GOP aims for gains in legislatures

politico.com ^ | 9/29/14 | Steven Shepard

[cotton1706]

For Republicans at the state level, 2014 isn’t just about maintaining the gains they’ve made in governorships. The GOP also hopes to increase its share of the nation’s state legislative chambers — potentially increasing its foothold on the levers of power to set policy.

Republicans effectively control 59 of the 98 state legislative chambers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures; Nebraska has a unicameral, nonpartisan legislature. It’s a huge swing since before the previous midterm elections, in 2010, when Democrats controlled 62 chambers.

The GOP surge at the state level allowed them to lock in many of their gains — and cement their advantage on the congressional map — through the redistricting process that followed. And those enduring majorities are just the start of conservative movements in many of these states.

Both parties say they’re on offense this year. Republicans are targeting 16 chambers they think they can flip, while Democrats hope to chip away at the GOP’s gains with a significant investment in field efforts.

Here are some state legislative chambers to watch this cycle:

[cotton1706]

There are downballot races out there too! In 2010, the republicans took 700 legislative seats and 19 legislative chambers. Hopefully, we'll see more significant gains in November. And these legislators will eventually bubble up into the US House and Senate!

[Dilbert San Diego]

The MSNBC crowd and Daily Kos crowd have bitched about how these GOP legislatures have done gerymandering to protect their seats in Congress and legislatures.

As if the Democrats have not done the same when they are in power.

We should send them a message from their hero Obama, that elections have consequences. Why is it okay for liberals to lecture us that elections have consequences if their people get elected, but if they lose out in the electoral process, somehow it’s unfair????

[txhurl]

35 days to go!

[cotton1706]

Democrats controlled the redistricting process after the censuses of 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980, which is why they were able to consolidate their power and keep control of state legislatures and the House of Representatives for 40 years. That began to change with the 1990 census, resulting in the 1994 landslide, then again in 2000 and again in 2010.

Which is why the downballot races are so important, and control of the legislatures is key, not to mention getting a Convention of States going.

[Yosemitest]

I would NOT count on it.

DemocRATs are SEALING ELECTIONS BEFORE we vote !

Here's a MUST WATCH VIDEO about STEALING ELECTIONS !
Make sure you tell ALL your acquaintances to watch it, and watch it RIGHT NOW !

HBO Hacking Democracy The Pima County Way, Card Reader and RTA Election. ( 16:30 )
By AUDITAZ Uploaded on Apr 24, 2011

In the RTA election of May 16, 2006 more than 100 optical scanners failed on Election Day at various precincts.

Election day I was out inspecting precincts and once I found that a large number of optical scanners were failing to work at the precincts.
I called Rep. Ted Downing, (Chair of State Party Election Integrity committee) also (at that time) the Chair of our county party "Donna Branch-G".
Both went to the election department to see what the problem was
and that is when they found the Microsoft -Access manual open right next to the central tabulator.

Donna and Ted took pictures of this.
Both were told that they had no oversight rights because
this was a nonpartisan election
thus stopping us from actually finding out
if MS-access was on the system
and if the central tabulator networked to other computers in the office.
By the time we got to check the computer several months later the program was gone.
However, we did find MS-Access on the Maricopa Election Department and that system count 58% of the vote state wide.

The Diebold-GEMS software is built on MS-Access program.
It is illegal by state law to have software that has not been approved and or certified by the SOS office such as MS- Access.
This is because
MS Access easily backdoors the database
and one could change anything they want by passing the GEMS Audit log.

To make it worse
the normal backup which was always done EVERY election night
and/or major event was not until the following Friday at 5:01pm.

Additional Facts:
In the case of the RTA, the election department after processing 13,000 early ballots 6 days out,
went in early the next morning
and did a backup over that database
destroying that file called "early ballots day 1"
and replaced it with a new day 1 backup,
then illegally printed (5 days before the election) 2 election summary reports 10 minutes apart.
These reports by law are not supposed to be printed until one hour after the polls close.
Such a process took many computer moves that could never be a simple "slip of the finger".

Fact: Even though Brian Crane told the Judge Miller
this was a normal practice,
examination of the computer logs showed this had only been done one other time since 2000.
In actuality, Bryan Crane did backups at lunch
and before he went home at night.

AUDIT-AZ
Producer: John R Brakey
Esq: Bill Risner
BBV: Jim March

[SoFloFreeper]

Remember:

The more state legislatures that are controlled by conservatives would mean it would be much easier to pass a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT...of course, we'd likely need to have the federal House and Senate, too, but I'm just saying.....

[ExCTCitizen]

I would love to see Connecticut senate go to the GOP, but it won’t...I hope a few Dems in Connecticut will lose...