The Phoenix's David Bernstein has a great post on "ghost voting," by which legislators in several states are able to participate in roll-call votes without being present in their chambers. You've got to see how they do it in Texas:
Stateline.org has a handy list of state legislators who blog. None are from Massachusetts or, more curiously, California. For some reason, the activity seems most popular in the South, with Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina each boasting a roster of five or six. It's hard to imagine a Bay State legislator taking the time to update constituents on the daily activities of the Legislature (even if through their own, partisan eyes), but I think it would get more people interested in state politics. Here are two posts from Alabama state Sen. Cam Ward, over at Doc's Political Parlor and Home of Lawn Mower Repair.
From April 23:
The legislative session is now entering its 24th day and with only six more legislative days to go the light is at the end of the tunnel. Of course that could be the light of a very big train coming down the tracks as well. The House is expected to take up the Education Budget on Thursday and I suspect it will pass the House after some, although not much debate that afternoon. You always have less debate on a budget when money is short and there is very little to fight over.
Every hot topic imaginable is on the plate this week. Rep. John Knight’s bill to reduce sales taxes while increasing income taxes is up today. The Jefferson County financial crisis looks likely to spill over into the House Rules Committee this morning. Both of these bills mean that there is a real chance for some sparks to fly today because the votes on these issues are very close in my opinion.
Tomorrow I have a bill in committee to reduce the requirement necessary for third parties or independents to gain ballot access while at the same time the House Judiciary Committee has a host of hot button topics. Legislation to extend the hate crimes law to homosexuals, mandatory registration for stun guns, and a bill to eliminate Alabama’s ban on sex toys all await the committee members for Judiciary. That committee alone will give the reporters enough print to keep them busy for the week.
Reporters cover the Legislature in Alabama? I wonder what that's like...
The National Conference of State Legislatures features a good daily round-up of news from the state capitals, and today there are two good pieces about conflicts of interest among state lawmakers who have "day jobs." Jessica Fender writes about Colorado in the Denver Post:
Pretend you're bar-manager-turned- state Rep. Paul Weissmann, and the House is considering a bill to boost the price of restaurant licenses. Do you vote?
Just to make sure nobody thinks he's voting in his own interest, the real Weissmann says he abstains.
But attitudes seem more relaxed in Kentucky, according to the Herald-Leader's John Cheves:
Democratic Sen. David Boswell, who annually crusades for legalized casino gambling in Kentucky, is also citizen David Boswell, sales manager and registered Frankfort lobbyist for the Owensboro Executive Inn, which wants to open a casino on its premises. Boswell said he would have pushed for casinos regardless of who pays his salary. But he added that a casino would help the hotel, and what's good for his employer is also good for his Senate district.
A state senator in California has collected $306,000 for the hardship of living within running distance from his job. The Los Angeles Times reports that Tom McClintock, who claims to live in his district a couple hundred miles from the capital, actually resides full-time with his family in Elk Grove, a mere 14 miles from Sacramento. Yet he still takes advantage of per diem payments meant for lawmakers who must pay for transportation and lodgings while the legislature is in session. Patrick McGreevey reports:
Overall, McClintock has received $306,000 in per diem while living in Elk Grove during his eight years in the Senate and previous four years in the Assembly. Last year, the senator collected $36,012 in per diem, a record amount for him.
Per diem paid to a legislator whose home is within 50 miles of the Capitol building is considered taxable income. Since he is citing Thousand Oaks as his home, McClintock has taken the money tax-free, atop his annual Senate salary of $116,000.
The receipt of the money by McClintock, while not illegal, is striking because his political career has been fueled by unrelenting opposition to government spending. Several of his unsuccessful campaigns for statewide office have centered on curtailing state spending. McClintock has spared no one, even fellow Republicans such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in decrying bloated budgets.
Per diem payments have long been one of the most cherished perks of state lawmakers, and CommonWealth's Gabrielle Gurley reported in December on federal legislation to make them tax-free.
I was unaware of a Cold War between the two states, but today the Supreme Court allied with Delaware in its attempt to block New Jersey from building a liquified natural gas pier on the other side of the Delaware River. Turns out that the First State has jurisdiction over the entire river along Delaware's northern boundary, right up to the spot where the pier would stick out from the Jersey shoreline. As the Wilmington News Journal's Jeff Montgomery explains:
Most river boundary lines run along the middle of a waterway, but a late 17th century deed made all of the Delaware River -- from shoreline to shoreline -- part of Delaware along the state's northernmost 29 miles of waterfront.
