April 14-15, 2011
Apr 14 07:31 Ryan Express Railroads President Obama's Myths Apr 14 10:35 They're SLASHING Higher Education? Apr 14 19:45 Pederson Leading Charge for Common Sense Environmental Rules Apr 15 05:17 Can Obama Survive? Apr 15 06:13 Durenberger: 'Let's Short-Circuit Legislative Process'? Apr 15 08:06 Drama Queen Attacks Continue Apr 15 10:56 Conduct Unbecoming This President Apr 15 13:32 Redistricting Reality vs. Redistricting Hallucinations
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Ryan Express Railroads President Obama's Myths
Chairman Ryan was invited to attend President Obama's speech as a supposed olive branch. Instead, President Obama went into full demagogic mode. Here's Chairman Ryan's response to President Obama's bad faith speech:
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan made the following statement after attending the President's speech on deficit reduction:
'When the President reached out to ask us to attend his speech, we were expecting an olive branch. Instead, his speech was excessively partisan, dramatically inaccurate, and hopelessly inadequate to address our fiscal crisis.
What we heard today was not fiscal leadership from our commander-in-chief; we heard a political broadside from our campaigner-in-chief. 'Last year, in the absence of a serious budget, the President created a Fiscal Commission. He then ignored its recommendations and omitted any of its major proposals from his budget, and now he wants to delegate leadership to yet another commission to solve a problem he refuses to confront.
'We need leadership, not a doubling down on the politics of the past. By failing to seriously confront the most predictable economic crisis in our history, this President's policies are committing our children to a diminished future. We are looking for bipartisan solutions, not partisan rhetoric. When the President is ready to get serious about confronting this challenge, we'll be here.'
What's laughable is that President Obama still thinks he's the adult dominating the political landscape. For those thinking that people are apathetic about President Obama's legacy exploding deficits, I'd posit that the public's mood was displayed last November when 63 House Democrats were terminated.
I'd further posit that the public's mood is anything but apathetic. Frank Luntz understands people. Ditto with Doug Schoen. Dr. Luntz is a conservative, Schoen a conservative Democrat. Both think, as a result of poring through poll after poll, after watching the rise of the TEA Party and the sustained intensity of the TEA Party, Dr. Luntz and Mr. Schoen understand how not apathetic the American people are.
It's important that we not forget that President Obama isn't getting great ratings on the economy, at least not in polls testing likely voters. Yes, you'll see media polls where President Obama's favorability rating on the economy isn't a total disaster. I've seen a couple polls like that the past 2-3 weeks. They've both polled adults, the least predictive polls of all.
Those polls aren't worth the bandwidth they're written on.
Another thing worth noting is that President Obama called the so-called Gang of Six, saying he wanted to lean on their plan as the basis for his budget cutting. This surprised Tom Coburn, Dick Durbin, Kent Conrad, Mike Crapo, Mark Warner and Saxby Chambliss because they haven't put their plan together.
It's entirely possible to disagree with things in Chairman Ryan's Path to Prosperity but it's impossible for honest people to argue that his plan isn't serious legislation.
The fact that President Obama's speech relied on a nonexistent plan highlights the fact that his 'plan' isn't a serious plan. It's impossible to say that a speech based on a nonexistent plan was thorough or well-researched. It's quite possible, though, to argue that it was meant to score cheap political points with his base without being serious about deficit reduction or creating jobs.
A faithful reader of this blog just emailed me. Here's what he said:
A speech is not a budget. A speech is a speech. And this speech's troubling lack of specificity (with the exception of accelerating his health care law's reliance on government rationing and his desire to impose additional tax hikes on job creators), its bizarre use of a 12-year window, and what the President's official budget actually does should be noted every time the President's 'numbers' appear anywhere near Chairman Ryan's.
Good point. We shouldn't give President Obama credit for announcing a new budget. The things contained in this speech sound like the things contained in his SOTU speech. The parts that don't are things Mr. President thinks will be in the Gang of Six's plan.
