MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The rotunda of the Texas capitol, where Republicans are in full control of the legislature and governorship, as is the case in 24 states. (Photo: Adam Simmons)

We are all aware that after the 2016 elections, the Republicans have majorities in the US Congress, and they will shortly have a GOP president in the White House. However, the national election results have overshadowed the continued loss of Democratic Party ground on the state level. For example, only 17 states will have Democratic governors in 2017.

What is more worrisome is that Democrats only control 13 statehouses. According to The Hill, as a result of the November elections, the Democrats have hit a "new low in state legislatures":

The Democratic Party will hit a new nadir in state legislative seats after suffering more losses in November’s elections, highlighting the devastation up and down the party across the nation.

Republicans will control 4,170 state legislative seats after last week’s elections, while Democrats will control 3,129 seats in the nation’s 98 partisan legislative chambers. Republicans picked up a net gain of 46 seats in Tuesday’s elections, while Democrats lost 46 seats, according to the latest vote counts from The Associated Press. Beginning next year, Republicans will control 67 of the 98 partisan legislative chambers, after winning new majorities in the Kentucky House, the Iowa Senate and the Minnesota Senate. Democrats picked up control of both the state Assembly and Senate in Nevada, and the New Mexico state House.

Since Obama took office, Republicans have captured control of 27 state legislative chambers Democrats held after the 2008 elections. The GOP now controls the most legislative seats it has held since the founding of the party.

Moreover, 24 states have both a Republican governor and a Republican-dominated legislature. As the Hill reports, "Democrats will hold total control in only five states -- Hawaii, California, Oregon, Connecticut and Rhode Island." The Republican dominance of state legislatures, as The Hill observes, not only allows them to pass self-perpetuating voter suppression and gerrymandering laws (as happened after the GOP rout in the 2010 congressional election), it also enables the party to pass regressive laws on social and economic policy.

The Daily Kos provides a further ominous detail: "Republicans control both chambers in 32 states, including 17 with veto-proof majorities. Those 32 states cover 61 percent of the US population." Although Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote for president by approximately 3 million votes, state legislatures and governorships have a lopsided Republican majority. In short, the Republicans are in a commanding position to control the agendas of the majority of state legislatures.

Republican legislation can be vetoed in those few states with Democratic governors and Republican legislatures, but look for more defanging of Democratic governors in such states. We recently saw an extreme model of this occurring in a special post-election session of the North Carolina legislature that dramatically curtailed the powers of incoming Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper -- a move that is now being litigated.

If the Republican control of state legislatures continues to trend upwards after the 2018 midterm election, we will be approaching a scenario where the two-thirds of the legislatures necessary to call a convention to amend the Constitution -- with the approval of the Republican Congress -- will have Republican majorities.

The corporate media's focus on the spectacle of the Donald Trump presidency shouldn't obscure the growing threat of reactionary legislative activity on the state level. On a cumulative scale, the GOP is at its peak of dominance in state capitols while the Democrats are at their nadir. There are only seven state senators who self-identify as independents or third-party candidates and only 80 state house candidates who do so.

Can we expect this perilous political trend to continue? Are blue states such as California representative of the future political direction of the US, or are they simply holdouts, as the GOP domination of statehouses grows?