Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee blogs

DLCC Letting Senator Moulton's Words Speak For Themselves

Dan Roth — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:54:06 -0400

30-Second Spot shows Senator Moulton unable to name one thing he has done to help the Wisconsin economy

Washington, DC - Today the Democratic Legislative Campaign launched a new ad to inform Wisconsinites that even Senator Moulton himself cannot come up with a single thing he has done to help the Wisconsin economy.

"You don't have to take our word for it," said DLCC Executive Director Michael Sargeant. "We want to make sure Wisconsinites know what even Senator Moulton admits: he has done nothing to bring jobs to Wisconsin."

You can watch the ad here.

Wisconsin, which already had the worst job creation of any state in the country, lost an additional 6,200 private sector jobs in April under Republican legislative leadership.

While America is seeing private sector job growth, the job losses in Wisconsin prove that Republican policies simply are not working. Instead of focusing on helping working families, Wisconsin Republicans took their eye off the ball to focus on attacking teachers and promoting extreme right-wing positions, and now all of Wisconsin is suffering.

In California, Democrats Focused on Making College More Affordable

Dan Roth — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:51:34 -0400

America is at a cross-road. On one hand by 2018 63% of job openings will require workers with at least some college education; on the other hand total student loan debt in the United States recently surpassed $1 trillion—more than credit card debt, and all of this is happening while the cost of college has risen over 30% in real dollars in the last decade.

In California, Democrats in the legislature led by Assembly Speaker John Perez are working to make college more affordable so more people can have access to a necessary education. The Middle Class Scholarship Act simply makes college more affordable for middle class Californians, covering students whose family income is under $150,000 but over the amount allowed to qualify for financial aid.

California State University (CSU) students will save $4,000 per year or $16,000 over a four-year period, University of California (UC) students will save about $8,200 per year or nearly $33,000 over a four-year period, and Community College students will see their costs reduced significantly as well. And the act pays for itself and does not add to the state’s deficit.

This legislation will help real families throughout California. Students from all corners of the state have come out to testify for their support for the legislation and explain the real decisions that they need to make in order to get a quality education.

“CSU students are graduating with so much debt, we have to find the first job that comes along instead of finding the job that will help us get started on our careers,” said CSU student Aissa Canchola. “We need to lower fees so that graduating students have opportunities for the kinds of jobs we’ve worked and studied hard for.”

“As a community college student, I know so many of our students are worried about how they’ll be able to afford going to a four year university when they can barely afford to attend a community college right now,” said California community college student Emily Kinner. “The Middle Class Scholarship will help them out tremendously.”

The bill has received unanimous Democratic support and unanimous Republican opposition so far in committee, and it is scheduled to be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee later this week.

As state legislatures across the country seem to be focused on ideological issues ranging from denying access to contraception, eliminating rights for workers, making it more difficult to cast a vote, or denying basic rights to gay and lesbian couples, California Democrats have to use their positions not to hurt people, but to help students and their families.

We should be proud that the United States has the best higher education system in the world, but we should also work to ensure that students who work hard in high school are able to access these colleges and universities without graduating with both a diploma and a mountain of debt.

Indiana Republican Representative Deceives Voters on Her Own Voting Record

Dan Roth — Tue, 22 May 2012 16:13:59 -0400

Even though she has only served one term in the Indiana House of Represenatives, Republican Representative Sue Ellspermann has already built up a record of not telling the truth and a legislative record that puts her well out of sync with Indiana values.

When she ran for the legislature in 2010 Rep. Ellspermann claimed that she voted in that year's Republican Presidential Primary. That statement is actually 2/3 correct. She did vote, and it was in a presidential primary, but instead of voting for war hero and eventual Republican nominee John McCain or even former Massachusetts Governor and likely 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, Representative Ellspermann voted in the Democratic Primary.

I can understand why she thought that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would be a better president than John McCain or Mitt Romney, but she should just level with Indiana voters and not try to hide from or claim temporary amnesia about her record. And in the meantime she should justify why she voted to attack public education, make it more difficult for women to get health care services, strip away teachers’ rights to collectively bargain, and pass a deeply divisive so-called "right to work" law that could depress the average Hoosier's wages by nearly $1,500 per year.