That isn't visionary. That's another rendition of the Song Remains the Same .
Posted Thursday, April 14, 2011 7:31 AM
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They're SLASHING Higher Education?
It isn't wise to accept the information in this article as Gospel fact. Based on what's reported, the meeting's participants sounded more like a DFL focus group than a representative cross-section of Minnesota's population:
Members of the panel, which represented everyone from students and teachers to lawmakers and college administrators, spoke about the need to keep higher education in Minnesota accessible and of high quality.
'I understand something needs to be cut somewhere,' said panelist Amy Henschel, a 34-year-old single mother who attends Globe University in the Twin Cities. 'But students need to have these opportunities, because we are the future.'
University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks called the House and Senate budgets 'a race to the bottom' and 'a recipe to cut economic growth in Minnesota.'
'This is about jobs,' Bruininks said. He pointed to a consultant's report that concluded that every dollar invested in the university by the state generates $13.20 in the statewide economy.
Thomas Trehus, 20, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus, said the deep cuts would be 'devastating to students.' Trehus, political director of the Minnesota Student Association, said the result would be larger class sizes and a longer wait for students to get into classes and graduate.
Metropolitan State President Sue Hammersmith said students have been dealing with soaring tuition. Dayton said the cuts would have 'terrible consequences' and hearing from those who would be affected strengthened his resolve.
To listen to these anything-but-impartial Higher Ed activists, you'd swear that the GOP's Higher Ed budget would end Western Civilization. I don't doubt Ms. Henschel's sincerity. I wouldn't be surprised if she thinks there's money to be saved in the Higher Ed budget.
I'm still reviewing MnSCU's program offerings but I can say with 100% confidence that a respectable case can be made for the major restructuring of MnSCU. The repetitive degree programs, often offered by community colleges within 15-20 minutes of each other, is wasting the taxpayers' money.
I'm totally skeptical of President Bruininks statistic that "every dollar invested in the university by the state generates $13.20 in the statewide economy." Here's what I posted in March, 2007:
Even though there is increased spending, several committee chairs aren't happy. 'It's a bare bones, inflation-only target,' said Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul. Pappas chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee.
Three-hundred-million dollars is earmarked under the Senate plan for higher education. But Pappas doesn't think it's enough and is worried tuition will go up even more than anticipated.
'In my mind, I'm able to keep the systems whole, but they're not getting enough resources to hold down tuition,' she said. 'If I had more money and could give them more, they could hold down tuition or I could put more money into financial aid, but there certainly isn't any new money for new initiatives for moving the state forward in the higher education area.'
The budgeted increase in Higher Ed funding for the 2008-09 biennium was scheduled to be $300,000,000 Applying President Bruininks' formula to just the increase, that should've generated $3,960,000,000, almost $4 billion.
According to this State of Minnesota website , the Higher Education budget for the 2010-2011 biennium is $3.159 billion. If Bruininks' formula was legitimate, that should've generated almost $42 billion for the statewide economy.
Further limiting the AP article's credibility is the fact that they didn't mention that Thomas Trehus, in addition to being political director of the Minnesota Student Association, has written at the progressive Bluestem Prairie blog. It's Trehus' right to do these things. I don't have a quarrel with Trehus, though I'm sure we'd disagree on a wide range of policies.
My quarrel is with the AP transcriptionist, who obviously didn't think it was important to report that this was a meeting of activists masquerading as objective panelists.
Those of us who are old enough to remember the glory days of the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers remember the fights that would result when those teams got together. We'll remember the saying that "I went to a boxing match last night and a hockey game broke out."
If that cliche was applied to this meeting, it might read like this: "I went to a DFL pep rally and it was reported like a policy/budget discussion."
Last week, Sen. Bakk talked about the GOP destroying higher ed during his weekly temper tantrum . This week, Gov. Dayton and a host of activists are arguing for as much spending as possible rather than eliminating replications and implementing reforms.
