Three states show how abortion, schools and taxes are at stake in legislature races
Elections for state legislatures don’t get the attention that races for president or Congress do but they often have a big impact on our lives. Congress is divided and gridlocked. In contrast, nearly all state legislatures have both chambers run by one party or another. That makes it easy to pass laws.
And they’ve been passing a lot. More than 20 states have imposed new limits on abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the federal right to abortion in 2022. In education, state lawmakers create voucher programs and determine public school funding. Gun laws, taxes, criminal sentences, access to Medicaid and food stamps are just a few other issues decided by state legislatures.
Redistricting and polarization have increased the political tilt of many legislatures — even where the state might be more balanced overall.
This year, several legislatures could see power shift if just a few seats flip in the election — maybe just a matter of hundreds of votes in some districts. Here are three states, Kansas, Minnesota and Arizona, that illustrate the stakes around the country.
In Kansas, the GOP 'supermajority' could fall, giving the Democratic governor a stronger veto
TOPEKA, Kansas — Kansas is one of several states where the Legislature sometimes tilts more conservative than the state’s voters overall. While it votes Republican for president, it has elected a Democrat for governor twice in a row and voted with 59% to protect abortion rights.
But Republicans hold 29 of the 40 seats in the Senate and 85 of the 125 seats in the House. That gives them the two-thirds “supermajority” to pass bills and override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
They’ve overridden Kelly’s vetoes 15 times in the last two years. They used the override to pass a bill requiring doctors to question patients seeking abortions about their reasons. They overrode vetoes to pass laws banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports and to limit access to food stamps.
Democrats say they can break the supermajority in this year's elections — they’d only need to flip two or three seats in either chamber. It would give Kelly a stronger veto in her last two years in office — and Democrats more leverage over what the majority passes.
“My hope is that with the governor being able to veto and being able to sustain those vetoes, it puts us more at the table for compromise,” says Democrat Dinah Sykes, the Senate minority leader.
National Democratic party organizations say that goal is within reach. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is highlighting 10 legislative races in Kansas and helping with campaign logistics.
Kansas Republicans, meanwhile, have scorned that contribution as outside interference. And they defend the supermajority.
Republican House Majority Leader Chris Croft says it’s a necessary counterbalance to the governor’s veto pen.
“[The] supermajority in this case, while it sounds like it's this huge number, in fact, what it does is just gives us a seat at the table,” Croft told NPR.
Even with their heavy majority, Republican's priorities aren't always veto-proof. Last session, Kelly successfully vetoed three major tax-cut proposals, including one that fell a single vote shy of an override. The fight forced the Legislature into a special session.
“You can't get everything you want in this business. This business has a little bit of give and take and that's the beauty of the process,” Croft says. “It's also the frustrating part.”
Supermajorities, like the one held by Kansas Republicans, have become common. Across the country as of their recent legislative sessions, one party or another held a veto-proof majority in 29 states. Republicans had 20 of those, Democrats nine.
Patrick Miller, a political scientist at Kent State University, says supermajorities have spread in part because of polarization and legislators gerrymandering their own districts.
“One of those consequences of supermajority, is a lot more ideological politics and policy,” he says.
While the U.S. Congress is often locked in stalemate, Miller says state legislatures that are dominated by one party are able to step into the vacuum to pass laws shaping day-to-day life.
“If you care about education, if you care about health care regulation in your state, if you care about abortion, transgender rights, LGBT rights, if you care about whether your roads have potholes … you need to be looking at your state legislature,” he says.
— Zane Irwin, Kansas News Service
Minnesota Republicans seek a reset and tax relief after Democratic spending on housing and schools
TONKA BAY, Minn. — On a sunny Tuesday morning, Republican state Senate candidate Kathleen Fowke walks door-to-door near Lake Minnetonka just west of Minneapolis. The tree-lined roads by the water are quiet but when she knocks on a door she’s reminded that this is hotly contested territory.
“You’re in my YouTube all the time,” says the man inside — a reminder of the ads targeting voters here.
The contest to win this legislative district could be the state’s most expensive ever — and key to winning the Senate.
For two years, Democrats have controlled the Legislature and the governor’s office under Gov. Tim Walz — now the Democratic nominee for vice president. They’ve passed more spending for affordable housing and public schools, and guaranteed protections for patients who seek or provide abortion or gender-affirming care.
Now Republicans see a chance to curb the progressive trend. They’re just a few seats behind in the state House. The Senate is tied 33-33 and this vacant seat by the lake could be the tiebreaker that ends the Democrats’ so-called “trifecta” of House, Senate and governorship.