And while she is coming clean on her personal and legislative voting record, inquiring minds have another question: Did she vote for Secretary Clinton or President Obama?

What’s the Matter with the Kansas (and Maine) Legislatures?

Dan Roth — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:35:49 -0400

In his 2004 book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Kansas native and one-time Republican Thomas Frank seeks to explain why so many voters actively vote for Republican candidates for office, who in turn use their elected positions to advocate policies that run contrary to the interests of their constituents who put them in office in the first place.

Mr. Frank is due for a sequel. This time he should ask why so many Republican legislators—especially in Kansas—are voting against the economic interest of the state that they took an oath to protect.

Just as Mr. Frank described nearly a decade ago, Kansas Republicans have just enacted what's been described as a 'reverse-Robinhood ' bill carries a $680 million annual price tag and raises taxes on those least able to pay.

Democrats in the state house are pointing out what this legislation will mean to Kansas’ future.

“This session is the beginning of devastating school cuts, social service cuts and critical government services that aren’t going to be able to be delivered in the same capacity as they have,” said Rep. Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat.

Further north, the state of Maine is seeing the effects of Republicans controlling the legislature and the governor’s office. Last Friday, Moody’s downgraded its outlook for Maine bonds due to the state's ongoing budget problems, despite that fact that Democrats, the Maine Center for Economic Policy, and even Governor LePage's Commissioner for Administrative & Financial Services have been warning legislative Republicans that their irresponsible and ideological fiscal policies would put Maine's bond rating and economic future at risk.

Despite that fact, Republicans continued to push forward with their irresponsible policies, including passing legislation would put Maine in a continual budget crisis. As a result, Moody's Investor Services changed Maine's bond outlook to AA negative just weeks before the state launches a $55.8 million bond offering.

The lower outlook creates the risk of a rating downgrade over the next 12 to 24 months and could increase the state's borrowing costs.

"This is what happens when you let ideology drive your agenda,” said Maine Democratic Party Chair Ben Grant. "We've lost more than 1,000 jobs since 2011. We were rated dead last in the country for personal income growth. Middle class Mainers are working harder and harder for less and less. And now, despite continual warnings, our bond rating has decreased.”

At its most basic level, legislators are to be stewards of their states—leaving them in a better condition than how they found them. But with the rise of the Tea Party in the 2010 elections, instead of leaving a legacy of solid fiscal footing for future generations, Republicans are leaving their state capitals in a fiscal mess. And instead of tackling tough issues, Republicans in Kansas and Maine have spent their time chasing anti-United Nations conspiracy theories and loosening child labor laws.

State legislatures need pragmatic leaders who will make responsible decisions and prioritize bringing well-paying jobs to their states, supporting strong educational institutions, and ensuring that working families have affordable health care and housing choices.

But sadly, Republican legislators’ priorities and decisions are not just the fodder of late-night comedians; they're also hurting the very people whom they took an oath to serve and protect.

Democrats surge in swing-state generic ballots

Nathan Thomas — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:02:43 -0400

Polling released last week shows Democrats taking clear leads in generic legislative ballot polling in Iowa, New Hampshire, and North Carolina - three key swing states which have all voted Republican in recent presidential elections:

Iowa: Democrats lead 44-39 (D+5)
New Hampshire: Democrats lead 47-41 (D+6)
North Carolina: Democrats lead 46-41 (D+5)

This brings to six the number of states where Democrats have taken clear leads in legislative polling this year. Earlier surveys in Colorado, Minnesota, and Maine showed Democrats leading by 7%, 9%, and 14%, respectively. Republican state legislators earned no better than an anemic 41% in any of these polls.

After Maine, the numbers most worrisome for Republicans might be the ones in New Hampshire and Iowa. Both states have redistricting laws that resulted in thoroughly scrambled district maps for 2012, so a lead in generic ballot polling is likely to have more impact this year than it otherwise would.

