Tennessee is only part of last week’s biggest story — the power of supermajorities

By Tom Baxter

Donald Trump’s arraignment was supposed to be the nation’s big story last week, but it was old news the day before it happened. When the arraignment was over, a little-noticed but more significant story rose to be the lead item on national news shows in the span of 48 hours.

The sharp edge of this story was the expulsion of two Democratic legislators in Tennessee for breaking decorum in the state’s House chamber by leading a gun control protest. The ham-handed way in which the Republican majority carried this out — expelling rather than censuring, and tossing two young African-American men while sparing a white woman charged with the same offense — drew national derision.

But what happened last week is a bigger story, of which Tennessee is only a part.

Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers would not have engaged in this act of self-flagellation if they were not a supermajority. That means they can pass veto-proof bills, not that Gov. Bill Lee would veto them, anyway. More importantly, the supermajority has bred a culture of impunity, in which committee chairs have passed or killed bills on suspect voice votes, amendments have been inserted in bills without notice, and in an incident that got some national attention last week, a Republican urinated on the chair of a fellow Republican he didn’t like. Upwards of a dozen of those who voted for the expulsions last week, including Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, have testified in a grand jury investigation of government corruption.

While the drama of the expulsion was being played out before a national audience, Republicans gained supermajorities in two other states. That’s the larger context of last week’s big story.

In North Carolina, where Republicans already held a supermajority in the State Senate, Rep. Tricia Cotham switched parties, giving the GOP a supermajority in the House. Not only was Cotham a Democrat with a liberal voting record, representing a suburban Charlotte district which Joe Biden won by more than 20 points. She’s the daughter of a longtime Democratic county councilwoman, and she has run for Congress as a Democrat.

Cotham was offended by the House Democratic leadership, which she said treated her like a freshman when she returned to the House this year after her failed Congressional bid and a stint in the private sector. She also complained of feeling stifled by Democrats who demanded she toes the party line. But her party switch shocked both parties and gives Republicans the chance to override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

Irate Democrats are already talking about recruiting another candidate in Cotham’s district, but Republicans will have the power to redraw the district map to put Cotham in a more winnable district.

Democrats across the country celebrated last week when Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly by more than 10 points, giving liberals a 4-3 majority on the nonpartisan-elect state Supreme Court. In a state known for close elections, this was looked on as a demonstration of how much the overturning of Roe v. Wade has energized pro-choice voters.

But on the same day, Republican Dan Knodl won a much narrower special election in suburban Milwaukee, giving Republicans a supermajority in the state Senate. Although observers in Wisconsin say it’s unlikely, Knodl’s victory raises the possibility that Republicans could impeach Protasiewicz if they don’t like the direction she takes on the court.

It’s much harder to hold on to a two-thirds majority than a simple majority of 50 percent plus one. In Georgia, Republicans held a supermajority in the House from 2010 to 2018, and in the Senate from 2005 to 2018, losing that advantage in the year Donald Trump was elected president. But long-term trends have not favored the Democrats. A decade ago there were nine states with Democratic supermajorities and 16 with Republican supermajorities. After last week, there are now 22 Republican supermajority states, while the number of Democratic supermajority states remains at nine.

Democrats made surprising gains in state legislative elections last year, especially in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. But while the North Carolina party switch and the Wisconsin special election didn’t get many headlines last week, they are a reminder that in statehouses around the country, Democrats are still a long way from catching up with Republicans.