Yesterday, the NY Times published a piece by Michael Wines, If Tennessee’s Legislature Looks Broken, It’s Not Alone. It was the “It’s not alone” phrase that caught my attention. His subtitle was “State legislatures around the country— plagued by partisan division, uncompetitive races and gerrymandering— reflect the current pressures on democracy.” He pointed out that the KKK legislature in Nashville includes 60 members (out of 99) who “had no opponent in last November’s election. Of the remaining House races, almost none were competitive. Not a single seat flipped from one party to the other.” Ah… the Supreme Court-sanctioned wonders of partisan gerrymandering.
“We’re just not in a normal political system,” said Kent Syler, a political science professor and expert on state politics at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. “In a normal two-party system, if one party goes too far, usually the other party stops them. They put the brakes on.”
In Tennessee, he said, “there’s nobody to put on the brakes.”
And not just in Tennessee.
Nationwide, candidates for roughly four of every 10 state legislative seats run unopposed in general elections.
And across the country, one-party control of state legislatures, compounded by hyperpartisan politics, widespread gerrymandering, an urban-rural divide and uncompetitive races, has made the dysfunction in Tennessee more the rule than the exception.
The lack of competition means incumbent lawmakers face few consequences for their conduct. And their legislative actions are driven in large part by the fraction of partisans who determine their fates in primary elections, the only political contests where they face serious opposition.
Those forces, intensified by the Supreme Court’s open door for gerrymandering and the geographic sorting of Democrats into urban areas and Republicans into rural ones, are buffeting legislatures run by both parties: Republicans have total control of legislatures in 28 states (including Nebraska, which is nominally nonpartisan) and Democrats in 18.
That control has enabled both parties to enact legislation advancing their policy agendas, as would be expected, especially at such a partisan moment. Both parties, to differing degrees, have abused their ability to gerrymander.
But it is Republican-run states, many experts say, that are taking extreme positions on limiting voting and bending or breaking other democratic norms, as Tennessee did in expelling two lawmakers last week.
Before Thursday, there had been only two expulsions from the Tennessee House since the Civil War.
Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University government professor and the author with Daniel Ziblatt of the book How Democracies Die, said one-party rule in Democratic states like Illinois has typically led to corruption and abuses of power.
But states controlled by Democrats, he said, have not tried to limit voting, restrict civil liberties or push back on democratic norms the way Republican-controlled states have in recent years.
“Only one party, I think, is flirting with authoritarianism right now,” Professor Levitsky said.
…Elsewhere, Republican-led legislatures in North Carolina and Wisconsin passed laws stripping power from incoming Democratic governors after Roy Cooper was elected in North Carolina in 2016 and Tony Evers in 2018.
In Missouri, the legislature is trying to take over the police department in St. Louis, one of several moves aimed at leaders of Democratic cities. Many of those actions explicitly revoke cities’ longstanding authority to enact local laws that might run counter to GOP legislation on priority issues like LGBTQ rights, law enforcement or guns.
Republican legislatures in Ohio, Arkansas, Florida and several other states are considering actions this year that would limit the ability of citizens to get ballot initiatives before voters, particularly on issues like abortion and gerrymandering. Enacting barriers to voting— broadly aimed at young voters and members of minority groups that lean Democratic— has become part of the standard Republican playbook.
…There’s another reason state legislators in Tennessee— and many other states— so often face no opposition: Few people want to run, or can afford to.
At an annual salary of $24,316, “it’s like a nothing job,” said Jim Cooper, the former congressman. “It can ruin your day job.”
“The sad reality is that good people don’t want to run for office anymore,” he said. “So we shouldn’t be surprised by what we get when the fringe 10 or 15 percent of the state legislature can run everything.”
Still, some political experts and Nashville voters said the expulsion debacle had the potential to reboot some competition. Most pointed to the wave of national publicity that elevated the two expelled Democrats to national figures and reinvigorated— if only briefly— the party’s political energy.
“If there’s any hope for the state Democratic Party living again, it’s going to come from a rejection of that sort of inevitability of extremist control” on issues like the mass shooting in Nashville, said Keel Hunt, a political columnist and a former top aide to Lamar Alexander, the former Tennessee Republican governor and senator.
Michigan legislators earn bigger salaries than their counterparts in any states other than Pennsylvania, New York and California. And since the Democrats flipped both chambers of the legislature in 2022, they really are earning it. The state legislature has been sending bills to Gov. Whitmer’s desk that serve the interest of the state’s working families— including to protect women’s right to Choice and protect labor unions ability to organize and, last Thursday, powerful gun control bills expanding background check requirements for firearm purchases and imposing storage standards for guns kept in homes where children are present. The exact opposite of reactionary, the anti-woke racists who dominate the Tennessee legislature. You get what you pay for? The utterly unqualified Tennessee legislators make just $24,316, not even enough to live on in Hancock (Trump 86.44%), Clay (Trump 77.95%), (Lake Trump 73.35%) and Jackson (77.36%) counties, not just the poorest places in Tennessee, but among the poorest places in America— MAGA through and through.
