As states around the country consider new investments in alternative energy projects, they might first consider the experience of Iowa, which launched a $100 million initiative two years ago to provide start-up capital for energy-related projects. With Iowa now just halfway through the program, its impact on the state economy has been impressive:

• 2,300 new, private-sector jobs have been created in Iowa;

• $35 million in state investments have supported clean energy projects across the state;
• $190.4 million in private investments have been generated through the project (more than a 4-to-1 return on taxpayer money); and
• The percentage of Iowa electricity generated from wind power has tripled, establishing Iowa as a world leader in renewable energy.

Iowa Democrats deserve enormous praise for the success of this program, which was a central plank of Gov. Chet Culver’s campaign platform and a top priority for Democratic legislative leaders. And as Gov. Culver noted in interviews, the program’s economic success is particularly welcome during the current recession.

Independent observers are even more enthusiastic about the program’s impact on energy production:

"Even those of us who keep up with the wind industry were amazed that around 15 percent of our total electrical generation in Iowa is from wind power," said David Osterberg, head of the Iowa Policy Project, a liberal-leaning research group.

That puts Iowa on a par with many European nations that have stressed alternative energy for decades. Denmark, for instance, gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind.

"Iowa is pretty active, when you look at the fact that they are one of the largest producers of wind energy," said Glen Andersen, a researcher at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver. "They are really up there."

With two years and tens of millions of dollars left in the program, Iowa is poised to solidify its leadership in alternative energy for years to come.

One of the New Hampshire Republican Party’s most respected elder statesmen has announced he is becoming a Democrat. Jim MacKay, who spent nearly a decade as a Republican city councilor, mayor, and state representative for the city of Concord, explained his decision in a statement announcing his candidacy for an upcoming State House special election:

"Over the past several years, the New Hampshire Republican Party has continually moved farther to the right, and no longer represents my core beliefs. As someone who served as a Republican legislator, I am disappointed by the marginalization of moderate voices in the party. That is why today I am formally leaving the New Hampshire Republican Party to seek the Democratic nomination for state representative in the upcoming special election in Concord," said Jim MacKay. "I spent my career fighting for working families and to protect the state's most vulnerable citizens and I will continue to do so if I'm elected in the special election." (H/T Blue Hampshire)

New Hampshire Democrats, who have long held MacKay in high regard for his pragmatism and bipartisanship as a State Legislator, were excited by the news, with state party Chair Ray Buckley praising MacKay for his principled decision:

"We welcome Jim Mackay to the New Hampshire Democratic Party with open arms. He has a record of fighting for the best interests of working families and will be a strong voice in the legislature. Jim's willingness to set politics aside for the betterment of our state is honorable.

"His departure is just another example of how out of touch John Sununu and the Republican Party are with the people of New Hampshire. The GOP's desire to put the politics of divisiveness before the people of our state is why they continue to lose the support of voters and leaders in their own party."

MacKay makes his Democratic political debut in the special election to replace State Rep. Tara Reardon, who resigned to become New Hampshire’s Commissioner of Employment Security. An election schedule has not yet been set.

A series of independent polls this month have shown Democrats with wide, double-digit leads on the generic ballot question of which party New Yorkers want to control the State Senate.

The latest numbers come from Siena College, which shows State Senate Democrats strongly favored (PDF) among New York registered voters, 57%-31%.
(May 18-21; N=622; MOE=3.9%)

These results largely confirm a Quinnipiac poll from two weeks ago, which gave the Democrats a 21-point lead on the question, 56%-35%, among registered voters.
(May 5-11; N=2828; MOE=1.8%)

Wading into the cross-tabs of the Quinnipiac poll, (which I feel comfortable doing because of the large sample size) we see that Democrats led the generic ballot in every region of the state, including traditional Republican strongholds in rural areas upstate.

12. Democrats took control of the state senate this year for the first time in decades. Would you like to see them continue control in 2010?