I'd challenge Sen. Bakk's and Gov. Dayton's criticisms, arguing that they'd be doing Minnesotans right if they spent time questioning MnSCu's and the U of M's spending and prioritization rather than whining about how the evil GOP isn't unquestioningly supporting the Dayton budget.
Posted Thursday, April 14, 2011 10:35 AM
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Pederson Leading Charge for Common Sense Environmental Rules
Earlier this week, the St. Cloud Times ran this article outlining Sen. John Pederson's recommendations regarding environmental rulemaking and other common sense sugggestions. Here's the heart of Sen. Pederson's recommendations:
Pederson's proposed water-rule moratorium may have garnered the most criticism of his contributions to the bill.
Rebecca Flood, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, has said it could prevent the agency from completing water-rule revisions in which it already has invested considerable time and resources.
Since he introduced the moratorium as a stand-alone bill, Pederson said exemptions have been added to the moratorium provision in the omnibus bill, which aim to address those concerns.
But its purpose remains the same: to keep water rules static while the state studies all its agencies that regulate water. The point of such a study, Pederson has said, would be to lay groundwork for consolidating environmental agencies.
Dan Fabian's HF1 legislation was signed into law. HF1 streamlines the permitting process and necessarily opens the door for regulatory reviews. Sen. Pederson's bill simply says that, with the exception of the MPCA completing their water rule revisions, regulators shouldn't start with new regulations until the 5 agencies iron out the overlap.
Naturally, environmental extremists oppose Sen. Pederson's provisions because it would prevent them from getting their wish list enacted:
The bill has caught the eye of environmental groups, who worry that it's part of an effort by Republicans, who gained control of the Legislature in the last election, to roll back protections for Minnesota's lakes, rivers and forests.
Steve Morse, president of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, says proposals like Pederson's are on the vanguard of that rollback.
'Some people feel it's open season on protection of our great outdoors,' Morse said.
What a drama queen. You'd think that Sen. Pederson had just introduced legislation that would repeal the Clean Water Act and called for total deregulation of the environment. That isn't what Sen. Pederson is doing.
Because of Morse's comments, I called Sen. Pederson. Sen. Pederson said he's asking the Department of Administration to sit down with the five agencies to eliminate the overlap in responsibilities, inspections and to reivew the permitting fees. The five agencies that deal with water regulation are the DNR, the MPCA, the Department of Soil and Water, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health.
I'd question Mr. Morse's objectivity after saying that "Some people feel it's open season on protection of our great outdoors." If all they're doing is eliminating bureaucratic overlap in the permitting process, what's the basis for Morse's grandstanding statement?
Sen. Pederson specifically cited the fact that rulemaking that's already underway is exempted from the moratorium. The moratorium only affects the making of new rules.
'Most people agree: We have all these agencies dealing with water. There's a significant amount of overlap,' Pederson said.
Not everyone agrees. Sen. Linda Higgins, DFL-Minneapolis, called Pederson's proposal 'ill-advised' in a recent news release.
That provision and the Lake Pepin provision, Higgins wrote, 'take a wild swing at improving the state's permitting process by undermining...rules created to protect one of Minnesota's greatest resources.'
I've known Sen. Pederson for a couple years. Saying that he's taking a wild swing at anything is hyperbole Al Gore, Howard Dean or Alan Grayson would be proud of. Sen. Higgins' comments are questionable considering this information:
Pederson's proposal would shape rules now being drafted by the MPCA to regulate phosphorus levels in Lake Pepin, by requiring state officials to back rules that focus on the lake's phosphorus levels during warm-weather months only.
Pederson says he proposed the measure after meeting with St. Cloud city officials.
The city's Public Utilities Director, Pat Shea, oversees St. Cloud's wastewater facility. Shea says some have proposed phosphorus standards for Lake Pepin that could require St. Cloud, and other cities with wastewater plants that empty into the Mississippi River, to treat their wastewater for phosphorus year-round, instead of only during warm months.