These are the annual salaries of the state legislatures, not counting mileage allowances and per diems:
New Hampshire- $100
Texas- $7,200
South Carolina- $10,400
Nebraska- $12,000
North Carolina- $13,951
South Dakota- $13,957
Maine- $15,417
Louisiana- $16,800
Rhode Island- $16,835
Georgia- $17,341
Virginia- $18,000 (senators) 17,640 (delegates)
Idaho- $18,875
West Virginia- $20,000
Mississippi- $23,500
Arizona- $24,000
Tennessee- $24,316
Iowa- $25,000
Connecticut- $28,000
Indiana- $28,791
Florida- $29,697
Oregon- $33,852
Missouri- $36,813
Colorado- $40,242
Arkansas- 44,357
Minnesota- $46,500
Oklahoma- $47,500
Delaware- $48,237
New Jersey- $49,000
Maryland- $50,330
Alaska- $50,400
Alabama- $53,956
Wisconsin $55,141
Washington- $57,876
Ohio- $60,584
Hawaii- $62,604
Massachusetts- $70,537
Illinois- $70,645
Michigan- $71,685
Pennsylvania- $95,432
New York- $110,000
California- $119,702
New Mexico- voluntary
North Dakota- $537 per month while in session
Vermont- $742 per week while in session
Kansas- $88.66 per day while in session
Montana- $100.46 per day while in session
Nevada- $164.69 per day while in session
Wyoming- $150 per day while in session
Kentucky- $188.22 per day while in session
Utah- $285 per day while in session
These are some commonly cited arguments for keeping legislative salaries low:
Low salaries supposedly encourage legislators to focus on serving their communities rather than personal financial gain, although I don’t know what world that makes any sense in.
Even more absurd is that low salaries are supposed to help limit the influence of money in politics.
The low salaries advocates also come up with the nonsense that it’s easier for individuals from a wider range of income levels to seek office (as long they’re wealthy and don’t need salaries).
Low salaries can save taxpayer money. Ah… BINGO!
The other side argues that:
Low salaries discourage qualified candidates from seeking office, particularly those who need to support themselves and their families.
Low salaries make it difficult for legislators to work full-time on legislative matters, which could result in less effective representation.
Low salaries make legislators more susceptible to the influence of outside interests— including outright bribes— as they may need to rely on outside sources of income to support themselves.
On the other hand, high salaries:
Can attract qualified and experienced candidates who may not otherwise be able to afford to serve in office.
Can allow legislators to focus fully on their legislative duties, which could result in more effective representation.
Can limit the influence of outside interests, as legislators may not need to rely on outside sources of income to support themselves. (This ignores the fact that the greediest and most unethical people tend to be the wealthiest.)
High salaries can help ensure that legislative positions are accessible to people from a wider range of income levels.
One study by Sarah Anzia and Christopher Berry, published in the Journal of Politics in 2013 found that higher salaries for state legislators were associated with increased experience, higher levels of education, and increased legislative professionalism, all of which are factors that contribute to higher-quality legislatures— so more like Michigan’s and less like Tennessee’s. Another study, this one by Daniel Butler and David Nickerson, published in the American Political Science Review in 2018, found that higher legislative salaries were associated with increased effort by legislators, as measured by the number of bills sponsored and the frequency of floor speeches
I sent Michael Wines' piece to Victoria Luevanos, one of the Blue America-endorsed progressives running for state Senate in a swing district that includes part of Virginia Beach, part of Norfolk plus all of Accomack and Northampton counties. Please contribute to her campaign by clicking on the thermometer on the right. She told me that reading it was bitter sweet. "It hits home with my race. When I introduce myself and my campaign to people who are heavily involved in Virginia politics they all have a concerned look on their face, some point out that I'm against 'endless money,' that my opponent has right wing extremist followers that have intimidated others from running, and there's no chance I'm winning against one of the richest politicians in Virginia. The pay is in the poverty line, and no working Virginian could afford to hold this position without another source of steady income and job flexibility. You don't only clock into the job when it's in session, it's committees, it's town halls, it's fundraising, it's hours drive to Richmond, and days away from home. We can't even pass legislation in this state for a livable wage, job flexibility, and paid time off because it's been deemed scary socialism by the right. So how do we get represented by people in our communities if they can't afford to participate in the process? Then it comes down to our representatives, people who haven't walked a day in our shoes... recently or even at all. Playing moderate to win, then show no back bone for progress while they keep their seat for years after years. Our Democratic candidates don't even make the historical moves we need when they have the majority, they get played by playing the good guy who never bends, and in the end we don't vote to keep them because they didn't accomplish anything. It's discouraging to know these outcomes then expect us to show up in record numbers. I really hope my race gets people who vote towards big money to reconsider their candidate and the issues we all face. No candidate who has endless money and working families can't even compete against, is someone who represents us who live paycheck to paycheck, or families who can't afford their copays, medical supplies, or equipment for their loved ones."