Posted on 10/19/2014 7:30:28 AM PDT by right-wing agnostic
Most of the midterm attention seems to be on control of the United States Senate, with some attention on key gubernatorial races like Florida and Wisconsin, and with a smidgen of notion to the size of the Republican House majority after 2014. Most pundits see Republicans padding that current majority by some seats.
There is another level to the 2014 midterm that passes almost completely under the political radar: control of state legislatures. Twenty years ago, in the 1994 midterms, Republicans made dramatic gains in state legislatures – a vital part of our constitutional system, which had been utterly dominated by Democrats for a century.
How weak had Republicans been in state legislatures?
Consider these data. After the 1980 Reagan landslide, Democrats held 74 of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers. After the 1984 Reagan landslide, in which Democrats carried only one state, Democrats held 67 out of the 98 chambers. After George H. Bush beat Dukakis in 1988, Democrats held 72 out of 98 chambers. Even when Republicans were winning the White House easily, Democrats held overwhelming strength in state legislatures.
This really changed when Newt Gingrich nationalized the midterm election with his Contract With America, which swept Republicans into secondary statewide elective offices, like lieutenant governor and state attorney general, as well as state legislative seats. After the 1994 midterms, Republicans held 46 of the 98 state legislative chambers; they held the same number after Clinton was re-elected in 1996. This strength actually grew after the 1998 midterms, when Republicans were losing House seats, and grew again after the 2000 presidential election.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Article V Ping please!
The question put before the group is how many of the 98 State Chambers are needed to make an application for an Assembly of States to exercise Article V of the US Constitution.
Conservative Democrats were a viable force in some states for much longer than they were on the national level. Many of the Southern Legislatures, even though Dem in the 80’s, probably was more conservative than the U.S. House is now. While better Pub than Dem, the surface being analyzed in this article looks much more positive than the underlying reality.
Because Nebraska is unicameral, there are 99 state legislative bodies in the calculation, not 100. You would need 68 (or 67 if Nebraska is in the calculation) legislative bodies that constitutionists -- not Republicans! -- need to control to get the correctly worded Article V petitions into the Archivist's hands.
Thank you, excellent information. The article here does however mention there are 98 not 99 state chambers. Nebraska and its unicameral legislature bring the total to 99. Perhaps the writer is in error.
The author said “partisan”. The unicameral Nebraska legislature is nonpartisan.
To all of the 'we can't do anything at an Article V convention because of the states' naysayers, consider:
After the 2014 midterm, which looks increasingly like a Republican wave election that will bring victory to Republicans in state elections as well as Senate and House elections, that 56 state legislative chambers could grow . . .
The average person is p!ssed. The time is ripe to press for an extra-congressional convention to save our republic.
Thanks for the ping.
Then the author excluded Nebraska from the tally of 98. You are correct then, it is 99 state legislative chambers and of those 2/3’s are needed to make application for an Article V process.
However, must the two chambers of a bicameral state be in agreement?
For a bicameral state, I would think both chambers are needed to make application for their state. Or is it just state representatives that make application? Or can it be one or the other, either state senate or state representative body?
Both chambers are needed, and they must pass the Amendments Convention petition with exactly the same wording.
So then the count must be in how many states are ‘Constitutionalists’ in control of both chambers. Do we have any idea?
I'll answer some of that in the essay I'll post tomorrow. I'm pinging Jacquerie, and he'll ping the rest of the gang.
Ok good.
If we can count Nebraska’s state legislature to join in with Article V, then we need 33 state legislatures comprising 66 state legislative bodies.
Regardless of how many state legislatures are in support of Article V, we need a strong grass roots campaign to nudge state legislators including republican legislators to get with the movement.
Again as always, it comes down to fundraising. The good news is the funds are out there, the problem is in settling on which organization will collect and follow through. Where has Jim Demint gone these days? He would be ideal to fill this need.
Not fundraising. Education. A surprising number of state legislators don’t understand what an Amendments Convention can and cannot do. The Birch Society and Phyllis Schlafly have been successful in preventing at least one state from petitioning for an Amendments Convention. There needs to be a greater education effort.
Thanks for pinging me on this. I certainly hope we take more legislative seats AND chambers. We took 700 in 2010. Here’s to 700 more!
Yes you are right about that but funds can help the logistics and necessary communications for the educational component.
Organizing grassroots supporters and having local press give it time also helps with the educational aspect.
"we need 33 state legislatures"34 to be precise (2/3 + 1). I believe 3 states have already made the COS application (Georgia, Alabama and Alaska, I think).
"Organizing grassroots supporters"This is under way. Have you volunteered at conventionofstates.com yet?
I wrote if we have Nebraska’s unicameral legislature, then we need 33 ***more*** comprising 66 state chambers (state senates and representative bodies).
It becomes easier with the fact that state governors are not needed.
To nudge state legislative bodies to get behind the movement requires a large broad grassroots effort.
I am inclined to believe that an effective grassroots effort that focuses on the state representative body will sway by momentum the state senate body.
Publius is correct that an educational effort needs to be made that counters the ‘Runaway Convention’ hysteria that is pushed by republicans. It is easy to counter their arguments but the effort requires a funding component to get the job done.
Yes. But it needs a fundraiser, a very good one.
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