.......UpState Urban...UpState Other...UpState Total...NYC......Suburbs

Yes...........52%...............47%...............48%........71%........47%
No............35%...............41%...............40%........21%........45%
DK/NA.......13%...............12%...............12%..........7%.........7%

Ultimately, the only poll that matters is the 2010 elections, but these results indicate that despite the state’s tough budget choices in response to the recession, New Yorkers appreciate the important progress Democrats are making on key issues like improving transparency, shutting down the Senate Republicans’ taxpayer-funded political machine, and securing New York’s fair share of federal tax dollars. There’s a lot of work to do before 2010, but polling like this puts Democrats in an enviable position as we approach the campaigns.

Yesterday was a dramatic day in the Texas House, as Democrats stuck to their principles and used parliamentary rules to block a Republican-sponsored voter ID bill that would have disenfranchised thousands of law-abiding Texas citizens.

In order to force their bill through the closely-divided House, Republicans scheduled other votes on a series of important bills immediately after the voter ID bill – essentially holding these bills hostage against a midnight deadline to advance legislation. When Democrats blocked the voter ID bill, the bills waiting behind it couldn’t come up for a vote either.

Hundreds of bills thus became collateral damage from the Republican vote-suppression scheme, including:

• A bill guaranteeing health insurance for children in the state’s child support system;

• Funding for a new, regional windstorm insurance pool for the Gulf Coast;
• A package of healthcare quality and affordability bills to provide health insurance options for small businesses, fight childhood obesity, and promote best practices within the healthcare industry; and
• A measure to overrule Gov. Perry and accept $555 million in extra federal stimulus funds.

The stimulus bill actually was brought up in the final 15 minutes before midnight and could have passed, but Republican legislators prevented that vote in retribution for their failed voter ID bill.

Now, after weeks of refusing to schedule earlier votes on these and other important priorities, Republicans are trying to blame the Democrats for the failure of these bills, but Democratic Caucus Chair Jim Dunnam is having none of it:

"Someone who controls the agenda, and decides when we are going to hear bills, can't complain when they set the bills that they say are so important on the last few days," Dunnam said. "They’re the one s who set them on the last few days and now they are complaining that we’re not going to get to them.

(…)"Why wasn’t insurance reform on the house floor weeks ago? Why wasn’t the windstorm insurance bill on the floor weeks and weeks ago? Why’d we go home last week every day at 6 or 7 o'clock so that committees could go have dinner? And then turn around and say that [Democrats] are wasting time? Those were decisions that the Speaker made."

Republicans can try all they want to spin away their own failure, but in the end, the record is clear: Democrats spent the day defending the voting rights of thousands of law-abiding Texans, but when petulant Republicans didn’t get what they wanted, they responded by punishing Texas’ children, property owners, and laid-off workers.

Two weeks ago at the DLCC’s caucus staff training in Washington, D.C., one of our most important goals was to keep our Democratic caucus directors up to date on the latest advances in online organizing tools. We provided a forum for them to exchange ideas and experiences from prior campaigns, and we invited several outside experts to discuss new strategies.

One of those experts, Colin Delaney of epolitics.com, was impressed by the sophistication of Democratic efforts heading into 2009 and 2010:

In talking with these folks, it became obvious right away that the resources behind state-level organizations and candidates have expanded perhaps 10-fold since I was in that world, with a legislative campaign that might have cost $50,000 in my day now needing upwards of half a million dollars to be competitive — rising faster than the cost of health care! And since more money feeds more people, state-party organizations seem to [have] juiced up their staffs significantly over the same period.

Second, state-level staff seem eager to learn the lessons of Obama’s online fundraising, with the benefits of long-term list-building becoming obvious. Though many of the folks I spoke with were really just getting started in the online world, their questions focused on practical matters: mainly, how do we build our fundraising, which almost always led to classic issues of list-building, list-maintenance and supporter-activation. Notably, plenty of their organizations are also already invested in blogger-relations and are including bloggers in their media outreach as a matter of course.

(…)Looking ahead, these political staffers and their counterparts across the country seem likely to be taking up the Obama lessons in a big way in the coming years, at the very least because so many worked for, with or against his campaign in 2008. Should be fun to watch!

Colin was valuable resource for many of the staffers at our caucus training, and it was a real pleasure having him with us. And, his take on Democratic legislative efforts is spot on: When our candidates consistently out-work, out-organize, and out-hustle the Republicans, we win – even in districts drawn to favor Republicans. The DLCC is working every day to help make that happen.

