SACRAMENTO | Wed Nov 7, 2012 4:46am EST
"This is an outcome that nobody expected," Assembly Speaker John A. Perez told Reuters early on Wednesday. "But now we've got 54 people that I know are going to come together on day one and work to further stabilize our economy."
State Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told Reuters by phone that he was "reasonably confident" his party would also gain a two-thirds majority in the upper legislative body.
SACRAMENTO | Sat Nov 3, 2012 5:46pm EDT
SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - California Democrats are hoping to leverage new state electoral rules to garner a veto-proof supermajority in the state legislature come Election Day, a possibility that their Republican opponents worry could lead to tax abuses.
Tuesday's general election will test the impact of a new election landscape in California thanks to redrawn political maps and an open primary system in which all candidates for each office competed on a single ballot, with the top two vote-getters going on to the election, regardless of party.
Democrats say they hope to achieve a supermajority in both legislative houses. They already control 25 of the 40 seats in the state senate, and would need to gain only two more seats to pass the two-thirds mark, which analysts say is likely. A similar gain in the state assembly could be much harder.
"We expect to make significant progress towards our goal of capturing a two-thirds majority in California," California Democratic Party spokesman Tenoch Flores told Reuters.
California, the most populous U.S. state, already has Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature and a Democratic governor. But a supermajority would help Democrats on tax matters, because the state requires a two-thirds legislative majority for tax increases.
Allan Hoffenblum, a former Republican political consultant who publishes the California Target Book, which evaluates political races, said Democrats would probably gain veto-proof control of the state senate, but not the assembly.
Hoffenblum noted that a handful of redrawn coastal districts, the 17th and 19th state senate districts among them, now skew more Democratic, and would play a strong role in Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's supermajority goal.
In the lower chamber, Democrats currently control 52 of the 80 seats. While they would only need to gain two seats to pass the two-thirds mark, Hoffenblum said they actually face the prospect of losing an assembly seat or two.
"Most people have a visceral reaction to one party controlling everything. A supermajority would not be a good thing," state Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff told Reuters.
Huff and his Republican counterparts fear Democrats could also use a supermajority to pass controversial tax and budget measures. A bigger majority would also make it easier to ignore opposition by Republicans or more conservative Democrats.
A tax measure on Tuesday's ballot is a case in point: when Brown was unable to persuade Republican legislators to support a plan to increase sales tax and raise income tax on those earning over $250,000 to avoid education budget cuts, he put the measure to voters.
Huff said that giving Democrats the unchecked ability to raise taxes by circumventing Republican opposition - or even a vote of the people - would create an uncompetitive business climate that would send investment and capital elsewhere.
But Democratic strategists say Republican opposition to tax increases of any kind has led to partisan gridlock and exacerbated the state's budget woes. The presence of moderate Democrats who oppose tax hikes should also temper the budget and tax effects of a potential supermajority.
Political analyst Hoffenblum, for his part, doesn't think either legislative body would be interested in tax increases, especially if voters turn down the governor's ballot measure.
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)
ROMEOVILLE, Illinois | Sat Nov 3, 2012 7:12pm EDT
ROMEOVILLE, Illinois (Reuters) - Democrats appear unlikely to regain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday despite a nationwide push, and a major reason could be disappointment in President Barack Obama's home state.
In Illinois, Democrats began this election year determined to reverse a Republican gain of four U.S. House seats in 2010 that gave them a majority of the Illinois delegation in a state considered solidly Democratic.
The powerful speaker of the Illinois state House, Michael Madigan, used the Democratic stranglehold on state government to redraw election districts after the 2010 Census in a way that would help Democratic candidates.
The strategy worked to an extent, putting Republicans on the defensive, and making six of the 18 Illinois congressional races competitive. They have attracted more than $45 million in outside spending.
Some political analysts say Democrats could gain three seats back from Republicans in Illinois, which would probably not be enough to return the national party back to power on Capitol Hill.
"The Democrats are not going to take the House, the hill is simply too steep for them to climb," said Michael Mezey, a political science professor at DePaul University in Chicago.
Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, an incumbent backed by the conservative Tea Party movement, was widely expected to lose to Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran featured at the Democratic National Convention, in a heavily Democratic district. Two other Republican incumbents, including the relatively moderate Judy Biggert in a suburban Chicago district, are in very tight races.
Democrats also could gain five seats in California, but the rest of the national map doesn't bode well for them.
Republicans used their victories in state legislatures and governors' races in 2010 elections to redraw voting districts in states such as North Carolina to offset the expected Democratic victories elsewhere.
Mezey expects Democrats will pick up "probably no less than five seats and certainly no more than 10," nationally, well short of the 25 seats they need to return to the majority of the 435-member House of Representatives.
"A BULWARK" AGAINST NANCY PELOSI
Unlike Joe Walsh, whose reputation as a Tea Party firebrand made him vulnerable to a challenge from Tammy Duckworth even before he made controversial remarks about abortion, Biggert is running as a bipartisan moderate.
The candidate repeatedly described herself as a compromiser when she spoke recently to senior citizens at the Tasty Waffle restaurant in Romeoville, a outer suburb of Chicago where strip malls mingle with open farmland.
Ken Scorza, 68, a retired independent, said he supports Biggert because "she is one of the few people who constantly reach across the aisle for the betterment of the country."
Appearing alongside Biggert was U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, a senior House Republican from a neighboring district, who highlighted the threat of a Democratic majority.
"Can you imagine bringing Nancy Pelosi back?" he asked, referring to the Democratic House Minority leader whose name raises conservative hackles. "The bulwark against that is to send Judy Biggert back to Congress."
Biggert's opponent, scientist and former Democratic Rep. Bill Foster, describes her as an extreme politician. At a rally in Aurora, a Chicago suburb with a large Hispanic population, Foster said Biggert "sided with the Tea Party Congress" against the Dream Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.
"Bill Foster understands that a healthy middle class is crucial for America's economy," said Cassidy Alexander, a self-employed artist who attended the rally. "He is a scientist who makes rational decisions and that is really important to me."
That race alone has brought in $8 million in outside money, bringing a barrage of mostly negative television ads that often run back to back in the suburbs.
Obama won Biggert's strangely shaped district easily in 2008, making it more difficult for her to hold onto the seat.
Another tight race involves Republican Robert Dold, a freshman congressman from Chicago's North Shore, whose district was altered to include less of the Republican northern suburbs and more ethnically mixed neighborhoods nearer to Chicago. His race has attracted nearly $7.3 million in outside money.
DePaul's Mezey said Dold has a solid chance of fending off Democratic challenger Brad Schneider.
"If Dold does win, he'd have the singular honor of being the Republican in the House with the most Democratic district in the country," he said.
(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Greg McCune and Doina Chiacu)
