The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has been heavily featured in news reports nationwide following the release of our 2010 strategic planning memorandum.

This, of course, is the final election cycle before redistricting takes place. And with November fast approaching, local and national media are starting to take notice of the DLCC’s efforts on behalf of Democratic legislative candidates.

In addition to a lengthy Associated Press article that was picked up by many of the national papers, other media outlets have begun exploring how our strategic choices will effect local races in key states like Texas, New York, Ohio, Nevada, and North Carolina.

We’ve also been the subject of at least one local TV report, by Indianapolis-based CBS affiliate WISH TV:

After a court ruling established marriage equality in Iowa, Democrats (lead by State Senate Majority Leader and DLCC Chairman Mike Gronstal) promised to block any bill to ban same-sex marriage in Iowa. A few days ago, Iowa’s Democratic legislators delivered on that promise, effectively blocking a Republican-sponsored marriage ban for the rest of the legislative session:

What Republicans wanted was the right to pull House Joint Resolution 6 out of a committee so that it would be placed on the debate calendar and avoid a legislative deadline this week.

The effort failed in the Senate where a vote was not taken. However, all 18 Senate Republicans signed a petition circulated by Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan (…)

The House spent almost 30 minutes on a rarely used “call-of-the-House” in which each of the 100 members were ordered into the chambers to vote unless they were previously excused. The House measure ultimately failed in a 45 to 54 vote that was mostly along party lines.

What’s most striking is that each chamber had just a single Democrat willing to go on record supporting the ban. Every other rank-and-file legislator, including many Democrats facing tough re-election campaigns in conservative districts, stood with Majority Leader Gronstal and House Speaker Pat Murphy on the right side of history.

The good folks over at Bleeding Heartland took a moment to acknowledge the role Leadership played in both results:

Murphy and Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal strongly supported the Iowa Supreme Court's Varnum v Brien ruling, and they deserve a lot of credit for holding their caucuses together today. As Gronstal has promised, Republicans will not succeed in writing discrimination into our state's constitution.

Hear at the DLCC, we couldn’t be more proud of our Chairman and all the Iowa Democrats who stood up for equality this week.

Reliable broadband service is one of the key ingredients for job-creation in the 21st Century, and Sen. Sean Burrage, a DLCC Board Member, is working hard to make sure his rural Oklahoma district doesn’t get left behind.

Last week, Burrage lent his star-power to a meeting between AT&T and local officials in Pryor, Oklahoma to help determine the fastest way get broadband available in Pryor:

Key officials met at City Hall on Monday morning to discuss Internet upgrades in Pryor and surrounding areas.

Senator Sean Burrage, Representative Ben Sherrer and Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Dana Murphy were among those attending the informal meeting. They joined Mayor Jimmy Tramel, Lucy Belle Schultz, Barbara Hawkins, Bruce Taylor, John Hawkins and others to hear from AT&T representatives.

AT&T Director – Regulatory Jason Constable, and Craig Cromley, Area Manager, were there to discuss broadband service in general and to field questions on how Pryor can be progressive regarding Internet service availability.

As telecommunications evolve, it takes time for the latest advances to reach every part of the country, but Pryor is on its way. Three quarters of the town is now DSL-capable, though upgrading to a 3G or 4G network remains a challenge.

With the benefits of a global marketplace and potential new job development at stake, Sen. Burrage is determined to help Pryor and all of rural Oklahoma meet that challenge successfully.

With the books closed on the 2009 Election (a few important specials notwithstanding), focus is now beginning to shift to the stakes for 2010, which puts redistricting squarely in the spotlight. We're now seeing the first of what will likely be many stories from the national media about next year's election.

Bob Benenson, writing for CQ, offers a particularly good breakdown of what to expect in 2010:

What’s not at all clear now is whether one party will dominate redistricting and have the latitude to go for broke, or whether each party will control maps with comparable numbers of seats, giving the process more of a play-it-safe mood. That’s because, 48 weeks from Election Day 2010, the political climates in the states are far from fully formed, and so it’s too soon to predict the overall winner of the campaigns for the governors’ mansions and statehouse gavels.

To maximize their chances, each party has a related organization — the Republican State Leadership Committee and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee — to provide advice and money to state legislative candidates. The Democratic group plans to spend $20 million or more, and the GOP group plans on spending as much as $22 million on such 2010 races.