And New Hampshire, specifically, has a history of producing wild swings in its legislative elections. Democrats gained nearly 100 New Hampshire House seats and nearly doubled their numbers in the state Senate in 2006, even though New Hampshire Democrats won just 52% of the votes for Congress that same year.

Other New Hampshire polling suggests this election could prove even more volatile, as New Hampshire voters seem to be outraged, specifically, at legislative Republicans. In fact, “Republicans in the legislature” was the second most common response in an open-ended question asking voters to identify the state’s “most important problem” – only the economy was mentioned more often.

Collectively, these six states include several of the most important state legislative battlegrounds in the country, and the consistent Democratic lead in so many swing states is a cause for optimism.

Voters across the country, it seems, are taking note of the corruption, extremism, and other misdeeds that followed Republicans into power in states like these – and they’re already crying out for a change.

Limbaugh Busted, Locked Up by Missouri Republicans

Dan Roth — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:44:57 -0400

Missouri's Republican House Speaker Steve Tilley used the final days of the legislative session to address one of the most pressing issues facing the state: inducting Rush Limbaugh into the Missouri Hall of Fame.

But you could tell the Speaker was hoping no one would notice. Breaking with tradition, the public and Democratic lawmakers were not allowed into the chambers of the House of Representatives. In fact, the speaker locked the chamber and had members of the Missouri Highway Patrol guard the doors while the ceremony unveiling a bronze bust of Mr. Limbaugh took place.

Only last week, Dred Scott — the African-American slave who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom in 1857 — was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians in a ceremony that was open to the public and streamed live on the Internet. Earlier this year, Negro League baseball great Buck O’Neil joined the hall in a ceremony that was advertised weeks in advance. But news of Mr. Limbaugh’s induction ceremony was not made public until 20 minutes before it began. The event was invitation only and attended by a crowd of mostly Republican lawmakers and staff.

And you can take Mr. Limbaugh out of his shock-jock radio show, but you cannot take the partisanship out of Rush Limbaugh. Here's how Mr. Limbaugh marked this hallowed event that places him alongside Americans like President Harry Truman and Mark Twain:　He thanked the Republican lawmakers and staff and called Democrats "deranged."

Judgement is a crucial component of leadership. What kind of judgment leads one to honor a talk show host who has used his bully pulpit to call a woman exercising her first amendment rights before Congress a "slut;" to openly mock actor Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease;falsely claim that the failed Times Square car bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was a registered Democrat; tell hungry children to go dumpster diving for food; and compare President Obama to Hitler? Putting Mr. Limbaugh on the same level as World War I General John Pershing and inventor and scientist George Washington Carver diminishes the award and the investment of these great Americans.

But it also shows where Republicans in Missouri place Rush Limbaugh in their Hall of Fame. They actually believe that he is on par with these great Missourians who have improved the lives of all Americans. Mr. Limbaugh's contribution to America is a legacy of blustering, belittlement, and having to pay Florida $30,000 to defray the costs of investigating him for prescription drug fraud.

No wonder Speaker Tilley kept Limbaugh, the bust, and the ceremony literally under lock and key.

Scott Walker and Wisconsin Legislative Republicans Cannot Spin Themselves Out of Bad Job Numbers

Dan Roth — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:08:01 -0400

Yesterday Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker and legislative Republicans were spinning like crazy to get ahead of the release of today's job numbers.

And now we know why. They are doing everything they can to divert attention from the fact that Wisconsin, which already had the worst job creation of any state in the country, lost an additional 6,200 private sector jobs in April under Republican legislative leadership.

While Americais seeing private sector job growth, the job losses in Wisconsin prove that Republican policies simply are not working. Instead of focusing on helping working families, Wisconsin Republicans took their eye off the ball to focus on attacking teachers and promoting abstinence in the place of comprehensive sex education, and now all of Wisconsin is suffering.

More than ever it is essential that we bring new leadership to the Wisconsin Senate. Wisconsinites and Americans simply cannot afford to wait for more bad news.