Missouri Democratic State Rep. Sara Lampe has found a unique way to confront a neo-Nazi group in her state.

Last year, a local chapter of the National Socialist Movement adopted a stretch of state highway, and the Missouri Department of Transportation was forced to include the group's name on signs along their piece of road.

But during this year's legislative session:

[Lampe] got an amendment added to a transportation bill to rename a portion of West Bypass from Farm Road 142 to West Sunshine the "Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway." Heschel marched with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Selma, Ala., Civil Rights march in 1965.

A local Jewish organization will pay for signs highlighting the new name.

Republican State Rep. Cary Allred is threatening to leave his party and become an independent in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against him.

In an unusual move for a party whose first instinct is always to protect its own, the head of the North Carolina Republicans has demanded that Allred immediately resign his seat for inappropriately groping a 17-year-old girl on the House floor:

Daves released a statement calling for Allred, a Burlington Republican, to step down. The action followed the release Wednesday of a report in which several of Allred's legislative colleagues said they were revolted by his actions during a Monday night House session three weeks ago.

The report included the accounts of several Republican legislators who said they smelled alcohol on Allred's breath and saw him give an inappropriately long hug to a teenage page from his district.

Several lawmakers said the 17-year-old girl seemed embarrassed by what one member called a "gruesome bear hug."

On that same day, Allred was pulled over by the state Highway Patrol for speeding at over 100 mph. The fact that Mr. Allred was possibly drunk at the time is shocking and disgraceful in itself. And while it’s no excuse for his behavior toward the teenager, it probably would have made a better “defense” than the one Allred decided to go with:

"I am 62 years old, and I'm worth $2 million. People ought to show me respect," Allred was quoted in the report as telling colleagues who confronted him that night.

Even Republicans have to be shocked by that level of entitlement.

The federal recovery package included billions of dollars to improve the country's roads and bridges. That doesn't mean, however, that every dollar will go to new freeways and overpasses. Policymakers across the U.S. are drawing up plans to reduce congestion with sophisticated technology:

At least 22 states have told the federal government they want to make their roads “smarter” by installing traffic cameras, creating express toll lanes, improving traffic signals and alerting drivers about accidents or delays ahead, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Many of these projects will have the added benefit of helping the environment.

For instance, open-road tolling -- like the EZ-Pass system on the East Coast -- helps to reduce accidents and can save millions of gallons of gas each year in every state that builds such a system.

All these projects, of course, will also create jobs in states that need them as soon as ground is broken.

Last week, the Illinois Legislature unanimously passed a Democratic-sponsored bill to remove several key barriers to student voting in the state. The University of Illinois Daily Illini explains:

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Naomi Jakobsson and Sen. Mike Frerichs, both of Champaign-Urbana, allows people voting for the first time to present a university-issued ID and a piece of mail at their local address or an apartment lease as proof of identification. In past elections, including last fall's, many students were turned away from polls on campus for not having proper documentation. The old requirements demanded voters show a driver's license with a local address, which many students don't have, or two other forms of ID with a local address, and leases were not accepted.

This Democratic effort to improve student election participation stands in stark contrast to state-level Republicans around the country, who have a long and shameful history of working to disenfranchise student voters by throwing up frivolous and unreasonable roadblocks, including:

• A 2004 effort in New Hampshire, in which Republican election administrators wrongly threatened students with the loss of scholarships, revocation of health insurance, and even imprisonment for attempting to register at their college addresses;

• A 2007 bill, supported near-unanimously by Maine Republicans, which would have revoked the residency status of students at Maine colleges, preventing them from voting at their university addresses (thankfully, Democrats blocked the bill); and
• Letters in 2008 from Colorado Republican officials illegally threatening students with “criminal penalties” for not getting Colorado driver’s licenses and car registrations after registering to vote. Outraged Democrats called the move “bull****,” and “not supported by law.”

These are just a few of the most outrageous examples of Republican scare tactics that Democrats have been fighting at the state level for years. Illinois’ new law is a giant step in the right direction should serve as a model for other legislatures and the federal government.

