JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Lawmakers in state capitals have been flexing their superpowers this year.
In North Carolina, a new supermajority of Republicans enacted abortion restrictions. In Vermont, a new supermajority of Democrats pushed through a climate-sensitive home heating law. And in Montana, a Republican supermajority kicked a transgender lawmaker off the House floor.
In each case, the opinions of his political opponents were irrelevant.
By at least one measure, political power is at its highest point in decades. That’s because Republicans or Democrats have such large majorities in 28 states that they could override gubernatorial vetoes without any help from the minority party.
“Supermajorities give a party a lot of power to do what it wants to do,” said Steven Rogers, a political scientist at Saint Louis University who focuses on elections and state legislatures.
There is no single standard for a supermajority, although the term is generally equated with whatever threshold is needed to override a gubernatorial veto. In many states, this is a two-thirds majority. In some, this is a three-fifths majority. In six states: Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, only a simple majority is needed to override a veto. But all of these states have Republican majorities of around 70% or more, easily exceeding any definition of a supermajority.
The number of states with supermajorities is at its highest level since at least 1982, with 19 Republican supermajorities and nine Democratic ones, according to Rogers’ research.
This year began with supermajorities in 26 legislatures, including new Republicans in Florida and Montana and a new Democrat in Vermont. That total grew in March when Louisiana state Rep. Francis Thompson, who had served nearly 50 years as a Democrat, switched to the Republican Party to give the GOP a supermajority. Thompson cited his conservative voting record while claiming that Democratic leaders were pushing issues that did not align with their Christian values.
In April, North Carolina state Rep. Tricia Cotham switched from Democrat to Republican to give the GOP another majority. Six weeks after Cotham’s change, she provided a pivotal vote when the new Republican supermajority overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of legislation banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Some North Carolina Republicans are already eyeing other proposals they could pass with a supermajority, including a ballot bill containing provisions Cooper previously vetoed and an expansion of taxpayer-funded vouchers for students to attend private schools.
The supermajority creates an opportunity to “tweak the playbook” to make sure “we’re scoring more touchdowns, so to speak, than we might have previously,” said North Carolina’s Republican state representative , John Torbett, chairman of an education committee.
The new Republican supermajority in Louisiana could also be tested soon.
Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has said he intends to veto a package of bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community, including a ban on gender-affirmation treatments for transgender minors. Louisiana lawmakers have met for just two veto sessions since 1974. But Republicans now have the two-thirds majority needed to override Edwards’ veto.
The Democratic-led Vermont Legislature will return to the Capitol next week to consider Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s veto overrides, including a bill that would expand child care subsidies for some families. The Democratic supermajority already scored a victory in May, overriding Scott’s veto of a standard clean heating bill that credits utilities for energy-efficient technologies and penalizes them for not meeting certain goals.
Scott vetoed a similar bill last year before Democrats won a supermajority, but an override failed by one vote in the House.
Republican-led legislatures in Kansas and Kentucky this year also overrode vetoes by Democratic governors, including bills dealing with transgender issues, abortion and work requirements for food assistance.
Political scientists cite a couple of reasons for the rise of supermajorities.
Over the past few decades, Americans have increasingly voted along party lines, electing state legislators and even local officials who align with their party choice for president or at the top of the ticket, Rogers said. At the same time, politicians in power in many states have ordered the boundaries of electoral districts to give their party’s candidates an advantage in legislative elections.
As parties gain more seats in the House and Senate, the political ideology of their average members often shifts further to the right or left, reducing the need to appeal to moderates and virtually eliminating the need to compromise with the opposing party.
“All we have is our voice,” said North Carolina state Rep. Marcia Morey, D-N.C. But now “there’s no need for (Republicans) to have any dialogue.”
Parties with supermajorities can also more easily silence their opponents. In Tennessee, where Republicans hold at least three-quarters of the seats, the GOP supermajority expelled two black Democratic lawmakers who used a megaphone on the House floor to protest gun control after a deadly school shooting in Nashville. Democrats were also upset. Republicans had limited debate on several issues.
After the Tennessee expulsions, Montana’s GOP supermajority banned transgender Rep. Zooey Zephyr from the House floor. Zephyr was initially silenced after telling lawmakers that he supported banning gender-affirming treatments for minors that would have blood on his hands; she was exiled for participating in a protest for her right to debate in the House.
When supermajorities run state capitals, some voters may be pleased by the radical policies enacted. Others may feel that their priorities are being ignored.
“On behalf of the voters, it could be a good thing, because it helps clarify accountability,” said Carlos Algara, an assistant professor of government and politics at Claremont Graduate University in California.
“If you’re a voter in California, you know explicitly which party has the policy — it’s the Democratic Party,” Algara said. “So if you don’t like the direction of politics in California, you have a very easy choice.”
Florida voters are in a similar situation to Republicans. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis helped build a Republican supermajority by getting more involved in legislative races, and the candidates he endorsed remained staunchly loyal during this year’s legislative session.
DeSantis had no problem passing a legislative agenda that included a six-week abortion ban, tougher immigration laws, more power for parents to remove books from public schools and easier ability for prosecutors of winning death sentences, among other things. Now he’s campaigning on that agenda as he runs for president.
House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell said DeSantis “changed the atmosphere” on Capitol Hill. He recalled that lawmakers last year included limits on how the governor could use the funds in an emergency management bill.
“That was when they didn’t have a supermajority,” Driskell said. “This time, we didn’t see anything that could check its power.”
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Associated Press writer Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida, and Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
