Why do any otherwise intelligent people think that Nancy Pelosi [View all]

[pnwmom]

can magically command majorities for bills when the large majority of members of the House are Rethugs?

What is she supposed to be doing? Blackmailing them?

It is so stupid for us to be focusing so much criticism on her when all she can do is work with the House members we send her FROM OUR STATES.

The problem isn't with Nancy Pelosi, it's at the state level, where the GOP has been using its 31 Governors and 32 State Legislatures to gerrymander the House so that it keeps its large majority.

We need to be concentrating much harder on electing Democrats and the local and state level; on fighting gerrymandering; and not punishing the minority of Dems in the House for not being able to work miracles.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/after-winning-7-more-seats-gop-dominance-state-legislatures-all

Republicans are now in control of a record 67 (68 percent) of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers in the nation, more than twice the number (31) in which Democrats have a majority, according to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

“That’s more than at any other time in the history of the Republican Party,” according to NCSL. “They also hold more total seats, well over 4,100 of the 7,383, than they have since 1920.”

Next year, the GOP will control both legislative chambers in 32 states - an all-time high, according to NCSL - while Democrats will have total control of just 13 state legislatures.

In 24 of the 32 states with Republican-controlled legislatures, voters have also elected Republican governors. In contrast, Democrats have a “political trifecta” in just six states.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/14/1598918/-Republicans-now-dominate-state-government-with-32-legislatures-and-33-governors

Following the 2014 midterm wave, Republicans dominated state legislatures at a rate not seen since the Civil War. Democrats had hoped to rebound in 2016, but thanks in part to Trump’s resilience and widespread Republican gerrymandering, they only made modest gains. Democrats flipped four chambers, but lost control of three, leaving Republicans in charge of 68 state legislative chambers and Democrats just 31.

The above map illustrates the balance of legislative power in state legislatures nationwide. Republicans control both chambers in 32 states, including 17 with veto-proof majorities. Those 32 states cover 61 percent of the U.S. population. Democrats, meanwhile, control the legislature in just 13 states, amounting to 28 percent of the country’s population; only four of those chambers have veto-proof majorities.

With a firm grip on the presidency, Congress, and soon the Supreme Court, Republicans have won more political power in 2016 than in any election since at least 1928, when Herbert Hoover was elected to the White House. Democrats now face a deep hole they need to climb out of to fight back against the coming reactionary policy shift of the pending Trump administration and its allied state governments.

SNIP

As shown above, Republicans now control the governor’s office in 33 states, amounting to 60 percent of the population, while Democrats control just 16 states with 40 percent of the population. (Alaska has an independent governor supported by the Democrats.) Republicans now hold a greater number of governor’s offices than they have in several generations.