And for any students or parents who are concerned about this, the law is unequivocal: students have the right to register and vote using either their parents’ home address or their local address wherever they go to school.

With little exception, it’s entirely the individual’s choice.

Writing at FiveThirtyEight, Ed Kilgore does Democrats a service and looks ahead to next year's election and the impact of legislative control on redistricting:

[P]artisan control of redistricting across the country is a highly complex, dynamic situation that isn't easy to generalize about--but it's very important nonetheless. Totally aside from the impact on the future shape of the U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures typically control their own "maps," which can have a big impact on politics and policy at the state level.

Ed offers his list of states to consider as battlegrounds next year, and it's an excellent starting point. We'll have much more to say about both topics in the coming weeks and months.

We are not making this up.

According to the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, Virginia Republicans have nominated this woman as their official candidate against Democratic Delegate (and all-around nice guy) Albert Pollard of Lancaster:

Crabill also told the convention that she had been "beaten, humiliated and ridiculed" by bloggers who discovered a 1995 newspaper article in which she blamed the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing on the federal government. At the time, Crabill lived in New Mexico.

The Washington Times quoted her as saying:

"'If any militia group is truly responsible for the murderous bombing in Oklahoma City, then I say, 'Hangin's too good for 'em,'" said Catherine Crabill of Aragon, N.M., who belongs to a group called New Mexico Citizens Action Association.

"But Mrs. Crabill said it's her belief 'this heinous act of violence was the work of our government,' which will 'use it as an excuse to aggressively attack the growing militia movement across the country.'"

That was 1995. But Republicans will be embarrassed to learn that their newest standard-bearer is actually campaigning on the issue today. From the Crabill Campaign website:

As far as the Bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City which happened during this season of other horrific events, I did and do believe that our government was culpable in the OKC bombing.

Crabill’s rant against “the domestic terrorists known as our own government” goes on to endorse a wide range of Clinton-era conspiracy theories, from an administration “hit list” to the “murder” of people at a compound in Waco, TX. She also cites former Congressman Jim Trafficant, who was convicted of public corruption and waged an unsuccessful re-election bid from his federal prison cell, as a one-time supporter of her Oklahoma City claims. It’s an interesting choice, though even Mr. Trafficant dropped the issue after apparently deciding it was too crazy for him.

Republicans, however, rallied around Crabill at their district nominating convention, with one local party official declaring, “She’s a good candidate, a strong candidate, and she believes what we all believe.”

That sounds like an excellent reason to put Democrats back in charge of the Assembly.

Last week, Arizona’s Citizens Clean Elections Commission voted to expel Republican State Representative Doug Quelland from the legislature over campaign finance violations in his 2008 campaign.

One of the legislature’s most outspoken supporters of public-financing of campaigns, Quelland’s hypocrisy was on full display when he was busted for violating Arizona campaign finance laws by illegally funneling $15,000 in corporate contributions into his publicly-financed election bid. In addition to being removed from office, Quelland faces more than $45,000 in fines.

If the Commission’s vote is upheld, there will not be a special election to fill the seat -- the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will appoint a new Representative from the same political party as the current legislator.

Since the establishment of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, which has the authority to oust members of the legislature who commit election-law violations, only one other legislator (Republican David Burnell Smith) has been removed from office by the Commission.

Late last week, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee welcomed 50 of the party’s best and brightest campaign professionals to Washington, D.C. for a series of training sessions aimed at spreading new ideas and best practices to all our state legislative campaigns around the country.

These Caucus staffers –- who’ve been chosen to lead their state efforts in the upcoming State House or Senate campaigns –- will be responsible for critical tasks like candidate recruitment, party resource allocation, and the training of individual campaign staffs ahead of the 2009 and 2010 legislative elections. While here, they spent two days sharing their experiences with one another and hearing about cutting-edge developments in campaign strategy from a diverse group of organizations, including progressive research institutes, labor allies, pollsters, and media firms.

The discussions and presentations covered a wide range of topics, including:

• Research on the most effective Get Out the Vote tactics;

• Ideas for maximizing the quality of public opinion polling;
• Best practices for training candidates and district-level campaign staff;
• Recommendations for generating comprehensive candidate and opposition research; and
• Strategies for best use of online database, fundraising, and organizing tools.

