This Week in Statehouse Action: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Session edition

‘Twas the month before session, and all through the land

Lawmakers were stirring with new bills in hand.

Democratic hopes were hung high, for the very next year

The last election before redistricting would finally be here.

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That’s right—next year, elections will be held for almost every state’s legislature (Virginia, New Jersey, Louisiana, Maryland, and Alabama have no legislative general elections in 2020, and the Michigan state Senate isn’t up).

And in all those states, it’s the last election before the next round of redistricting.

The fact that Republicans are nervous about dominating their next opportunity to draw congressional and state legislative district maps isn’t really news, especially given recent concerns about the Republican State Legislative Committee’s leadership (you can read all about the failings of RSLC president Austin Chambers here).

But the RSLC seems to be struggling with fundraising as well. Potentially unnerved by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee’s continued record-breaking hauls this cycle, RSLC is bringing in some big guns to raise the money they’ll need to protect chamber majorities in places like Pennsylvania, Texas, North Carolina, and Michigan.

Are you ready for … the Erstwhile Speaker Squad?

Paul Ryan, John Boehner, and Newt Gingrich are lending their collective weight to the RSLC’s fundraising efforts to protect the chamber majorities they’ll need to execute another round of congressional GOP gerrymandering in 2021.

Boehner looked up from his merlot long enough to outline the stakes of next fall’s statehouse races with the emotion he’s known so well for:

“The outcomes of these elections will have an everlasting impact on the future of our country.”

Dude, Republicans have spent the entire last decade hammering that fact home. WE KNOW.

Fairytale of Frankfort: Democrat Andy Beshear has been sworn in as Kentucky’s new governor, and Republican Matt Bevin is … well, honestly, I care even less than I know.

But Bevin gave his state a huge helping of “screw you guys, I’m going home” on his way out the door in the form of 161 pardons and 419 commutations (though over 300 of those were for people serving time for soley drug-related offenses).

But really, it’s not the number of pardons and commutations. It’s some of the folks who received them.

Take, for instance, Blake Walker, convicted of killing his parents in 2003.

Or Kurt Smith, found guilty of murdering his six-week-old son.

Or Delmar Partin, convicted of beheading a woman and stuffing her in a barrel.

Or Kathy Ann Harless, who left her newborn in a outhouse to die.

Or Dayton Jones, convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old in 2016

Or Micah Schoettle, sentenced to 23 years in prison last year for raping a child.

But the real cake-taker is Patrick Baker, who was convicted of reckless homicide in 2017 and had served just two years of his 19-year sentence.

Members of Baker’s family were nice enough to hold a fundraiser for Bevin, and they donated to his gubernatorial campaigns.

I’m sure you’re shocked to learn that Bevin did not see fit to also pardon Baker’s co-defendants. 

Kentucky lawmakers are now considering ways of preventing future governors from exercising their pardon authority in the time between the election and the swearing-in of a new governor or in the month preceding an election.

Yes, Matt Bevin may have ruined meaningful application of the pardon and commutation process for everyone

Later that very same week, Bevin’s Democratic replacement used his new gubernatorial powers for good.

Making good on a campaign promise, Gov. Andy Beshear issued an executive order restoring the voting rights to 140,000 Kentuckians who had been convicted of non-violent felonies and had completed their sentences. 

A Holly Jolly Courtmas: Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have been angry at the state Supreme Court ever since it had the temerity to overturn and redraw the state’s extremely gerrymandered congressional map in early 2018.

First, GOP lawmakers moved to impeach the Democrats on Pennsylvania’s highest court. That effort ultimately fizzled, but Republicans tried another route: They amended a redistricting reform bill to include a provision that would end the statewide election of state Supreme Court justices (a practice Republicans were just fine with for decades until Democrats won a majority on the court) and instead create regional “judicial districts,” creating the very real possibility of a high court as gerrymandered as the state’s congressional map had been.

That effort died, too (as did the redistricting reform it was tied to), but Republicans are back at it, and hard.

The GOP-controlled House has passed a stand-alone proposed amendment to the state constitution that would allow lawmakers themselves to draw judicial districts for the state Supreme, Superior, and Commonwealth courts.

Four Republicans had sufficient scruples to join their Democratic colleagues in voting no.

The proposal now goes to the Senate, where it must pass this session, and then it must pass both chambers again during the 2021-2022 legislative session, and then it will go before voters to be approved as a referendum.

Welp, that’s all for this week. Don’t you have some last-minute shopping to do? Mulled wine to drink? Whatever the reason, call it a day, a week, a …. year?

Just print this out and show it to your boss, I’m sure she won’t mind.

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