Paid for by DLCC Wisconsin PAC, Elizabeth Gramling, Treasurer.

Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's agent or committee.

In Virginia: Justice Denied

Dan Roth — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:14:06 -0400

His boss—Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth's Attorney Michael Herring—described Tracy Thorne-Begland as a “fine man, father, lawyer, [and] Navy pilot.” Republican state Delegate and former Richmond prosecutor G. Manoli Loupassi said, "It is without question that [Mr. Thorne-Begland] is extremely qualified," and he assured his colleagues that he would handle his role as a judge in a "dignified way and a correct way."

So why did Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly vote not to confirm a man who had served his country for 20 years as a Navy Pilot before he was honorably discharged and then went on to serve 12 years as a Richmond prosecutor—a man with deep bipartisan support, including the confidence of the state’s Republican governor? Mr. Thorne-Begland is gay, and as Republican Delegate Bob Marshall stated, this veteran is disqualified because he is a “an aggressive activist for the pro-homosexual agenda” who " lives with a ‘partner” with whom he has a formalized homosexual union."

Offended yet? Delegate Marshall extended his remarks: Because he is gay Mr. Thorne-Begland "does not accept the authority of the people in whom are vested the sole power to amend our Virginia Constitution, as he holds himself out to be married to a person of his own sex.”

It would be one thing if this was the first time Delegate Marshall had been so visceral on
the House Floor, or if he was just one lone voice being discounted by his party. However, at the end of the debate, Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates voted against their governor to reject a great public servant and veteran,granting him just 7 of the 51 votes that he needed for confirmation. Every Democrat present also voted to confirm Thorne-Begland, but 31delegates—all Republicans—voted against him, torpedoing his nomination.

Virginia Democratic legislators are incensed.

“Tracy Thorne-Begland is a highly qualified and exceptionally competent prosecutor,who also served our country with honor as a Navy pilot,” said Senator Donald McEachin (D-Henrico). “The GOP took Virginia back to the bigotry and mean-spirited prejudice of the 1960s. I thought we had made more progress toward a just society than this.”

And even though Republican governor Bob McDonnell sent out a statement that judicial candidates “must be considered based solely on their merit, record, aptitude and skill” when he took office, he criticized the two previous Democratic governors for including language against discrimination based on sexual orientation in executive orders that they had issued barring discrimination in state employment.

It would be easy for Mr. Thorne-Begland to be bitter or upset at the Virginia legislature dismissing his years of service and qualifications so callously,but he is classy even when the Republican legislature is not.

"I look forward to continuing to serve the citizens of the city of Richmond and the great commonwealth of Virginia,” Mr. Thorne-Begland said.

He is continuing to work for the people of Virginia; now it is time for a Virginia Legislature that puts qualifications of candidates ahead of bigotry.

Arizona Republicans: Use Birth Control, Lose Your Job

Dan Roth — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:41:32 -0400

I think the late Republican Arizona Senator and conservative standard-bearer Barry Boldwater is probably beating his head against his casket. Senator Goldwater’s wife was a founding member of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, and Senator Goldwater himself was a champion for individual privacy and for birth control.

However, Arizona’s Republican legislature and Governor Jan Brewer have completed their abandonment of those principles by adding a third party into the patient-doctor relationship: the patient’s employer. And employees who choose to use birth control, even if they pay for it themselves, just may find themselves out of a job.

For ten years, Arizona had a very common-sense contraception law. Arizona employers that offered a health care plan to their employees needed to provide coverage for contraception. Religious employers, however, had always been exempt from this law in order to comply to their religious beliefs. Regardless of employer, people who used birth control in the comfort of their own homes and in accordance to their own religious beliefs could not be fired for doing so.

But common sense just was not good enough. Now, under legislation passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor, Arizona businesses that designate themselves to be a “religiously affiliated employer” will no longer have to include contraceptives in the insurance coverage they provide for their workers. Women seeking reimbursement for birth control from their health insurance provider will have to prove that they are not using the medication as contraception if they work for a religiously affiliated employer that has opted out of providing insurance coverage for contraception.