Many more issues were covered in the trainings, and each staffer had the opportunity to choose specific sessions to attend, based on his or her own experience and interests. Overall, the attendees proved to be a creative and highly capable group of campaign professionals, and Democratic legislators around the country will be depending on them for victories in 2009 and 2010.

This training is just one small part of the DLCC’s effort to provide the resources our Caucus staffs need to be successful.

On April 29, the New Hampshire legislature voted to approve legislation legalizing gay marriage.

Today, NH Gov. John Lynch announced that he will sign the bill into law if the measure were amended to create more protections for religious groups:

Legislative leaders said they would allow the changes, all but ensuring that New Hampshire will become the sixth state where marriage between gay men or lesbians is legal.

In recent weeks, Vermont and Maine have passed similar laws legalizing same-sex marriage, and the laws in both states will take effect later this year. The New Hampshire measure would allow gay couples to begin holding weddings in January.

Two bills recently passed by the Democratic-controlled Hawaii Legislature are aimed at building a statewide network of electric car charging stations. The bills provide $45 million to support the construction of the network and require large parking garages to set aside space for electric vehicles.

If successful, the project could revolutionize transportation and greatly reduce fuel consumption in the state:

"I'm excited about what this means for Hawaii," said Pete Cooper, of Better Place Hawaii. "This technology moves us closer to realizing the environmental and economic benefits of electrical vehicles : clean transportation using our state's natural, renewable sources of energy instead of imported fossil fuels."

As envisioned, Hawaii would be home to at least 3,000 electric cars in 2010 and 50,400 in 2015. By then the isles also would be outfitted with a network of up to 100,000 charging stations powered by renewable energy sources.

These charging stations could be in homes, parking garages and shopping centers, along a curbside or wall without taking up a lot of room. Battery-swapping stations, like the one in Yokohama, would require more real estate and ideally be near a gas station.

Hawaii is an ideal place to test the viability of such a system because many of the early drawbacks of the technology simply don’t apply in the state. For instance, the state’s compactness and island geography mean that the electric vehicles’ 100 mile range is not an issue for drivers. And because the U.S. Energy Department ranks Hawaii as a top-ten user of renewable energy (PDF warning), more of the electricity used to power the vehicles will come from truly clean sources.

Indiana has made voter registration simpler and easier with a new law allowing voters to register online:

The election bill will let people with valid driver's licenses or state identification cards file voter registration forms over the Internet. Currently, people can download registration applications online, but they must print out and mail in the forms.

The law, which passed unanimously in both houses of the legislature, makes Indiana the 4th state to approve online registration. This comes on the heels of Colorado passing a similar law just a few months ago.

Voting rights advocates argue that online registration encourages participation by simplifying the process, especially for younger voters. Online security technology can also make it a more secure registration option than traditional paper forms.

The combination of Proposition 8 in California and the economic recession led some to believe that the 2009 legislative session would be an unfavorable environment for pursuing equal rights and the legalization of same-sex marriage, but the opposite has proven to be true. Lawmakers across the country are fighting for equal treatment under the law for gay couples:

• In the past year, same-sex marriage has become law in four new states—Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and Maine. The latter two states are the first in the country where the legislatures—not the courts—proactively addressed same-sex marriage.

• In the current legislative session, lawmakers in New Hampshire and New York have introduced similar legislation to legalize gay marriage, while Washington legislators have introduced a bill to grant domestic partners the same rights and treatment as married spouses. Bills in all three states stand a good chance to become law this year.

• This year, legislators in Minnesota, Illinois, Rhode Island, Virginia, South Carolina, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Montana have all introduced bills that would roll back same-sex marriage bans or expand legal recognition for gay couples. While many of these bills have not advanced far, their introduction demonstrates that equal rights are firmly on the legislative policy agenda.

• In 2009, lawmakers in an additional six states—Indiana, Texas, South Carolina, Colorado, Washington, and Virginia—have introduced bills addressing the rights and benefits of same-sex couples.