The News Journal account also includes this ominous sentence:
Opponents of BP's plan hailed the decision as a clear victory for Delaware and its Coastal Zone Act conservation law, while one New Jersey lawmaker warned that it could further sour cross-border relations.
I hope the dispute doesn't escalate. These two states definitely have the capability for a lot of chemical weapons.
Stateline.org's Daniel Vock explains how the subprime mortgage crisis could ensnare state governments:
...cities and states that issue tax-exempt bonds to raise money for such projects as road and bridge work or rely on investors to raise student-loan money could confront a series of new problems stemming from the subprime mortgage meltdown...
The problem isn’t with cities or states issuing the securities but with the insurance carriers that promise to pay interest and principal on municipal bonds in the unlikely event that states or local governments default. In recent years, the insurance carriers also began guaranteeing securities based on car loans, commercial real-estate deals, credit card debt and mortgages, including subprime loans that are now defaulting.
Today's Boston Globe also reports on how the subprime fallout is hurting colleges, hospitals, and other nonprofits.
Good magazine's Christopher Ketcham looks at the secessionist movement in Vermont. One of its leaders is 70-year-old author Kirkpatrick Sale, who wants the US out of the Green Mountains:
One day two years ago, I heard Sale speak before 1,500 attendees at a meeting of the SVR. Sale, who has the build and mien of a terrier on methamphetamine, reasoned out the desire for separation from the behemoth. "It is intolerable," he said, "for a citizen to succumb to a government that is in favor of unjust and unjustified warfare, brutal torture in defiance of all conventions, illegal detentions, the fostering of terrorism, war profiteering, sky-high trade deficits. … It is intolerable, I say, for a citizen to live under such a government, in such a country."
"But," Sale went on, "I have no intention of going to Canada, or France. I love my home, and I want to leave this country without leaving home. And the only way to do that, ladies and gentlemen, is … secession." The crowd exploded, but gently.
Sale was also an organizer of the Second North American Secession Convention, held last year in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That event was co-sponsored by the League of the South, which has a Confererate flag on its website. The League wants to separate from the US and form a Southern nation "based on its Christianist faith," with a ban on income, property, and inheritance taxes.
So if lefty Vermont and the right-wing South act in concert to become independent nations, will they immediately declare war on each other?
Last week the Democratic Party made gains in legislative races in Mississippi and Virginia, resulting in the map that you see above. (See the National Conference of State Legislatures for a review of the 2007 elections and a table of the current partisan makeup in all states.) Support for one party at the state legislative level does not necessarily transfer into voter support for that party in presidential elections. Still, outside of the South, where the Republicans have spent about four decades slowly chipping away at Democratic strength at the local level, the map isn't too different from the red vs. blue maps we all know from 2000 and 2004. And the Democratic nominee of 2008 might do well to concentrate on states where the party's label seems less toxic; for example, I would suggest that North Carolina is more promising than Georgia, even if both states have been solidly Republican in recent presidential elections.
The map above gives a very rough estimate of the difference between voters who support Democratic presidential candidates and those whose support Democratic legislative candidates. A few things jump out at me. First, the correlation between presidential vote and state legislative vote seems relatively strong in large Rust Belt states with a history of political machines (historically reformist Minnesota being a notable exception). Second, the Republican Party has some major building to do in the Northeast Corridor and the West Coast. In George W. Bush's three weakest states (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont), the Republicans are even weaker at the state legislative level. Finally, there are several states in which the GOP actually seems stronger at the local than at the presidential level. And two of them, Florida and Ohio, are swing states that produced nightmare results for Democrats in 2000 and 2004.
Our last map isolates states that went for one party in the last presidential election but another party in its most recent legislative elections. The blue states, which are mostly rural and away from the coasts, may be persuaded to go Democratic in 2008 -- if the party's nominee is not seen as captive to East Coast and California interests. (These states may be to the right of the national party on gun control and gay rights, but also more populist than Democratic leaders on NAFTA and other trade issues.) As for the Republicans, the industrial states of Michigan and Pennsylvania stick out as places they should be able to carry if their nominee can tap into the issues that work for the party at the local level.
