Talk:Political party strength in U.S. states
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[edit] Disputed Neutrality
I would like to dispute the neutrality of this article. given the following:
"However, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Republicans slowly increased their
strength in the state legislatures, especially in the South, where the increasingly
conservative Republican party took the place of the Democrats, who had been tainted
by their party's support for the Civil Rights Movement starting in the 1940s. In the
1990s, the Republicans finally overtook the Democrats in holding majorities in
statehouses and governorships."
I would also like to see more sources and data to back up such a claim.
- Take a look at the Solid South page. It essentially says exactly this. What exactly are you disputing? That the shift from Democratic dominance to Republican majorities happened? Or that the Democractic support for civil rights was the principal cause? Either way, there's not much to dispute. Acsenray 19:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
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- It seems to me that 'tainted' is an incredibly prejudicial term to use. From my point of view the Democratic Party did what was right and necessary, but took political damage in the south as a result. I think there was a quotation from Lyndon Johnson to the effect that he knew that signing the Civil Rights Act would destroy the Democratic Party in the south. Anyway let me try to express the ideas in the paragraph with neutral POV.
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- "In the 1970s and 1980s, the Republican Party slowly increased its strength in the state legislatures, especially in the South. From the 1960s the Republican Party pursued a Southern Strategy, designed to exploit the weakening of the former regional dominance of the Democratic Party. Due to increasing Democratic Party support for the Civil Rights Movement starting in the 1940s, conservative Republicans appealed to like minded southerners and this gradually reversed the former party alignment in the region. In the 1990s, the Republicans overtook the Democrats in holding majorities in statehouses and governorships."
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- Is my draft acceptable? --Gary J 20:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Nebraska's nonpartisan status
While the Nebraska legislature is formally "nonpartisan", nearly all its members are either Democrats or Republicans and the parties endorse candidates for the legislature. For the purposes of party strength, I believe it is important to include these numbers. I propose to revert to the previous version of the table. Acsenray 17:08, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The benefit of using a nominal standard (i.e., going by what they call themselves instead of making a judgement call as to what you/I/someone else thinks they actually are) is that it lends a finality and objectivity to the stats. If we decide to count members of a nonpartisan legislature as partisans, then someone could argue that since state Sen. So-and-So is a Zell Miller-like Democrat who always votes with Republicans, we should count him as a Republican on the chart. Having abandoned the nominal standard, it would be hard to argue against this logic.
Secondly, a nonpartisan legislature is part of Nebraska's constitution. It's a real part of the law, with real effects on government. There are Democrats who have held committee chairmanships, which wouldn't have happened if Nebraska's legislature were partisan. Someone consulting the chart would come away misinformed, which is a bad standard.
Suggested compromise: Revert the stats to reflect nonpartisan status, but leave in the disclaimer above. Schmeitgeist 16:13, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
I'm afraid I still disagree. This is an article on political party strength. In this context, it doesn't make sense to pretend that the individuals don't belong to a particular party. And it's not a matter of giving someone an arbitrary label or refusing to call them what they call themselves. These people are members of a party and they are endorsed by a party. They are nominally members of a party; I'm not pasting that label on them arbitrarily. When they run for other state and local offices, they keep their party labels; when they run for federal offices, they keep their party labels. Why pretend that this is not happening? The fact that the legislature works in a different way than other legislatures is interesting but more appropriate for a discussion of the Nebraska legislature itself, not in an article on political party strength.
The Nebraska Republican Party's Web site [1] claims the following senators as Republicans -- Aguilar, Baker, Brashear, Bromm, Burling, Byars, Combs, Cudaback, Cunningham, Erdman, Foley, Friend, Hudkins, Jensen, Johnson, Jones, Kremer, Louden, Maxwell, McDonald, Mines, Mossey, Pedersen, Pederson, Price, Quandahl, Redfield, Schrock, Smith, Stuhr, Stuthman, Tyson Vrtiska, and Wehrbein. A telephone call to the Nebraska Democratic Party and they claim the following districts' senators as members of their party -- 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 27th, 28th, 45th, and 46th. Are they violating the Nebraska constitution by doing so? The fact is that these officials are members of a party and I don't see how removing the numbers from the table makes readers more informed.
Why should someone be misinformed? Since the beginning, the introductory material to the table has included the statement that the Nebraska legislature is official nonpartisan. This table says nothing about constitutional structure, committee organization, or leadership. It simply gives the raw numbers of elected officials by party. Why hide this information? (I'd even be willing to note "nonpartisan" in the table itself so long as the breakdown is still there.) Just presenting the raw numbers doesn't imply anything incorrect about the structure of Nebraska government. By linking to the appropriate article on the legislature, it should suffice to inform. Acsenray 19:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] I updated things
I updated the maps and the seat totals at the top and bottom of the page-- the big table in the middle was accurate, so I didn't touch it.
There is still some trouble with those numbers though. I used the information I got off of this site, but it had 10+ seats undecided, and other news articles I've found have differing numbers.
Plus, I'm not getting the fair-use qualification thing for the images I uploaded. All I did was copy the old images onto my computer and recolor the states accordingly, if that helps any.
Any input on this would be great, thanks. JMurphy 21:30, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] The Numbers
What do the numbers in the Current Party Strength table mean? Boreanesia 09:22, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
The table fields read: [Majority Party] (# seats held) - (# seats held by the Minority Party)
The 3rd number (when present) represents independent/3rd party candidates (currently only 16 of 7382 seats). The 4th number lists vacancies.
Example: Minnesota's Upper House Majority reads "Democrats 36-29-1-1". This means that the majority Democrats currently hold 36 seats while the Republicans hold 29 seats. There is also 1 independent seat and 1 seat is vacant.
[edit] Updated Again
I updated the big table in the middle with information from the [www.ncsl.org National Council of State Legislatures]. However, it contradicts itself-- here[2] it says that the Dems lead in seat totals by 5, but on the numbers table here[3] it adds up to 10. Since I updated the table in the middle with the numbers off the second page, those numbers also add up to ten. Also changed part of the last paragraph of the intro, and added the superscripted "a" to indicate vacant seats. --JMurphy 18:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
- Put correct info on the maps. --JMurphy 19:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Mississippi Senate
I'm having trouble confirming the current make up of the Mississippi State Senate. I've found sources saying its 26-26 with a Republican tie breaker, but only found 25 Senators listed as Republican on the official site. Any verifiable data would be helpful. 22:50, 17 January 2007 --goodleh