Terry Stone is a policy analyst based in Northern Minnesota. I wrote him for his opinion on this matter. Here's his response:
Pederson could not be more correct in his environmental initiatives. Lake Pepin is in Minnesota and directly within the purview of Senator Pederson. Senators are elected to perform a legislative function for Minnesota. Pederson was not elected to legislate for District 15; he serves the people of Minnesota and represents the people of Senate 15 in doing so. His interest in Lake Pepin is most appropriate.
The issue here is eutrophication of the 40 mi. lake with an average 18-foot depth. Agricultural activity puts phosphates into the lake. Agricultural activity is seasonal in Minnesota, so phosphate levels affecting eutrophication is seasonal.
Stone further replies:
An intentionally well-kept secret is that watersheds including river protuberances like Lake Pepin receive a wholesale flush and cleansing with each spring run-off.
Finally, he included this information:
Some years back, a continuous source of phosphates in wastewater was laundry detergent. Phosphates were banned in the U.S. in 1993 and the European Union in 2004. The banning of dish soap phosphates is being done locally with a national ban all but certain. Detergents now make wide use of zeolites that does not contribute to eutrophication.
Based on this information, I'd argue that Mr. Morse's inference that the GOP legislature is interested in declaring an open season on the environment is intentional mischaracterization. I'm not basing that on my expertise in this matter because I'm not an expert. I'm basing that opinion on this statement:
An MPCA scientist who's helping draft the Lake Pepin rules, Steve Heiskary, said he expects Pederson's provision would have no impact on the agency's plan for protecting the lake.
Morse says that "legislators should let scientific experts working in state agencies handle the details of environmental policy." I couldn't agree more.
It's important that Morse get out of the way and let Mr. Heiskary handle the details of environmental policy.
Posted Thursday, April 14, 2011 7:45 PM
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Can Obama Survive?
John Podhoretz' article suggests that President Obama's re-election fight will be uphill:
As Barack Obama was delivering his speech on the nation's long-term debt crisis, word came that JP Morgan has radically downgraded its projection of the nation's short-term prospects for economic growth. Morgan now thinks the economy will grow at an annual rate of 1.4 percent this year. This comes hard on the heels of Macroeconomic Advisers lowering its growth projection for 2011 from 4 percent at the beginning of the year to 1.7 percent today.
These aren't just horrible numbers for the U.S. economy. They are a potential death knell for Barack Obama's presidency. There is no way tepid growth of this sort is going to make a dent in the nation's overall employment numbers - and it stands to reason that if unemployment is higher at the time of the 2012 election than it was when he took office in 2009 (7.6 percent), he is exceedingly unlikely to win a second term.
Thus far, the presidential sweepstakes conversation has centered on the topic of this being a lackluster GOP field. If the economy continues to struggle, President Obama will have a difficult fight ahead.
Lackluster economic growth isn't the only depressing economic statistic to be worrying about. It isn't good news when the Fed's presidents signal that inflation is imminent and it's time to get interest rate policy back to normal. A further tightening of the money supply can't help a floundering economy.
Couple an anemic GDP growth rate with a tightening of the money supply isn't how a president running for re-election wants to start his re-election bid off. What's worse for President Obama is that gas prices are skyrocketing and unemployment is staying high.
I suspect that this is an instance where the three strikes and you're out cliche applies.
As if that isn't bad enough, President Obama is getting failing grades on foreign policy/national security. He's dithered with Libya. After telling the world that Qadaffi had to go, President Obama handed off control to NATO. As a result of the nonexistent airstrikes, Col. Qadaffi is now able to hold a parade in the streets of Tripoli in the middle of a war.
At some point, the American people will simply say that they've given him the opportunity to make a positive impact and he failed. I suspect that that moment isn't far off.
Posted Friday, April 15, 2011 5:17 AM
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Durenberger: 'Let's Short-Circuit Legislative Process'?
