It’s not really that easy. To become a state, a territory has to first write a constitution, get it passed in a referendum and then petition for statehood. Then it is a simple act of congress. But the process cannot happen overnight.
To get back to the main thread, the election will not be fought over gun control. Reasonable gun control (banning assault weapons is a majority position anyway). It will be on the economy. The Reps will do everything they can to prevent the economy from improving.
This means first getting Covid-19 under control. And second going deeply into debt to sustain and support the economy. It’s 1933 all over again and you need a Rooseveltian revolution, not an Obama type attempt at bipartisanship. And taking the side of Main Street, not Wall Street. There are serious problems and the Dems have to be seen to be solving them. Then the 2024 election will be like the 1936 one where they won all but two states (ME and VT, oddly enough).
If the court starts disallowing all this legislation, then the time will come for packing.
So this thread seems to have been overtaken by many, many events of the last three months (remember court packing? making DC a state? those were the days!), but now that we at least know what the final shape of the next Congress is going to be I thought it might be fun to ramp up the conversation again. I was inspired by an article in today’s Politico about how Biden and team are already gearing up for the midterms and trying to avoid some perceived missteps that Obama made in 2010. Specifically, working hand-in-glove with the DNC and state parties rather than setting up a parallel political organization, focusing on quickly getting wins that will concretely impact voters before November 2022, etc.
History heavily leans against the Democrats in 2022, but we live in unprecedented times. The only President since FDR whose party gained House seats in his first midterm election was George W. Bush after 9/11, and its possible that the events of the last week prove as catalyzing. If COVID is vanquished and we’re experiencing a roaring recovery, and Republicans eat their own in primaries to prove whose the most unhinged QAnon conspiracist, Democrats have a good shot at picking up seats even given the currents of history.
AS a resident of a Gerrymandered to hell and gone state, with a GOP dominated legislature that literally ignored the state Supreme Court on redistricting, I think the next 6-9 months will determine if the GOP is going to have their in-house civil war, with pseudo-moderates like Romney and Cheney going up against the Trump faction of the party, which looks to be currently under a takeover attempt by Cruz.
Either the GOP voters will line up behind Cruz (or whomever), or they will split, and stay split until the next presidential. Considering how unclear the next 7 days are, anything is possible.
It may be an extremely difficult problem figuring out how to deprogram the cultists. But if recent events are’t still at least galvanizing those in touch with reality to vote in 2022, we may as well give up.
Also, JFK lost only 4 seats in the House (and gained some in the Senate) and if the Ds can do that in 2022, they would still (barely) have a majority. Given that what JFK, FDR, and GWB have in common is that they all had major crises in their first two years in office that they were perceived at the time to have handled well, I’d say the odds for Biden keeping both houses are a bit better than historical precedent might suggest – he has already got the crisis, and he can’t possibly handle it worse than the last guy.
I think the fact that the Dems lost seats in the November 2020 election is a really ominous sign for them looking ahead to 2022. (And also a really obvious sign that Republican gerrymandering is working well). I don’t think it’s impossible that they hold the House if, as flurb says, they can preside over a roaring economic and COVID recovery and successfully take credit for it, but they will be going against heavy headwinds, including traditional dem-voter apathy at midterms. One can only hope that recent events are still fresh enough to motivate lazy voters.
But really, between now and then every Democrat in every state should be buying Stacey Abrams a beer and figuring out how they can employ her strategies and tactics for increasing voter turnout in their own states.
In '22 there will be eight million newly eligible young voters who have been voting blue by 30 points. And five million fewer old voters. That will help a little to offset the forthcoming spectacular acts of GOP gerrymandering and suppression. It’s gonna be another close House election.
Oh, and the party should be paying Ms Abrams a million bucks a year to head up their national GOTV effort.
Unfortunately I don’t think that’s the only story. Gen X used to be fairly liberal and yet they supported Trump this past election. As people age into their late-40’s some of them start to switch over.
That should read “who have been voting blue by 30 points when they bother to put down their phones long enough to actually show up and vote.” In a Presidential election, sure. In a midterm, don’t count on it.