At the DLCC, we are ready. We've been preparing for this for some time. But that doesn't mean we won't need plenty of help from supporters like you.

Check out RedistrictingFacts.com to learn more about the process and continue coming to DLCC.org for breaking news and important updates.

Heading into the 2009 Election, Republicans and Democrats each held a majority they needed to protect. Tonight, the status quo remains the same.

In Virginia, buoyed by a set of strong statewide candidates and a national climate that put history on their side, Republicans have made gains in the House of Delegates. But the GOP believed that this election might help them wipe out all the Democratic gains of the past six years, and it did not.

We’ve known since June that Republicans were planning a hard charge to retake control of the New Jersey Assembly, but the Democratic Assembly Caucus appears to have met the challenge head-on. In the weeks before Election Day, New Jersey Democrats built up formidable advantages in fundraising, candidate quality, and organization, and that ultimately allowed them protect their chamber.

Across the country, Democrats still hold 60 legislative chambers and control 55 percent of the nation's partisan legislative seats. Our current position remains a solid one heading into the final election before the Census and the next round of Congressional and legislative redistricting.

Voters head to the polls today in elections across the country. Here are the voting hours for the legislative races we will be following most closely.

Virginia: 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

New Jersey: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Should your state forge its own path to universal health care? How much should we invest in education? Are renewable energy projects a wise use of your tax dollars?

Right now, more than 4,000 Democratic state senators and representatives around the country are struggling to answer those questions, and we want to tell them what you think. That's why we hope you'll participate in our 2009 Legislative Priorities Survey.

The questions are quick and easy, and they are a great way to make your voice heard by your lawmakers. With the recession squeezing every state's budget, it's never been more important to tell our elected officials how we feel about the critical issues we face. In the coming months, legislators will have to choose between improving our schools and making health care more affordable; promoting renewable energy and adding new road and rail lines.

They need to hear from us.

Take a minute to fill out the 2009 Legislative Priorities Survey, and show your legislators what it is that you care about.

Regular readers of this blog know that the DLCC is putting a heavy emphasis on redistricting, which will be carried out by state legislators in almost every state.

Now, we are taking that focus to the next level with the launch of RedistrictingFacts.com, a website devoted to providing timely, accurate information about redistricting in all 50 states.

We’re still adding more content to this site, but our vision for RedistrictingFacts.com is to create a one-stop-shop for information, including:

• State-by-state overviews of how the redistricting process works in all 50 states;
  

• Analysis of how legal structures like the Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, and changes to state laws affect redistricting;
  
• News and updates about the Census process and key reform initiatives around the country; and
  
• Most importantly, ways individuals and grassroots groups can join the fight to ensure fairly-drawn maps for Democrats.
  

All of us at the DLCC are extremely excited about the potential for this new site, and the information available now will only increase between now and 2011, when the maps are drawn. We hope you’ll take a moment to check it out, and be sure to keep checking the site for the very latest.

More and more candidates for public office at the local level are taking their campaigns online, and web tools are changing the ways that lawmakers and voters interact.

Blogs, email, and social networking offer public officials the opportunity to communicate directly with voters and their constituents in a way that promotes a type of participatory democracy that is new and exciting.

If you're going to Pittsburgh for Netroots Nation, we hope you'll join us tomorrow from 10:30 AM to 11:45 AM for a conversation on the state of online campaigns.

I'll be joined by Jim Walsh from Wired for Change, Kim Rogers from the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, Erin Hill from ActBlue, and Adam Conner from Facebook.

We'll discuss examples of how some technologies are helping candidates breach the divide that exists between voters and politicians, and debate the implications these developments hold for the future of government and public life.

If you have questions, follow the DLCC on Twitter @demlegislators and ask questions using the hashtag #DLCC

This week is Netroots Nation. We're headed to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, and on Thursday, I will represent the DLCC on two different panels.

At 4:30 p.m. in Rooms 301/302 at the Conference Center, I'll be part of a discussion about redistricting.

I'll be joined by blogger Matt Glazer from Burnt Orange Report, Sam Bennett from the Women's Campaign Forum, and State Rep. Chelsa Wagner (D-Pittsburgh).

Christopher Massicotte, Director of Sales and Marketing for NGP, will moderate the panel discussion and interactive questioning.

If you will be attending Netroots, we hope you will join us.

The Facebook event is at http://bit.ly/qS1So. We're also soliciting questions before, during, and after the event with a hashtag on Twitter: #redistricting2010