The pundits who live in cable TV-land tell us to keep our eyes
on the looming battle royale in Washington, D.C. In one corner, the
242-member-strong Reagan Republican majority in the House of
Representatives, which can pass almost any conservative legislation
and defeat any liberal effort. They are assisted by the 47
Republican senators who can (unless the Democrats change the rules)
filibuster any truly destructive liberal proposal. And on some
issues, Senate Republicans might be able to join forces with any
four of 12 vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection in 2012
to pass legislation through the Senate.
In the other corner stand Obama with his veto and Harry Reid’s
Democratic majority in the Senate. The Senate Democrats have
near-total control over the schedule and the determination of which
votes will take place. And the Democrat-friendly establishment
media will referee the bout.
Yes, out in America voters support the GOP agenda of repealing
Obamacare and reducing both spending and taxes, but within the
Beltway the two teams each have veto power over the other. Watching
this “Mexican standoff” for the next two years will, to mix
metaphors, look like watching well-matched sumo wrestlers push each
other around, or two rugby teams contest the same two yards for
hours.
There will be no big victories or losses. Obama’s plans for ever
bigger government cannot pass the House. Republicans’ plans to roll
back the damage of the last two (or 20) years can be stopped in the
Senate and/or vetoed by Obama. So in D.C. the real action will be
each party positioning itself for 2012. Republicans are likely to
win a net gain of at least four of the 23 Democratic seats
contested in 2012, thereby gaining a majority. It is possible they
could win 13 seats for a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority. The big
prize, therefore, is the presidential veto pen.
The battlefield is quite different in the 50 states. There the
2010 elections yielded examples of unified government, as opposed
to the gridlock gripping the U.S. Congress. It is at the state
level that legislatures and governors will enact game-changing
legislation that could move the country toward or away from
European welfare statism.
WHEN THE DUST SETTLED from the 2010 elections, in which
Republicans gained six governorships and 715 state legislative
seats — including winning control of an additional 21 legislative
bodies (taking into account the 25 party switchers from the
Democratic side). The GOP now has control of the governor’s office
and both houses of the legislature in 21 states. The 21 unified
Republican states are: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho,
Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Republicans also possess
majorities in both houses of the state legislature, but lack the
governorship, in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, and
North Carolina.
Democrats have complete, unfettered control and the opportunity
to create little Greeces in just 11 states: Arkansas, California,
Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Illinois,
Massachusetts, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.
There is a legislative stalemate in D.C.: liberal senators from
California can vote to stop conservative senators from Texas from
reducing taxes, reforming entitlements, liberalizing labor law, and
dismantling regulatory schemes. But at the state level, majorities
can have significant effects. Illinois is a good example: the
unchallenged Democratic majority there had no one to stop it from
raising the personal income tax by 67 percent as its first official
act.
In states with GOP majorities in both legislatures, governors
are consciously channeling New Jersey’s Chris Christi — although
Christie, working with a Democratic-controlled assembly and senate,
does his high wire act without a net. The governors of Florida,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas have taken the Taxpayer Protection
Pledge to oppose any tax increase. What that pledge means in effect
is a requirement to reduce future spending by $5 billion in
Pennsylvania, $8 billion in Ohio, and $3.6 billion in Florida.
Spending will have to be cut by more than $20 billion in Texas,
according to its comptroller’s office.
Such large reductions in the growth of spending fall heavily on
the key constituents of the modern Democratic Party, namely public
sector unions, big city political machines, and the grant
recipients who use taxpayer dollars for “community organizing.” And
the promise for tort reform, which would never escape a Democrat’s
veto, threatens the power and financial clout of trial lawyers,
another key Democratic bloc.
Labor laws written to force millions of Americans to pay union
dues to labor union bosses are another obstacle that Republican
governors and legislatures could undo. States like Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana could enact right-to-work
laws making union membership voluntary, or “paycheck protection”
laws that stop unions from taking your union dues and spending them
on politics without your express consent.
PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK for state-level Republicans will
be redistricting. Redistricting for the 2012 election will work to
maintain the unified party control of the incumbents, in both
Republican and Democratic states. The partisan gap between red and
blue states will continue to grow over the next 10 years. In turn,
many small businessmen, high-skilled workers, and wealthy retirees
will move from D to R states. And that dynamic will confirm and
reinforce the partisan trends. For example, Illinois may drive away
all of its entrepreneurs. Texas would welcome their talent and
their resources…and their Republican votes.
In 2012, based on population migration, 10 states will lose
congressional seats, and eight states will gain seats. Personal
income tax rates are twice as high in the loser states. Government
spending is one-third higher in losers, and four states gaining
seats levy no personal income tax at all. Republican-controlled
states such as Arizona, Georgia, and North Dakota could encourage
further immigration of talented, productive, and industrious
workers to their own voting rolls by eliminating their income
taxes. By the same token, if states like Illinois and California
continue their “job creator-cleansing” policies, they will create a
more solidly government-employed and welfare-dependent Democratic
voting bloc.
The question before America is whether, when this process
reaches its natural conclusion, the productive, well-governed,
job-creating states have more electoral votes than the mini-Greeces
being created in states like Illinois and California. Ultimately,
control of the presidency, the Senate, and the House will depend on
the answer to that question.
