Category: State

The Maryland House of Delegates voted 139-1 to make Adrienne Jones (D) the speaker of the house in a special session on Wednesday. She replaces Michael Busch (D), who passed away on April 7 after developing pneumonia. Busch had served as speaker since 2003 and was the longest serving speaker in Maryland history.   Jones,…

April’s partisan count of the 7,383 state legislators shows 52 percent of all state legislators are Republicans and 47 percent are Democrats.   Ballotpedia completes a count of the partisan balance of state legislatures at the end of every month. The partisan composition of state legislatures refers to which political party holds the majority of…

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (R) appointed appeals judge James Beene to the Arizona Supreme Court on April 26, 2019. Beene became Ducey’s fourth appointment to the seven-member court, and the ninth state supreme court justice appointed by a governor in the country this year.   Beene replaces former Justice John Pelander, who retired on March…

A special election is being held for District 64 of the Wisconsin State Assembly on April 30. Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Tip McGuire (D) and Mark Stalker (R), a former Kenosha school board member, are running in the general election.   The seat became vacant when Peter Barca (D) stepped down in January 2019…

On April 25, 2019, a three-judge panel of the United District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled unanimously that 34 congressional and state legislative districts had been subject to unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering, violating Democrats’ First Amendment associational rights. The court also found that 27 of the 34 challenged districts violated the Democrats’ First…

Lieutenant Gov. Tate Reeves released the first campaign ad in Mississippi’s Republican gubernatorial primary. In the ad, Reeves said that he would help Mississippi reach its full potential by cutting regulations, lowering taxes, and training the workforce. He said Attorney General Jim Hood (D), who is running in the Democratic primary, would not help the…

Kentucky Democratic gubernatorial candidates Rocky Adkins, Andy Beshear, and Adam Edelen participated in a debate at Transylvania University hosted by Hey Kentucky! and LEX18.   Daniel Desrochers of the Lexington Herald Leader described the debate as light on conflict. He wrote that the buildup to the debate “suggested there might be fireworks. It was more…

Iowa State Representative Andy McKean changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic on Tuesday.   McKean said President Trump and changes in the party as a whole prompted this change. “I feel, as a Republican, that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party…Unfortunately, that’s something I’m unable to…

Last week Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) signed a bill to prohibit sanctuary policies in Arkansas.   Senate Bill (SB) 411 amends Arkansas Code Title 14, Chapter 1, Subchapter 1, to include a provision prohibiting municipalities from adopting sanctuary policies. It also established that municipalities determined to be in violation of the law would be ineligible…

Since January 2019, 60 state legislative vacancies have been created. Thirty-seven of those vacancies have been filled through appointments or special elections. In the 23 vacancies still left to be filled, three will be filled through appointments and 20 will be filled through special elections.   Before the vacancies were created, Democrats controlled 32 of…