The Briefing Room

General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: Free Vulcan on January 26, 2015, 11:11:00 pm

Title: Have Democrats lost 900 seats in state legislatures since Obama has been president?
Post by: Free Vulcan on January 26, 2015, 11:11:00 pm
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/cokie-roberts/have-democrats-lost-900-seats-state-legislatures-o/

If President Barack Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for middle-class tax cuts and programs won’t go anywhere in the new Republican Congress, why did Obama even spend time discussing it during last week’s State of the Union?

"Because it’s something for people to run on," said Cokie Roberts as part of a Sunday pundit analysis on ABC’s This Week.

"He’s lost almost 70 Democrats since he’s been president," Roberts said of Congress, "and more than 900 state legislators. So he needs to give Democrats something to run on."

We had heard iterations of Democratic losses on the congressional level, but never such a large number of losses for Democrats in legislatures across the country.

Turns out, Roberts is correct.

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I knew it was a big number, but didn't think it was that big.
Title: Re: Have Democrats lost 900 seats in state legislatures since Obama has been president?
Post by: GourmetDan on January 26, 2015, 11:41:51 pm
"He’s lost almost 70 Democrats since he’s been president," Roberts said of Congress, "and more than 900 state legislators. So he needs to give Democrats something to run on."

We had heard iterations of Democratic losses on the congressional level, but never such a large number of losses for Democrats in legislatures across the country.

Turns out, Roberts is correct.

When your opponent is busy digging, whatever you do... don't interrupt him...

Title: Re: Have Democrats lost 900 seats in state legislatures since Obama has been president?
Post by: jmyrlefuller on January 26, 2015, 11:43:52 pm
It's true. Across the entire country, it is 900. That's actually an improvement for the Dems—after the 2010 elections, they'd lost 1200 seats. (A lot of that was because the Dems played their hands too early and were threatening to gerrymander the GOP out of existence. Talk about a motivational tool for the Republicans.)
Title: Re: Have Democrats lost 900 seats in state legislatures since Obama has been president?
Post by: Formerly Once-Ler on January 27, 2015, 07:46:24 am
Beautiful.  That is our future.  Our farm team for the next Governors, Congressmen, Senators and Presidents.  Thank You Obama for being a SCoaMF.