State legislatures often act as laboratories of innovation, forging a path toward more progressive public policy. We are currently witnessing the power of state lawmakers in the building momentum to address same-sex marriage. At the state legislative level, there is a growing consensus around the idea that separate is, indeed, inherently unequal. Across the country, lawmakers from different backgrounds and in different states are coming to the same conclusion: Same sex couples deserve equal treatment under the law.

Download the full report here.

The 2009 legislative sessions have been painful for state legislators and their constituents across the country. With the recession decimating state tax revenues, most new state budgets will impose tax hikes and deep cuts to even the most essential government services. Throughout the process, Democrats and Republicans in many legislatures have set aside their traditional priorities and acted pragmatically to keep their governments from imploding.

But according to recent figures, 2010 could be far worse:

After already cutting $40 billion, states expect to have to slice another $62 billion to make their current budgets balance, the National Conference of State Legislatures said in its latest survey of states’ fiscal health, released April 23.

Four months ago, NCSL figured states would have to close shortfalls of $85 billion for fiscal 2010 budgets. Now that number has ballooned to $121 billion. Similarly, the National Governors Association has estimated budget gaps could top $230 billion through 2010.

In the face of all that red ink, legislative leaders are working hard to continue making wise investments and minimize the impact of their budget-balancing strategies. But since state governments generally cannot operate on deficit spending the way Congress can, states as Democratic as New York and as Republican as Idaho have made painful decisions to slash services and raise taxes.

If these new figures are accurate, voters around the country should brace for a new round of painful choices next year. But they should also remember that with the economy as bad as it is, these choices are often their legislators' only options.

Yesterday was Colorado Senate President and DLCC board member Peter Groff’s last day in the Colorado Senate. With the end of legislative session, Sen. Groff will be resigning his seat to accept a high-level appointment in President Obama’s Department of Education.

Before he left, he urged his fellow senators to pass a bill repealing the death penalty in Colorado. That impassioned plea -– on an emotional issue with no national consensus -– should remind all of us why we put so much effort into legislative elections; why Sen. Groff was so respected by Democrats and Republicans across the state; and why all of us at the DLCC were so proud to have him as a board member:

And here was the challenge: "We will say we did what's right because that's what we're supposed to do. This is our opportunity, yet again, to actually be the moral voice in this state, to actually rise above the politics of the moment, to rise to that one moment where we say, 'You know what, if this costs us the majority, so be it. If this costs us our seats, our titles, our gavels, so be it, because this is the right thing to do.' "

He conceded that it was easy for someone like him, from a safe seat, to make this vote. But he said this was not about saving your, uh, seat, but about "one of those moments when a leader has to rise above politics, when morality has to rise above what is safe and convenient."

It was a fitting sendoff for an inspirational legislator. The bill in question failed by a single vote –- a much closer margin than expected –- after passing the State House, also by a single vote.

Sen. Groff was clearly the right choice for a presidential appointment, and we wish him and his family well in their move to Washington.

For the second time in less than two months, floodwaters have altered the plans of a state legislative body. Weeks after overflowing rivers wrought havoc in North Dakota, heavy rains in central Alabama have stranded legislators around Montgomery and flooded basement offices in the state capitol building.

Democratic leaders, however, were determined not to let a little water distract them from the people’s business:

House Majority Leader Ken Guin, D-Carbon Hill, said he saw a wall collapse near his office in the basement, which was flooded with some 4 feet of water. The Democratic caucus also has offices in the basement and had to move computers and other items out.

Without lights or working elevators, House and Senate officials decided to recess and move to the Capitol, which sits on a hill across the street and wasn’t affected.

After Thursday, there are only two working days left in the 2009 regular session. If the House and Senate had to cancel Thursday’s session, it would have killed bills that needed action to pass before the final day of May 15.

Thankfully, as of yesterday there have been no serious injuries reported from the flooding.

When Democrats won control of the New York Senate, they promised to restore accountability and bring the legislature into the 21st century. Yesterday, they took an important first step in fulfilling that promise by releasing an impressive new website.

Sen. Majority Leader Malcolm Smith introduced the site from his office in New York City:

The Senate's first chief of information officer, Andrew Hoppin, a former NASA "guru," as Mr. Smith described him, and his team of tech whizzes have been working on the Web site since January. They have also been training senators and their staff members on blogging, Twittering and how to gather feedback from the site for their decision-making processes, according to Mr. Hoppin. Nine Senators are Twittering so far, including Mr. Smith.

