Academic

STATES GOING RED: Of all the stories of the great Republican wave election of 2010, one of the st?

By Glenn Reynolds

STATES GOING RED:

Of all the stories of the great Republican wave election of 2010, one of the stories that didn?t get wide play is just how dominant the GOP was in state elections. Republicans claimed a record 680 state legislative seats around the country, 52 more than the old record, set by Democrats in 1974 and 208 more than they picked up in the 1994 Gingrich Revolution. The right now controls both chambers of 26 state legislatures.

And the hits just keep coming. In the past couple of weeks, at least 11 Democratic state legislators have switched sides ? one in South Dakota, one in Maine, , one in Louisiana, two in Georgia, and four in Alabama. In Louisiana, the switch gives Republicans control of one house of the government for the first time since Reconstruction; in Alabama, the Republicans control both houses for the first time since 1874.

This matters for a lot of reasons going beyond the obvious one of reapportionment.

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes:

You bet it matters! Apart from the obvious reapportionment to come, the states are the Achilles? heel of all national parties. You don?t get to DC except through some state electorate ? and some state-level party apparatus. I won?t be surprised if the revolution in communication and the disaggregation and decentralization of information and the media makes political organization at the state-level more relevant than ever. Couple that with the presumptive superiority of the bi-coastal media and governing classes being rendered risible by the last decade and contemptible by the last two years, and there?s every reason for people to look for state and local answers to problems and to demand that states themselves have a greater autonomy and a greater voice in setting national policy.

Apropos of your link to praise of ?Americans as Americans See It? ca. 1932, the last decade has been an education for all those that Cordevilla places in the ?Country Class?; and, if those members of the Country Class ever did care for the opinions and presumptive wisdom of the ?Ruling Class?, I?m betting they sure-as-hell don?t now: Credibility can be a fragile thing.

Indeed.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on November 24, 2010 (boomark / email).