You have to read to the end of Sen. Durenberger's op-ed to get to the real point of his op-ed submission:
When we passed the sweeping Clean Air Act amendments in 1990, we sought to ensure that the Environmental Protection Agency had the tools to tackle new and emerging air pollution problems.
Today, the EPA is in the process of acting on recent scientific findings to update and modernize air pollution standards as we envisioned over two decades ago.
What the EPA is attempting to do is short-circuit the legislative process by implementing Cap And Trade by arguing that exhaling causes global warming.
The scientific argument is questionable at best. That past Congresses meant to short-circuit the legislative process is unconscienable. The legislative process, complete with committee hearings, expert witness testimony and debate about the impact of rulemaking, is where decisions that might dramatically alter the U.S. economy should be made, not by agenda-driven bureaucrats and political appointees.
I don't doubt that Sen. Durenberger's intentions are sincere. That said, there's no excuse for circumventing the legislative process, especially in matters of this importance.
Posted Friday, April 15, 2011 6:13 AM
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Drama Queen Attacks Continue
Each day, it seems like liberals accuse Republicans of hating or attacking different groups of people. Based on this editorial , this time TEA Party activists and conservatives are attacking poor women:
The Republican Party's vendetta against Planned Parenthood is not about abortion. It is an attack on poor women.
President Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders need to constantly make that point as the long-term budget battle rages on. The assault on the nonprofit will not end with last week's temporary budget compromise.
Planned Parenthood has become a symbol for abortion in this country, even though 90 percent of its work is preventive and general health care.
Federal grants now go toward that 90 percent of services; not a penny of federal money goes toward abortion.
So cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood actually would cut off millions of women from health care, including cancer screenings, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and, yes, contraception, which, arguably, is the best way to prevent abortions and help low-income women escape poverty.
The accusation isn't laughable. It isn't silly. It's something that shouldn't be taken seriously. First, what gives Planned Parenthood the birthright to federal funding? Next, if Planned Parenthood want to prove that the federal money won't get co-mingled with money used for abortions, there's a simple solution. Let Planned Parenthood split the cancer-screening part off from the abortion-providing part of their operation.
Of course, that means that the abortion-providing operation of Planned Parenthood would have to rely on private donations to fund that part of their operation. Since their funds couldn't be co-mingled, Planned Parenthood's abortion services would have to stand on their own.
This editorial says that "not a penny of federal money goes toward abortion." They can't prove that because money going to Planned Parenthood, whether federal money or private donations, isn't stamped 'For Abortions' or 'Not For Abortion'. It goes into their account.
It's time for Planned Parenthood to stop playing PR games. It's time, too, for liberals to stop the 'Conservatives are attacking [fill in the blanks]' theme. That might fire up the base but it won't attract independents.
Though the campaigns are just starting up, it's easy to see the overarching themes for the campaigns. Triggered by the fight in Wisconsin, Democrats are saying conservatives are attacking various special interest groups. They're also trying to villainize the TEA Party, arguing that they're far outside America's mainstream. Another central theme is that TEA Party activists and conservatives want to take us back to pre-Roe v. Wade days.
These themes are tired and uninspiring. If this is the best the Democrats have to offer, they're in for a difficult fight in 2012.
Posted Friday, April 15, 2011 8:06 AM
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Conduct Unbecoming This President
Thanks to CBS reporter Mark Knoller, we got a glimpse into President Obama's childish behavior :
That's what presidential petulance sounds like. Paul Ryan's budget plan is dominating the conversation in DC and across the nation. This is undoubtedly upsetting President Obama. He isn't used to being overshadowed, which is what's happening this week.
"When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant...This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill, but wasn't paid for," Mr. Obama told his supporters. "So it's not on the level."
During the FNS Roundtable discussion , Mara Liasson said that a) the Ryan Plan wouldn't be the only budget on the table and b) the Gang of Six budget would play a prominent role in the 2012 negotiations. After President Obama's hyperpartisan speech at GWU this week, there's no indication that either statement is true.