The site allows constituents to search for legislation by subject area, watch video from lawmakers, and comment on the bills scheduled to be discussed in public hearings. Hoppin and the senators have also introduced an initiative to translate bill text and legal jargon into plain language.

Every ten years, the constitutionally-mandated U.S. Census is taken with the goal of counting every individual living in the United States – a goal complicated by the increasing difficulty of counting some minorities, immigrants, and other groups. This presents a challenge to states with large, urban centers like New York because Census results determine the size of states’ congressional delegations and the levels of federal funding states receive for other programs.

On April 3rd, the Democratic-controlled New York Legislature passed a state budget that provides $2 million in state funding to ensure the accuracy of the U.S. Census.

It’s unusual to see state governments subsidize exclusively federal government functions, but with the stakes so high, Democrats argue that state Census funding will pay off for New York:

Lawmakers who represent districts with a significant number of minority voters or immigrants say they've long known worried about the Census, contending their communities have been undercounted.

Sen. Bill Perkins, a Harlem Democrat who has not only African-Americans but West Africans, Haitian and Mexicans in his district, said he believes past censuses may have undercounted as many as 40 percent of the people in his neighborhoods. Indeed, Democrats and minority lawmakers claimed the Bush Administration fostered such undercounts.

Jeffrey Wice, a special counsel to Senate Democrats and veteran of several redistricting fights, said the state may have been undercounted by up to 250,000 people in the past two censuses.

The state money will be used primarily for outreach campaigns encouraging traditionally undercounted New Yorkers to participate in the Census.

Georgia Republicans in the legislature and Gov. Sonny Perdue have enacted a controversial new law that imposes onerous new documentation burdens for new voters and requires registration information to match records in the state driving database. This new law threatens to disenfranchise thousands of lawful voters and hamstring the efforts of nonpartisan registration groups.

The law's most widely-reported change forces new voters to submit documentation proving US citizenship (such as a passport or birth certificate) with their registration forms -– a requirement that has voting-rights advocates outraged:

The law revived a racially charged battle in Georgia. Critics complain it would disenfranchise poor and minority voters — many of them U.S. citizens — who lack required documents.

Starting Jan. 1, 2010 if Justice approves, the Georgia law would require all applying for voter registration to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship. Those who stay on active voter rolls and have already registered before then would not have to submit such documents as a U.S. passport, naturalization documents or driver's license or birth certificate.

"It's tantamount to a poll tax," said Elise Shore, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She said the group was considering a legal challenge if the law clears the Justice Department.

Another, arguably more worrying, section of the law orders the Secretary of State to verify all new registrations using the state’s Driver Services database.

Ohio faced this same issue in 2008, when Ohio Republicans sued to force the Democratic Secretary of State to perform similar database matching. In that case, which eventually went to the Supreme Court, independent analysts like NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice noted that such requirements routinely invalidate thousands of lawful voters –- sometimes at rates as high as 30 percent.

If upheld by Justice Department officials, who must evaluate the changes under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the new law will likely make it much more difficult to register to vote, and it could leave thousands of lawful voters disenfranchised by clerical typos completely beyond their control.

Earlier this afternoon, lawmakers in Maine voted to pass a bill legalizing gay marriage.

The House of Representatives approved the measure by a vote of 89 to 57. The upper chamber previously supported the bill by a vote of 21 to 14 last Thursday. The legislation will now head back to the Senate for final approval.

Once the measure clears the legislature, Maine will become only the second state to pass a gay marriage bill without a judicial mandate.

Maine's governor has yet to say whether or not he will sign the bill, but opponents are already gearing up to pressure him to veto.

UPDATE: Gov. Baldacci signed the legislation into law on May 6.

Democrats across the county have been very critical of Republican legislators blocking hundreds of millions of extra federal stimulus dollars while their states’ unemployment systems go broke.

Already looking foolish for rejecting needed money during a recession, some Republicans have found a new target for their misguided crusade: stimulus funding for local police departments.