Hell, look at the primaries in 2020. The day after Super Tuesday (that was less than a year ago??!?) a group of my millennial coworkers were furious that the DNC screwed Bernie a second time and handed the nomination to party stooge Biden. Subtle inquiries determined that only 2 of the 5 actually voted. I was spared their wrath when I told them I voted for Warren. Apparently it hadn’t sunk in yet that 1 vote is worth more than 1000 retweeted Feel the Bern memes or pussy hat selfies.
Yeah, I go back-and-forth on the Dems chances. On the positive side, one of the reasons so many presidents have had a disastrous first midterm is because of the “receding wave” – i.e. they pulled a lot of marginal House candidates across the finish line with them when they were elected, who then lost in their reelections when the president wasn’t on the ballot. Biden certainly didn’t pull many if any Democratic House candidates with him, so there aren’t many “probably too Democratic for their district” House members.
On the other hand – redistricting’s really going to be a bear. Not just that Rs control so many states, but that that they control the RIGHT states. The states that are likely to add House seats – Texas, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina – are under exclusive or partial R control. Texas alone could pick up four seats, half of what the Rs need to take back the House.
Gallup’s annual report on Americans’ ideological views found that more people identified as conservative and moderate than liberal in 2020, in keeping with findings from previous years. According to the pollster, 36 percent described themselves as conservative, 35 percent as moderate and 25 percent as liberal, numbers that were largely unchanged from 2019.
On the other hand, one of the driving reasons for midterm declines is that, in presidential years, turnout enthusiasm for the winning president can drive a big gain in the presidential party and put swing district into the president’s party, which then recedes in the midterm year when the president isn’t on the ballot.
But we had huge turnout on both sides this time driven by both candidates, many of those swing districts are now in R hands as a result, and Trump won’t be on the ballot either. It’s not clear to me which side’s turnout would fall the most.
I have a really great idea for getting Republicans to pass stronger gun laws.
I am strong believer in racial justice and I also believe in private gun ownership. I don’t think you should be allowed to own an arsenal, I don’t think you should be allowed to brandish. I think guns should be licensed and regulated. I think safety needs to be a priority. A good place to start with that would be to take the NRA’s gun safety rules and put the force of law behind them.
But everyone’s circumstances are different and I think the decision on whether they want to keep a gun in their home for personal safety should be up to them. I don’t want to take anyone’s guns away.
But it’s long frustrated me that the gun debate in this country has become a white issue. Even though it has an outsized impact on people of color,the issue is always is framed in the context of suburban school shooting and right wing militias.
I think, as we move towards a solution that allows those of us that want a firearm to protect our homes, who want to carry guns if they have a need, who want to sport shoot, we need to work hard to issue that people of color, especially black men, have the same access to these weapons and that their right to own and carry them is equal to that of white men, and the laws must be framed so the gun rights of black men are not suppressed.
Maybe if we take this approach, we can find a compromise.
Either way it would turn out badly. I have no idea why, but Florida isn’t trending blue like it should based just on demographics. If this happened we would end up with either senator Ivanka or a Little Marco that moved far to the right in order to compete in the primary. I have no idea who would even challenge for the Democratic nomination. The only challengers I can think of are the retreads like Charlie Crist and Bill Nelson who nobody would get excited about.
So why can’t Congress pass laws based on Article I, Section 4 to address gerrymandering?
US Constitution - Article I. Section 4
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
So pass a law establishing independent redistricting commissions in each State to handle it. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to stop state legislature districts from being gerrymandered, but they could stop Congressional ones.
Even if this were to get by the SCOTUS, the practical problem would be that if the Republicans ever gained control of Congress (and the will sooner or later) they will change the law again to their advantage. Probably in such a way that Democrats would have an even harder time getting elected than they do currently.
Why would SCOTUS object? The textualists would have a hard time fighting it, wouldn’t they. It’s pretty black-and-white.
Well, it would be good for 10 years at least. So, if the Republicans ever gained control of Congress, it would be in Districts that were built under that system. So why change it (if you’re GOP)?
Not that you’re wrong, of course they would change it. But it would give you 10 more years to get independent commissions locked into State Constitutions in key states.