One-party trifectas fuel state clashes
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Credit: AP
Statehouse trifectas, by which one party holds a governorship and both legislative houses, are riding high. This year, 39 states live under this single-party control. Twenty-two belong to Republicans; the other 17, including New York’s, to Democrats. The combined total is the highest in 30 years.
It’s a polarizing phenomenon — part of the intense power competition between the two major parties across America that becomes ever more abrasive.
One recent spat between Florida and California gives a taste of it.
In a stunt by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida picked up people seeking asylum and took them by private jet to Sacramento at taxpayer expense, leaving them outside a Roman Catholic Diocese building in California’s capital city.
In response, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom cited the Golden State’s penal code, which states that anybody who “abducts or takes by force or fraud” a person found within the state “is guilty of kidnapping.”
It was a bout of political performance art, resolving nothing in efforts to cope with the influx of migrants and asylum-seekers mostly from the nation’s southern border. But California and Florida have both held party trifectas since 2011. That helps keep DeSantis from a reluctance to alienate Democrats who could otherwise stymie his ability to govern in Tallahassee. The same lack of pressure holds for Newsom, a sanctuary-state leader and down-the-line progressive.
Electoral majorities in their home states can change, of course, but not quickly enough for either of these governors to worry just yet. Both men clearly regard themselves as presidential material and thus embrace their roles in the national drama.
Trifectas allow incumbent parties to set electoral laws in their favor. Redistricting is one obvious example, voting rules and restrictions another. Democrats in Albany are on the verge of requiring local elections outside New York City to be held in even years — seen as helping their own turnout. That wouldn't happen if the GOP still ran the Senate.
On hot-button policy issues, the competitive hardening of partisan lines is visible within states. Changes decreed by the Supreme Court have bred forceful reactions in different trifecta states. Blue states bolstered abortion rights after the high court struck down Roe v. Wade, while red states imposed new restrictions on the practice.
New York has attempted to recast its gun-permit system after the high court blew up the last one, enacting legislation widely opposed by Republicans. Trifectas can even shape police jurisdictions. In Mississippi, majority Republicans this year expanded the state’s Capitol Police powers to cover all of the Democratic-run city of Jackson. That state has had a Republican trifecta since 2012.
On a ground level, lack of competition from across partisan lines can also feed power rivalries and revolts within those lines. In jurisdictions where there's a party monopoly, primaries become the whole election. That's why New York's Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie appears more intent on fending off challenges to his members from leftist insurgents than on unseating the chamber's few Republicans. In deep-red Wyoming last year, it was a GOP primary that ousted maverick Rep. Liz Cheney.
Where the trifecta trend leads is unclear. State parties may more often behave as franchises of the national parties. Whatever the future brings, this polarized national scenario is unfamiliar territory — a kind of political climate change.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