While a handful of Republican governors have considered rejecting stimulus money to expand help to more of the unemployed — because, they say, it would amount to a tax increase on business when the federal money expires — [Kansas Republican Senator Tim] Owens is worried about expanding criminal justice efforts using federal cash, only to have the state stuck with the tab in the end.

(...) Debate over the criminal justice money in the stimulus also reflects some Republican legislators’ frustrations with the larger plan. [Utah Republican Rep. Paul] Ray, who also serves as chair of a public safety task force for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative state legislators’ association, said that while extra law enforcement help is always welcome, he could not see how hiring more police officers will help boost the economy.

That’s right – state-level Republicans don’t believe crime hurts the economy. After all, why should robberies hurt local businesses, and why should violent crime discourage major companies from locating in high-crime areas? Needless to say, law enforcement experts have a different view:

Police, prosecutors and other law enforcers around the country are welcoming the stimulus, particularly after federal funding for state and local public safety initiatives plummeted during the Bush administration’s last years. The money, they say, will buy new equipment, pay for extra police patrols or — as Obama stressed in Ohio — avoid layoffs or hire more manpower during a recession, when crime can spike.

The extra money, which comes at a critical time for many departments facing budget cuts, is an important tool for mitigating the effects of the recession. Even if the money runs out in a few years and the extra officers have to be laid off, it still provides a needed short-term boost to the economy and to public safety.

Of course, Republican legislators know this – which is why they’ve been too afraid to risk their constituents’ safety by sticking to their words and rejecting the funds. In Virginia and Florida, however, Republicans still refuse to apply that same logic to the rest of the stimulus.

For some time, we at the DLCC have been following the National Popular Vote movement, an effort to award electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Washington State on Tuesday became the 5th state to to embrace NPV:

Under a bill signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Chris Gregoire, Washington will pledge its 11 Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Washington joins a small but growing compact of states including Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey that allocate their votes that way.

The inter-state compact only becomes active when states accounting for a majority of electoral votes have agreed to it. All five current signatories voted for Barack Obama by wide margins.

The potential results of the compact have long been debated. As a purely mathematical issue, the Electoral College gives smaller states a disproportionate share of the voting power in presidential elections (because each state is guaranteed three electors), encouraging candidates to spend more time appealing to them.

In reality, of the 18 states with 5 or fewer electoral votes, only Montana had a final margin of less than 5% separating Obama and McCain (not counting Nebraska, which splits its Electoral College votes by congressional district and gave one of them to Obama). Most of the 17 other states were never seriously contested by either candidate. At the same time, the three largest states by population (California, Texas, and New York) were never contested either.

A national popular vote would encourage candidates to visit all these states where the outcome is never in doubt. Democrats might hold rallies in New York and Chicago to try and boost turnout, while Republicans might visit Tulsa. But would candidates still visit rural areas that might make a difference in the Electoral College but have little impact on the national vote? Would states without large metropolitan areas be ignored altogether?

It’s an interesting debate with profound consequences for how presidential elections are conducted in the United States, but these questions probably won’t be answered unless the popular vote compact can win enough support to go into effect.

For more information on the movement and the issues surrounding it, I recommend visiting http://nationalpopularvote.com.

With Republicans stubbornly maintaining their irrational decision to reject $125 million in extra federal stimulus funds for the state unemployment system, state Democrats are keeping up the pressure.

The Legislature’s Democratic leadership is launching a statewide petition drive urging local citizens to get involved and demand that Republicans quit sabotaging the state economy. The ultimate goal is a special legislative session to accept the money:

House Minority Leader Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Collinsville, said he will ask Gov. Tim Kaine to call a special session of the General Assembly to retake a vote on amending the state’s unemployment laws if “there is some indication from the Republican leadership that they are going to change their minds.”

If that does not happen, the General Assembly can take the matter up when it meets in January, Armstrong said. However, he added, “we’ve got a little election in November, and I know of a way to come up with the votes.”

Del. Armstrong is quite right; competent, pragmatic leaders do very well in Virginia elections. These Republicans have proven they're just ideologues trying to score political points – exactly the sort of politicians Virginia loves to punish.