nebraska is unicameral and nonpartisan, thus taking two legislative branches, House and State Senate, out of the partisan count.) Just four years ago, before the 2010 election, Democrats had a 62-36 advantage. The current Republican strategy has all the characteristics of a holding action – a finger-in-the-dike approach to the demographic growth of pro-Democratic minorities and the relative decline of pro-Republican whites. The Republican tactics may prove successful in the short term, serving their interests as quickly as they can before the new demographics take hold and perhaps giving the party time to adjust before whites lose their majority status. In the future, the Republican Party will confront two issues: does it have the flexibility to change direction when its current tactics no longer work, and will Hispanics and other constituencies treat such a change in direction as credible? When I asked Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, about the balance of power between the two parties, he responded by email: As for the demographic question, no trend is ‘decisive’ over the long run, because losers adapt.” He noted the widespread acceptance of “a Republican ‘lock’ on the Electoral College in the 1980s. It was a lock until Bill Clinton came along, redefined the _Democratic Party_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democratic_party/index.html?in line=nyt-org) , and spent eight years in the White House. The Republicans – eventually — will do the same thing. Along similar lines, Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, wrote me in an email: Nationally, Democrats’ demographic advantage is growing although it is by no means yet ‘decisive.’ Demographic change is comparatively slow, and parties have time to adjust — if they can figure out how to do so. Right now, Jacobson argues, “Republicans are in better shape overall than at any time since before the New Deal.” Jacobson contends that in the long term Republicans know that trends are unfavorable and that “they cannot easily appeal to blacks, Latinos, socially liberal younger voters, etc., without alienating their core conservative base (older, white, married, religious etc.).” Jacobson’s conclusion: We are in for divided government for the rest of the decade if not beyond, and it will not be a pretty sight, given how polarized the elites are these days. Public discontent with the current state of affairs is high. According to _Gallup_ (http://www.gallup.com/poll/166985/dissatisfied-gov-system-works.aspx) , the percentage of Americans describing themselves as “very” or “ somewhat” dissatisfied “with our system of government and how well it works” has nearly tripled from 23 percent in 2002 to 65 percent in 2014. None of the prospective presidential candidates who have emerged so far has demonstrated the capacity to capitalize on contemporary levels of public disgruntlement. Polarization has made both the Democratic and Republican parties hostile to candidates challenging respective partisan orthodoxies. The paradox is that if dissatisfaction with government continues to deepen, the status quo will become increasingly unsustainable. In the meantime, one thing is clear: Republicans operating at the state level are the only group achieving substantial political change in domestic policy. The evidence of Republican success is strongest in the case of labor unions: “Wisconsin’s public employees are leaving their unions in droves,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel _reported_ (http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/scott-walkers-actions-left-unions-reeling-b9959395z1-216523371.html) in July 2013. Membership in the Wisconsin State Employees’ Union had _fallen by 60 percent_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/business/wisconsins-legacy-for-unions.html) by February, 2014, and union revenues had collapsed to $2 million from $6 million. The anti-union effort has been joined by Republicans in Tennessee, Idaho, Michigan and Indiana. At the state level, Democrats have been complacent, as dangerous and foolish as that might be. They have failed to combat effectively the determination of business interests and of ideological conservatives to secure power. This determination on the right drove the Republican Party to successfully focus on crippling the left in state races in 2010 and 2012, turning the contests of 1980, 1994 and 2010 into Republican wave elections. Democrats today convey only minimal awareness of what they are up against: an adversary that views politics as a struggle to the death. The Republican Party has demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice principle, including its historical commitments to civil rights and conservation; to bend campaign finance law to the breaking point; to abandon the interests of workers on the factory floor; and to undermine progressive tax policy – in a scorched-earth strategy to postpone the day of demographic reckoning. ===================================== Selected Letters LAllen Broomfield, Colo. _Yesterday_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/opinion/the-state-by-state-revival-of-the-right.html#permid=12997712) In 1971 Lewis Powell wrote his memo to the US Chamber of Commerce outlining how capitalism, corporations, and the wealthy could once again gain control of the United States, as they had during the Gilded Age. It involved stacking the courts with sympathetic judges, shaping the media to send the "right" message, recalibrating education to disseminate the "right" knowledge, starting think thanks, spending lots of money, and most of all, destroying labor. (In 1972 Lewis Powell was named to the Supreme Court by Nixon, and later was the justice who declared that corporations were essentially people.) The US Chamber followed the instruction in the memo, the Heritage Foundation was born, and the plan has now come to fruition. Where is the liberal counterpart to all this? To whom do we look for the enormous push to balance government for people, not corporations and capitalism? We need a movement with the same kind of focus and single-mindedness, only aimed at democracy instead of corporatocracy and ultimately, fascism. For my money, Elizabeth Warren can't run soon enough.< andrew pacific palisades, ca _Yesterday_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/opinion/the-state-by-state-revival-of-the-right.html#permid=12998544) The entire West Coast is a Democratic stronghold. In fact, Democrats over 67% of the seats in the California State Legislature. That's allowed this state to implement truly progressive policies over the last couple of years, led by none other than Gov. Jerry Brown. He championed a tax hike, and instead of passing it through the legislature, put it on the 2012 ballot. This, I believe, raised about $6 billion a year in new tax revenue with much of that going toward the public school system. Sure, the right wing has taken over most states. Fortunately, there are still liberal bastions where we actually achieve things and implement common sense policies that are in the best interests of the average Californian.< TRKapner Virginia _Yesterday_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/opinion/the-state-by-state-revival-of-the-right.html#permid=12999213) Back in the 1980's, Ralph Reed and his Christian Coalition achieved near juggernaut power with influence far greater than their numbers could justify. It was accomplished on the shoulders of an insight by Reed, that local elections (school boards, town councils, state legislatures, etc) are not only important, but relatively easy to win. The simple reason is that most people don't bother to vote in these by-elections/. The GOP wins as much as they do in part because they bother to show up on election day, every election day. While it's appalling that the GOP is so bent on restricting it's non-core constituents from voting, the polls still open and those non-core voters can still find a way to show up. The issue is letting minor roadblocks succeed rather than finding a way around them. Once Democratic minded voters figure this out, the election tides, especially in the state governments, will start to turn, but not until then. < Rich Washington DC _Yesterday_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/opinion/the-state-by-state-revival-of-the-right.html#permid=12999238) It isn't a matter of "backing" by A:LEC et al., it's that these orgs are driving the train. They write legislation, run standardized opposition ads, etc. Moreover, neither the media nor their opponents point out the obvious--they aren't grassroots orgs and they are essentially modern day versions of groups like the John Birch Society and the white citizens councils that older people probably think are long gone. The Koch family played important roles in the Birchers and in present day organizations. Politico is co-edited by a son of a Bircher who has never acknowledged his past or reflected on his own politics. The National Review is now dominated by the kind of agenda that Buckley tried to keep out of its pages and purge from Conservative politics. That is the kind of political environment in which we live. NYT Pick Ted Peters Northville, Michigan _Yesterday_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/opinion/the-state-by-state-revival-of-the-right.html#permid=12999275) Nonsense. It's not the right that is taking over, it's the middle taking back the country from the far left. As a nation, we are economically hamstrung by over regulation and over taxation, and are being socially oppressed by the political correctness emanating from our elite universities and the entertainment industry (which includes the main stream media). We are beginning the process of correcting for this imbalance. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/opinion/nicholas-kristof-the-diversity-of-islam.html) based on a history of quality comments. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
