Democratic wave spreads to state legislatures
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, November 8, 2006
The Democratic wave reached statehouses around the country.
Riding voter discontent with national Republican leadership, state-level Democrats cemented control of both legislative chambers in 23 states and improved their position in others. Republicans held both houses in 16 states and control was split in 10 more, according to unofficial vote totals. Nebraska’s Legislature has just one house and is nonpartisan.
With an estimated net gain of nearly 300 seats for the Democrats, the vote represented the most one-sided result for either party since the Republican romp of 1994. The pickup of legislative seats by Democrats will break what had been a close divide, and give the party’s lawmakers more power to shape state policy and play a key role in drawing congressional districts.
In New Hampshire, Michigan and elsewhere, Democratic candidates scored victories that positioned them to take the legislative helm in at least nine chambers.
“At the end of the day, the tide really just moved in one direction,” said Tim Storey, an analyst for the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, the group that projected the Democratic gain. “With a lot of echoes of 1994, when the tide moved almost entirely in the direction of Republicans, this time the tide moved almost entirely in the direction of Democrats.”
The gains have taken on added importance since the Supreme Court ruled in June that states are free to redraw districts at any time, without waiting until after each decade’s national census.
Such a mid-decade redistricting by either party is unlikely, observers said. But the gains by Democrats strengthen their position for the redrawing of congressional territory after the 2010 census.
“The parties in control are going to try to maintain that control because redistricting is only five years away,” said Alan Rosenthal, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University.
Before Election Day, the balance of power in legislatures was almost evenly split. Of the nearly 7,400 seats in statehouses nationwide, Democrats held an advantage of just 21 seats. Republicans controlled both chambers in 20 states, with Democrats leading both houses in 19 others.
Most of the Democratic gains came in the East and the Midwest, but for the first time since 1982, Democrats actually gained seats, albeit a handful, in Southern legislatures.
