State Republicans have gone from opposing Democrats to opposing democracy

Across the country, from Tennessee to Montana, Republican-controlled state legislatures are quietly and effectively eroding democracy on a near-daily basis. Amassing outsized power is enabling them to push a radical agenda, including expelling and silencing elected leaders, banning abortion, loosening gun laws, targeting trans families and banning books. 

Too many Republican-controlled legislatures have gone from opposing Democrats to opposing democracy itself.

This didn’t happen overnight. Years of investment and aggressive gerrymandering have led to veto-proof Republican supermajorities in 20 state legislatures, while Democrats hold supermajorities in just nine. Moreover, Republicans hold trifectas — governorship and both state houses — in 22 states and control 58 out of 99 State legislative chambers across the country. 

In at least four states — Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin — Republicans are also profoundly overrepresented in state governments relative to the voter party affiliation. This outsized, unrepresentative power has huge implications for two of the most urgent issues facing the country today: gun control and abortion access — both life and death issues where Americans are largely united. 

Recent polls show that more Americans than ever, including a majority of Republican voters, want their representatives to prioritize gun control over the rights of gun owners. And poll after poll shows that huge majorities of voters, including Republicans, are against banning abortion early in pregnancy.

North Carolina presents exactly this case. Although it is a state with evenly divided voters, a large share of young, unaffiliated voters and a Democratic governor, Republicans there have been manipulating the legislative districts for years, engaging in highly partisan gerrymandering. One newly elected Democratic legislator who switched parties recently under dubious circumstances gave Republicans a veto-proof supermajority.

With this unaccountable power, among their first actions was filing a bill to ban nearly all abortions in the state, despite that  57 percent of North Carolina voters want abortion to be legal with some restrictions. So far this year, guns have killed nearly 14,000 people in homicides, suicides and accidents in the U.S.

No other nation has this many gun deaths per capita. Yet Republican-controlled state legislatures in Tennessee, Florida and other trifecta states have ignored the will of the people and continue expanding permit-less carry laws or pushing to arm teachers and school personnel. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) passed such a bill against the will of a whopping 77 percent of Florida voters who opposed it. By contrast, in Washington State, where Democrats are in the majority, lawmakers passed an assault weapons ban and did so with some bipartisan support. 

It’s said that democracy dies in darkness, which is exactly how state legislatures have become so out of touch with the mainstream. Indeed, if it weren’t for the appalling expulsion of Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the Tennessee House and the barring of transgender Montana lawmaker Zooey Zephyr from taking to that state’s House floor (rare instances in which the national news media shined a spotlight) most Americans would not know how bad things have gotten in state government.

A study by Johns Hopkins University found that only 20 percent of Americans could even name their state representatives. This widespread ignorance has allowed a proliferation of political gamesmanship and radical extremism that is dangerous for our country. Lawmakers can’t be held accountable for their actions when voters are unaware of them.

One reason is that local and regional newspapers have sharply reduced their coverage of state and local governments in recent years as a consequence of declining circulation and earnings that cut the number of journalists employed at U.S. newspapers from nearly 72,000 in 2004 to just 31,000 last year. 

But money and political investments are another reason. In the 2022 cycle, the Republican State Leadership Committee, which helps elect Republicans in state legislative races, raised a record $71 million, compared to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which broke fundraising records but raised only $47 million. This differential reflects a general lack of focus from Democrats on state elections. 

With the notable exception of Michigan going blue in 2022, Democrats failed even to challenge all the Republican-held state seats that were open. In Florida, 45 Republican State legislators ran totally unopposed. A stunning 57 percent of Missouri State legislative seats were unopposed, and in Ohio, only 1 in 4 Republican seats were challenged. 

To stem this undemocratic tide, Democrats must do three things. 

First, they must recruit, fund and support candidates to run in competitive races everywhere. It won’t be easy — many legislative districts are so gerrymandered that they are not winnable now.

But this leads to the second urgent solution. Democrats and groups that support democracy must mount even more aggressive legal challenges to hyper-partisan gerrymandering everywhere they are wreaking havoc.

Third, national Democrats, including President Biden, must do more to highlight critical state races throughout the 2024 campaign. Biden did the right thing by inviting the then-ousted Tennessee legislators for an Oval Office meeting, and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Nashville to deliver one of her most passionate speeches. 

Of course, flipping state houses requires time, money and resources — Democratic donors must invest more consistently and aggressively for the long term to fund all three of these solutions.  The presidential election matters hugely, but 2024 can and should be a galvanizing moment at the state level too. As states push for extreme abortion bans, try to silence opposition and pass legislation most Americans oppose, Democrats should relentlessly highlight the contrast and make sure voters understand just what is at stake; quite simply, everything.

Lauren Leader is co-founder and CEO of All In Together, a non-profit women’s civic education organization. She tweets at @LaurenLeaderAIT.

Donna Brazile is a political strategist, a contributor to ABC News and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. She is the author of “Hacks: Inside the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”