Liasson's opinion was a traditional opinion. She just didn't take into account the fact that President Obama doesn't change directions or make adjustments. Those concepts are foreign to him.
President Obama's speech, pre-billed as a major economic address, was yet another platitude-filled speech devoid of specifics or policies. That's leading to the feeling that President Obama's grasp of policies is, to be polite, limited. People don't argue that he's a gifted speaker. Lots of people question his policymaking abilities. Right now, we don't need a gifted orator in the White House. What's needed are gifted policy people.
Chairman Ryan dominates President Obama in that arena. Just utterly dominates him in that realm.
Until this week, President Obama had stayed above the fray, acting as though he hovered above humankind. This reporting indicates that he's getting more petulant by the day:
The debate over fiscal policy will prove critical to the 2012 campaign and Obama sought to frame it as a "stark choice" between investing in the future or watching the country fall apart.
"Under their vision, we can't invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail," Obama told a select group of the Democratic faithful at the second of three fundraising events in his hometown of Chicago.
"I mean, we would be a nation of potholes, and our airports would be worse than places that we thought, that we used to call the Third World, but who are now investing in infrastructure."
High-speed rail is a boondoggle in most of the nation. It's a waste of the taxpayers' money in all but a few instances. It certainly isn't the type of thing that's on the nation's entrepreneurs' front burner.
Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure after this administration's policies exploded the deficit and the debt isn't warranted. New projects might get headlines but just maintaining road and bridges is what's needed, both from a needs standpoint and from a fiscally prudent standpoint.
President Obama still hasn't heard what the American people said this last election: that they want government doing less and spending less. In President Obama's insulated world, there's a belief that the federal government has to spend tens of billions of dollars, that without that spending, the economy would falter, possibly even stop in its tracks.
The two biggest job-creating administrations the past quarter century were the Reagan administration and the Clinton administration. While there's no denying that they spent lots of money and that many of their policies were dramatically different, the reality is that their success is attributable to bringing down business costs, then getting out of the way. They understood, like Chairman Ryan, that the best news for entrepreneurs is stability and low operating costs.
President Obama's pattern is the polar opposite of those models. He's rejected them outright. His policies haven't worked because he's implemented policies that raise operating costs. Too often, he's insisted on micromanaging industries.
WARNING: This paragraph might cause intellectual whiplash:
Obama said his vision is of an ambitious, compassionate, and caring America "where we're living within our means but we're still investing in our future ."
"If we apply some practical common sense to this, we can solve our fiscal challenges and still have the America that we believe in," Obama told supporters at Chicago's N9ne restaurant.
"That's what this budget debate is going to be about. And that's what the 2012 campaign is going to be about."
To most people, living within one's means means cutting back. This administration thinks it means spending whatever it thinks is necessary to implement their radical vision.
Further, this administration's talk about "investing in the future" is their euphemism for saying they aren't slowing down their reckless spending binge. President Obama's call for applying "some practical common sense to this" is a throwaway line implemented because it tested well in focus groups.
This administration's policies don't have anything to do with common sense or propriety. PERIOD. President Obama is the most radical president in this nation's history. He's also the least qualified person ever elected to this office.
People like Paul Ryan and Thad McCotter are putting pressure on him and it's showing. Here's the latest speech from Congressman McCotter:
'When history looks back after the momentous changes in which we find ourselves, they will view the Ryan House Republican budget as but a baby step to escape Big Government's implosion. It is a responsible course; it is a responsible choice, because it is between bankruptcy or prosperity, and I and the American people will choose prosperity.'
What people haven't totally noticed is that the recession ended over a year ago. This is the so-called new normal where the American economy supposedly can't soar.
It's time we reject that notion. President Obama's policies have directly led to a) unprecedented deficits, b) gas price spikes, c) stagnant economic growth and d) doubt amongst both consumers and investors. We don't need 4 more years of that junk.
We need 4 straight years of straightening out this administration's messes and implementing an economic plan that puts America back on the right track.
Most importantly, it's important that we vanquish this administration into history. That's the only way we'll return to the prosperity of the old normal.
