A Long Way from Home: Ending Republican Radicalization in Minnesota

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend - I know the holiday certainly got me thinking about what has been going on across the country. For all the nonsense Republicans spout off about "following the founders", it seems that a key part of the founding wisdom has been thrown out the door by the GOP across the country. The founders sought legislators who would be a class above the rest - the responsibility they were entrusting them with demanded intelligent minds who could effectively govern. Yet from Washington D.C. to St. Paul, Minnesota, Republicans are completely abdicating that responsibility. Today I'm turning my lens on Minnesota, where Republican-controlled legislature has prioritized banning same-sex marriage and decreasing taxes for millionaires over keeping the state government running.




The Minnesota legislature was victim of the same Republican wave that took chambers in Wisconsin & Ohio, but Governor Mark Dayton provided one of the few bright spots for Democrats last fall, edging out a narrow victory. While the consensus is that Dayton wasn't the most inspiring candidate, the 9% advantage the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party possesses in the state was enough of an edge to take the governor's race, and since taking office, Dayton has shown himself more than capable of performing the job.

Unsurprisingly, it has been the Republican legislature that has provided the headache thus far. Early in the session, Republicans decided that amidst a struggling economy and severe budgetary problems, making a resilient stand against same-sex marriage was the best way the legislature could pass their time. Now, we all could be wrong here - maybe Minnesota Republicans are just hoping the National Organization for Marriage will inject a few million dollars into advertising revenues, but I've got a gut feeling that on this one, they are just wasting everyone's time with a hurtful, useless fight, trying to erect a hurdle that even if created, will only live to be knocked over in a few more years. While the issue hasn't been polled too much, in early June PPP found voters split at 46-47 on the amendment, which is right in line with Nate Silver's projections on the vote

*District 56 is actually represented by a Republican following the 2010 election

But the real issue commanding attention now is the government shutdown. Faced with a budgetary hole, Governor Dayton has been willing to do something that other blue state governors have cowered away from - taxing millionaires. In addition to significant cuts to state spending, Dayton sought to increase taxes on Minnesotans making over a million dollars a year. Naturally, Republicans found this appalling, and rather than tax their rich friends, they would rather delay $700 million in funding to schools, which would put the state more than $1 billion behind their educational funding promises.

So why have Republicans painted themselves into this ridiculous corner? Anytime a longterm minority party sweeps into power, they're going to be a little hungry for red meat, and I think that is the real motive on the same-sex marriage vote. Even if the issue is a losing one, it asserts that so long as Republicans are in control, they will determine what the state is talking about. The budgetary lockup, however, is a bit more complex. On the path to their new majority, the MNGOP made a Norquist-flavored promise to voters about not raising their taxes.

Another compounding factor is the size of the legislature. At 134 seats, the Minnesota House is one of the largest chambers we've looked at so far. It seems on a very basic level, the larger a chamber is, the stronger chance that ideological factions can control the chambers debate. In a smaller legislature, deep red legislators would still exist by the same proportions, but in this configuration there are many more voices in the cloak room to pressure moderates into holding tough. Twenty Republicans sit in House seats where a generic Democrat has an advantage (and roughly the same proportion in the Senate), yet instead of governing like the moderate their district suggests, they're throwing away their political career voting as an ideologue.

If progressives are serious about changing this country's political agenda, this is a key place where we need to start. Republicans built their to power through small, local elections, and eventually those people carried over into higher office. I know there are plenty of groups spending money to try to take over legislative chambers, but a situation like this begs for a group to exclusively target legislators representing moderate districts who vote like hardliners. It feels like since the advent of the Tea Party, progressives have been content to snicker about how unelectable tea party nominees are, but for every Christine O'Donnell, there are countless small-time legislators waiting in the wings. We can't keep their ridiculous politics out of legislatures all together, because there is an ideological support base for them - but we can make sure that if they try to share those views in moderate territory, they run out of oxygen fast, and are forced to choose between ideology and political livelihood.

As always, downloadable data can be found on the mainpage of the site. With midsummer upon us, I'm making my best efforts to gather all the data needed for the remaining states, but that isn't always easy. If anyone has comprehensive data from their state's elections at the precinct level, sending it to matthew.breuer@yale.edu is a huge help, and would be greatly appreciated.