Midterm Matters

In less than two weeks, midterm elections will take place in the United States. Thirty three US senators will be elected. All 435 members of the House of Representatives will be elected. Thirty four state Governors will be elected as well, not to mention many other local and state politicians including mayors, city councils, state senators and representatives, sheriffs, judges, school board members, and commissioners. 

Do midterm elections matter?

According to the Washington Post, more than a half billion dollars say they do. That is how much money has been spent so far by groups and corporations acting INDEPENDENTLY of the candidates on this year’s midterms. (“Corporations are people too, my friend”).

Listening to the national media, one would think that the big question is whether or not the Republicans will take the Senate from the Democrats. Since they already own the House of Representatives, this would give the Republicans control of both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. The only thing missing from the trifecta would be the White House. Theoretically, this would be terrible for the Democrats and President Obama. The Republicans would surely pass all kinds of laws to reverse and minimize everything the President has accomplished over the last six years. The Senate would change the filibuster rules because they are still pissed at Harry Reid for changing the rules so the Republicans had to do a little more than raise their hand to block most of the President’s appointments. The Senate will probably go back to the days of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, when if you wanted to block or filibuster something, you literally had to get up and talk until you collapsed from exhaustion.

Should Democrats be worried? Afraid? Panicked? Nah, relax. Breathe. If the Republicans take the Senate, they probably will pass all kinds of odiferous legislation, and the President will promptly veto it. They will not have the three fourths majority in both houses of Congress to override the vetoes, so the stuff they pass will be dead on arrival at the White House. As for the Senate changing its filibuster rules, that may be a good thing. There will be another election two years from now. Unlike this time, the thirty three seats being contested in the Senate will be in traditionally Democratic leaning states. Democratic voters will be energized by a Presidential ticket that will probably feature the first potential female President. Demographic trends clearly favor the Democrats. Their numbers are growing while the Republican Party is shrinking. The Senate will return to the Democrats.

So, do midterms really matter?

Tip O’Neil got it right when he said “All politics are local”. A half billion dollars isn’t stupid. Those Republicans on the Supreme Court aren’t stupid. When they ruled in the Citizen’s United vs. The Federal Election Commission case in January of 2010 they opened the floodgates for corporate money to buy elections in the United States on a local and national level. President Obama was appalled to the point of chastising the members of the court to their faces during his State of the Union address. 

The primary reason the Republicans have a stranglehold on the US House of Representatives is because of old fashioned gerrymandering and corporate money. Twenty nine states have Republican governors. Twenty seven states have Republican majorities in both houses of their legislatures, including every state of the former Confederate States of America. State legislatures have the power to draw the boundaries of legislative districts. Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they could draw them any way they wanted to, and they routinely drew them to minimize the effects of minority voters. Then, the Republicans on the Supreme Court decided the Voting Rights Act wasn’t really necessary anymore, so they gutted it. As a result, many of the Republicans in the US House and state legislatures are now bullet proof. The only thing they have to fear are primary challenges from the tea party right.

Ironically, more than half a million more Americans voted for Democratic candidates vs Republican candidates for the US House of Representatives in 2012, but the Republicans won 55% of the seats.

What’s up with that?

Do midterms matter? Yes they do.

But, maybe not as much as money and the Supreme Court.