The GOP wants to slow state spending and focus on the economy overall. Fowke, a real estate agent, says that, while voters don’t always know about the work the Legislature does, what she does hear about from them is money.
“It's basically affordability, and they can't afford, you know, just to go to the grocery store anymore,” Fowke says. “Taxes are high. Inflation is high. They need to find a way to help lower the costs of everything all around them.”
Republicans promise to cut taxes, tighten up on spending and curb fraud and abuse in state programs. “With one-party, Democrat control, it was easy just to push through partisan policy and partisan priorities,” House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth says.
Democrats say they address people's cost of living with laws requiring companies to offer paid time off for illness, family leave and safe time and new money for free school lunches.
“They trust the Democrats are going to do more for their economic well being, whereas what they hear from Republicans is, ‘Oh, we have to give more tax cuts to corporations,’” says Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman. The national Democratic Party is helping fund the state party’s effort.
Their candidate facing Fowke is civil engineer Ann Johnson Stewart. She’s knocking on doors, too, telling people she stands for maintaining legal protections for abortion in the state. “One of the reasons I’m running is to make sure we can continue on that track,” she says.
She hopes Democrats will work now on carbon-free energy sources, local infrastructure, expanding mental health care and reducing gun violence.
Andrew Karch, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, says candidates face an uphill battle getting voters to pay attention to state issues.
“There's a real tendency for these races to sort of fly beneath the radar,” Karch says. And many voters don’t focus on state issues.
“I think politics in Minnesota specifically may have been more distinctive a generation ago than they are today,” he says. “State and local politicians are increasingly being asked to comment on issues that we might think of as national.”
Fowke and Johnson Stewart say they hope to keep the conversations focused on what’s going on in their district. But they know that’s a big ask in a presidential election year.
Arizona Democrats aim to curb voucher law that has sent hundreds of millions to private and home schools
PHOENIX -– In Arizona, the party that wins the Legislature could determine where tens of thousands of children go to school or how well their schools are funded. At issue is the state’s sweeping vouchers program that gives families tax dollars for use in private schools or for homeschooling.
For Chelsea Ellison, a homeschool parent, the program has helped turn things around for a daughter who struggled in public elementary school.
“It took us a little bit of last year to get her where she should have been, in general, and now she's thriving,” Ellison says. “She loves school.”
But parents and teachers sticking with public schools say they’ve paid the price.
“I notice that the amount of resources available to the teachers, directly, it just is not there, any kind of funding for improvements at the school is not there,” says Miriam Hoban, whose child attends a public school in Scottsdale. She says teachers or parents are forced to pay out of pocket for basic necessities like pencils and markers.
Arizona’s program, called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, is a national model for what advocates call school choice. In 2022, the Republican Legislature and then-Gov. Doug Ducey took a small program offering vouchers for kids with disabilities or in underperforming schools and made it available for any child.
Enrollment in the program leaped from 12,000 students to 78,000 students and growing. Students got a median of $7,409 per year. That added up to a total of about $718 million from the state budget, which was $93 million more than projected, according to the Arizona Department of Education.
Republicans control the Legislature with just a two-seat advantage in both the House and Senate. The narrow margin was in the national spotlight this year as lawmakers just barely repealed an 1864 law that banned abortion.
If Democrats win control, they pledge to scale back the voucher program and they can rely on backing from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, elected after the program was expanded. “The previous Legislature passed a massive expansion of school vouchers that lacks accountability and will likely bankrupt this state,” she said after taking office last year.
Critics point to stories about voucher money going for private lessons in luxury cars and ski resort passes, supposedly part of a child’s education. And they say much of the money goes to families that were able to pay for private schools on their own with kids already out of the public schools.
But as the program has grown and gained support among some swing voters, it could be tougher for Democrats in competitive districts to campaign against it. They’ll have to temper their ambitions, says Arizona pollster Paul Bentz.
“I don't expect that they could mount a full-fledged repeal,” Bentz says. “I think that would be challenging for some of the swing areas for Democrats. But I certainly think at a minimum, there would be regulation on it, and probably some definite changes to the program.”
Ellison, the voucher mom, says her family did try to make it work in public schools before opting to teach at home with voucher support.
“There was larger class sizes, more budget cuts,” Ellison says of their old public school. “We had no STEM teacher, we had no music teacher, we had no art teacher.”
Public school supporters say the vouchers drain the money for just those kinds of needs.