Posted Friday, April 15, 2011 10:56 AM
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Redistricting Reality vs. Redistricting Hallucinations
The folks at Minn-Donkey certainly have creative imaginations , as evidenced by this fanciful map:
St. Cloud moves out of CD6 and and CD2 picks up the southern portion of St. Paul while the rural districts change a bit around the edges. Minneapolis get's split between CDs three and five, CD four moves all the way out to the river and they're all neat little compact districts, yay!
Here's the Obama %'s for this theoretical map:
CD1: 51%
CD2: 51%
CD3: 62%
CD4: 63%
CD5: 61%
CD6: 42%
CD7: 47%
CD8: 54%
That is three solid Democratic seats were there were only two before. Additionally, CD2 becomes a toss-up district, what's not to like?
This isn't meant to be taken seriously. That's made clear with this statement:
This map could certainly be made to be less ridiculous, Scott county for instance, could become part of CD5 to avoid that narrow path through Dakota county, but that wasn't really the point of this map. The point was to see if four solid Democratic seats could be made where there once was two.
The only way any of the Minn-Donkey maps get drawn like that is if the DFL's special interest groups find dirt on all of the Pawlenty-appointed judges and are blackmailing them.
Now let's look at a thoughtful look at redistricting :
The second factor putting a stake through the vampire hearts of the Democrats' hopes of controlling the House after 2012 is the overwhelming shift in redistricting fortunes. Because of GOP gains in gubernatorial races and state legislatures, there will be a dramatic change in the structure of the 2012 House races. In the 2001 redistricting process, Democrats drew the lines of 135 seats, while GOPers drew the lines for 98-a 37-seat advantage for the Dems. Now, Republicans control drawing 193 seats outright, while the Dems have just 44. That is a 149-seat advantage for the GOP (the rest of the seats are either in split-control states, commission-drawn states, at-large seats or currently undecided). That represents a 186-seat shift in favor of the GOP from 2001-and Republicans have won three out of five congressional majorities since then.
That does not mean Republicans can draw numerous seats they will win (as many have pointed out, demographic shifts make drawing new safe Republican seats challenging), but it does mean the GOP can shore up many vulnerable incumbents. The Republican redistricting strategy will focus on protecting their sizable majority, which will make taking back the House all the more difficult for Democrats.
Having total control over a net 149 seats is a huge advantage in the Republicans' favor. That's what happens when the wave election is so deep-rooted that, in addition to gaining a net 63 seats in the House, Republicans gained a net 680 seat gain in state legislatures and flip 19 state legislative chambers .
The reality is that Republicans are well-positioned in Minnesota to see the CD map change favorably in this round of redistricting. Minnesotans voted with their feet the past decade. They emphatically proclaimed their preferences this past November.
Nationally, voters essentially sent the same message, just more emphatically and passionately. That message was that they're tired of the status quo who can bring home the bacon politics of the past. They're demanding that real solutions, based in common sense and thinking things through, be developed to avert this debt and spending crisis.
When redistricting is finally approved, both at the congressional and legislative levels, Republicans will be positioned to influence lots of policies in the majority of states.
Finally, the depth of the voters' dissatisfaction can't be ignored. This wasn't just a throw the bums out of DC wave. This was a throw the bums out of DC AND the state legislatures wave.
The DCCC will certainly hype their chances of returning the Speakers' Gavel to Nancy Pelosi but reality is that their chances of that happening anytime soon is marginal at best.
Posted Friday, April 15, 2011 1:32 PM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 16-Apr-11 12:24 PM
Gary:
If they're using Obama's vote total as a baseline I think that's a big mistake. Obama's 2012 total will be much lower than that. Thus those districts will be less safe than think. Of course CD1 can easily go republican in 2012 and about the only that's stopping the seventh is that peterson talks conservative. This state can easily be 6 Republican and 2 Democrat. It's a pipedream for them to think it can be made 6 Democrat.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