And all a company will need to do is change a few words in the company’s articles of incorporation to claim that their religious beliefs are central to how they operate their business; that language is so broad that even the Republican author of the legislation admitted companies could simply lie to fit the definition and escape the contraception mandate.

And for an added kicker, the new law gets rid of the protection that people who choose to use birth control will not be fired from their jobs for making health care decisions their bosses disapprove of, even if the employee pays for her birth control out of pocket.

This is not the first time Arizona Republicans have sought to enshrine discrimination into state law, but it is alarming how completely they've apparently committed themselves to that destructive path.

There is a fine line between persuasion and manipulation, but holding someone's job over their head just because they want to make their own decisions about when and if they want to use contraception crosses that line.

Excuse them Senator Goldwater; they have forsaken you.

Black Helicopters disrupting Tea Parties across America

Nathan Thomas — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:01:36 -0400

After nearly two years of right-wing conspiracy theories like birtherism, deatherism, and gold currency frenzy, it was probably inevitable that GOP state legislators would return to one of their party’s modern classics: anti-United Nations hysteria.

UN-related conspiracy theories are most famously associated with 1990s-era Republican claims of “black helicopters” landing on farmers’ land in the middle of the night. Now similar fears are back, with a vengeance, in five GOP-controlled legislatures considering bills like this one in Arizona:

The bill’s sponsor, Arizona State Senator Judy Burges, says her goal is to wipe out any environmental program administered or funded by the government to prevent “social engineering … including where we live, what we eat.”

Burges’ bill, Senate Bill 1507, is based upon an unfounded conspiracy theory about “Agenda 21,” a non-binding international plan for environmentally-sustainable development crafted by the United Nations. The plan was adopted in 1992 by 178 countries, including the United States under the George H.W. Bush administration.

Burges and other members of the Tea Party believe that clean energy programs in Arizona are a plot by the United Nations to create a single world government in order to control people’s lives.

SB 1507 actually passed in the Arizona Senate, though the state House recently declined to vote on it.

But how high do Republicans believe this conspiracy goes? To the very top, according to GOP legislators in Kansas, one of whom invoked the JFK assassination to advocate his state’s version of the legislation:

Rep. Bill Otto (R-LeRoy) said during the debate that he believed the EPA is making laws and that the federal government should follow the Constitution instead. He also invoked a conspiracy theory surrounding President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been the only shooter, he said, because it would have been impossible for him to have gotten off multiple shots in such a short amount of time. He suggested that JFK's assassination and Agenda 21 are connected because people don't believe there were multiple shooters and that they don't believe that Agenda 21 is powerful.

Legislation condemning (or, like Arizona’s, outlawing implementation of) the 27 principles of the Rio Declaration is also pending in Louisiana and Alabama. It actually passed in Tennessee, though even that state’s GOP Governor found it too wacky to touch.

So what’s in the non-binding Rio Declaration – a.k.a. Agenda 21 – that has GOP legislators searching the skies for those black helicopters? And is there anything in the document that Republicans may one day regret rushing to condemn? As it turns out, there’s plenty:

Principle 1: Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life...

Principle 2: States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies…

Principle 18: States shall immediately notify other States of any natural disasters or other emergencies that are likely to produce sudden harmful effects on the environment of those States…

In other words, dozens of Republican legislators are now on record saying people do not, in fact, have a right to life; the United States and its citizens do not have the right to exploit our own natural resources according to our own laws; and that Americans should not be warned about floods, disease outbreaks, and other emergencies originating overseas that could effect them.

In the hands of Republican primary challengers or mischievous Democrats, the consequences of a vote like that could be… interesting.

Will these latest GOP conspiracy theories come back to haunt the Republican legislators who peddle them? We won’t know for sure until Election Day, but adding yet another layer of looniness to the GOP agenda can’t possibly help Republicans shake their reputation for being out of touch, unfocused, and more concerned about black helicopters than they are about jobs, the economy, and education.