Republican Legislatures

Split Governments: Governors And State Legislatures

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Five states have Democratic Governors and Republican controlled legislatures.

Arizona has Katie Hobbs as Governor since 2023.

Kansas has Laura Kelly as Governor since 2019.

Kentucky has Andy Beshear as Governor since 2019.

North Carolina has Roy Cooper as Governor since 2017, and he is term limited.

Wisconsin has Tony Evers as Governor since 2019.

Also, Pennsylvania has a Democratic Governor in Josh Shapiro since 2023, and with a split legislature with the State Senate being Republican controlled and the State Assembly being Democratic controlled.

Three states have Republican governors and Democratic controlled legislatures.

Nevada has Joe Lombardo as Governor since 2023.

Vermont has Phil Scott as Governor since 2017, and there are no term limits, with two year terms in Vermont.

Virginia has Glenn Youngkin as Governor since 2022, and he is term limited to one term that ends in 2025.

Also, Alaska has a Republican Governor in Mike Dunleavy since the end of 2018, and with a split legislature with the State Senate being Democratic and the House of Representatives being Republican.

This all makes for interesting politics!

50 Years Of The Voting Rights Act, And Reluctance To Enforce It By Supreme Court And Many States Now A Sad Reality!

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On August 6, it will be 50 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, overcoming a near century of the denial of the right to vote to African Americans, despite the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870.

The Southern states denied African Americans the right to vote through all kinds of methods for three quarters of a century, but finally it was a Southern President and many Congressional Republicans joining with Democrats that caused that denial of democracy to be overcome, finally.

And Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, all Republicans, continued to endorse, promote, hail, and extend the provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

But then the Supreme Court majority under Chief Justice John Roberts weakened enforcement in a Supreme Court decision in 2013 (Shelby County, Alabama V. Holder), effectively giving license to states run by Republican governors and legislatures to pass new restrictions on voting, that would not only hurt African Americans, but also Hispanics, poor whites, the elderly, college students—all being required to make onerous efforts to meet the new restrictions on voting rights, when there was no earlier evidence of voting fraud.

This sad reality has pained John Lewis, Georgia Congressman, who was involved in the movement for voting rights in Alabama (the Selma-Montgomery March), and was seriously beaten, along with others who were killed, fighting peacefully for the basic right to vote.

So while we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this path breaking legislation, we have to hope that the Supreme Court will revisit what it has done by a 5-4 vote in the next term, with the hope that they will reconsider what they have done, based on the discrimination now being practiced in many states across the nation.

The 50th Anniversary Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964 Commemorated By Four Presidents!

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It has been a half century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the greatest accomplishment of President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his five years in the Oval Office.

This week, four American Presidents are honoring this achievement at the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, including Barack Obama, and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (the former Presidents, ironically, all Southerners).

This half century old law is one of the massive and historic turning points in American history, and yet the challenge to civil rights, as the Reverend Al Sharpton has stated, is not over, as there continues to be discrimination in many southern and other states governed now by Republican legislatures and governors.

So the battle for civil rights continues for the protection of people based upon race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and sexual orientation, and we cannot sit on just praise of what has been done, but fight for more of the same in the present and the future!

Absolute Insanity! Tea Party Republicans–Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Steve King–Call For Abolition Of IRS!

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So much craziness exists in the Republican Party in Congress in 2013, that it will require a long, detailed book to trace all of the insanity that exists, and that is not including talk radio, Fox News Channel, right wing journalism, and the Governors and state legislatures that are Republican controlled!

Today, in Washington, DC, the Tea Party Republicans held a rally, including such “stars” as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas, and Congressman Steve King of Iowa, three of the leading “certifiable” whackos of the House of Representatives!

But the rally also included wing nut Glenn Beck, and had support also from Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, among other “embarrassments” on Capitol Hill!

The rally was held to oppose immigration reform, support abortion restrictions on women, and most crazily of all, to call for abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, therefore making it impossible to collect income taxes and corporate taxes, effectively wiping out the 16th Amendment to the Constitution! And when fellow Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was mentioned, he was booed, because he is negotiating an immigration reform bill with Democrats and Republicans Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Jeff Flake.

So this nation is supposed to exist without taxes, apparently! A nation of 315 million people, with massive overseas responsibilities; high levels of poverty; growing need for infrastructure expenditures, health care, education; the threat of terrorism within our shores; and all of the other responsibilities of a modern nation in the 21st century, is supposed to live based on praying for God’s good wishes, but only if it is Jesus Christ, no other concept of religion!

So much has occurred in recent years that is mind blowing, but this day, we have seen true insanity and lunacy unseen in the history of the American Republic, and we can now say that believing in any hope that the Republican Party will come back from its terminal illness, getting rid of the cancer of the far right wing nuts, seems hopeless!

Whig Party, anyone?

Victories For Right To Vote Mounting In Republican Controlled States That Tried To Limit Voting

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After a year or more of attempts to limit the right to vote for senior citizens, college students, minorities, and the poor, the forces battling for the right to vote are winning victories, due to court action by the federal government, and decisions of federal judges in favor of the whole basis of democracy—voting!

Florida, Texas, and Ohio are among the states where the tide has turned, and Pennsylvania is awaiting a six member state Supreme Court decision that is thought to be ready to throw out the limits on voting set up by the Republican legislature and governor, with the three Republican members of the Court showing skepticism about the limit on voting rights.

This trend makes the likelihood of Barack Obama winning all of the above states, except Texas, more realistic, and it is a stain on the GOP that the party that expanded the right to vote to include African Americans in 1870, and supported civil rights at its founding, now has become the image of the Southern Democrats of the 1870s to the 1960s, who took away the right to vote and promoted Jim Crow segregation!

This is a time for mourning for the Republican Party of the past, which was principled and on the side of voting rights, and now has been captured by extreme right wing elements that are against basic democracy, what people in all nations around the world fight and die for—the right to express their view of who should govern them!