The DLCC hosted an important panel at last week's Netroots Nation conference in Minneapolis. “Where Crazy Comes From: Reckless Republicans in State Legislatures” drew a full house as statehouse experts discussed the extreme right-wing agendas sweeping through state legislatures, as well as how to organize, highlight the extremism, and fight back.

The DLCC's Carolyn Fiddler moderated the panel that included DLCC Executive Director Michael Sargeant, Texas Progress Executive Director Matt Glazer, Minnesota Independent Senior Reporter Andy Birkey, and Minnesota state Rep. Paul Thissen.

All participants brought unique perspectives to the epidemic of anti-equality, anti-middle class, anti-common sense policies working their way through statehouses across the country. Sargeant presented a broad, national-level analysis and concrete examples of the growing backlash, including recent special election wins in unfavorable territory. He also emphasized that Republican extremism is more than a talking point or even a cause to rally against; these destructive policies affect real people in tangible ways. Glazer provided an effective discussion of translating news and knowledge of the Republican agenda into action – namely, organizing and energizing progressive voters online and off. Birkey highlighted the American Independent's role in providing in-depth reporting on state legislative politics from a progressive viewpoint. Rep. Thissen provided a valuable "in the trenches" perspective on right-wing antics in GOP legislatures around the country, including his own chamber. He described how the GOP wins in 2010 have had a destructive influence on sound policy making, and he provided a broad roadmap for how legislative leaders and grassroots activists can work together to shine a light on the very worst of GOP extremism.

The full panel video is posted below, and it’s also available at netrootsnation.org (introductions begin at the 52 second mark).

Thank you to all of our panelists, and to the approximately 200 people who attended the session.

FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY                                                   

Contact: Carolyn Fiddler, fiddler@dlcc.org                                                                   

MEDIA ADVISORY 

Netroots Nation 2011 Panel Features Statehouse Crazy, Republican Extremism 

Wisconsin Sen. Mark Miller Joins Statehouse Experts for Discussion of GOP Misdeeds

It’s not just Wisconsin and Ohio; Republicans in state legislatures all around the country are bringing serious right-wing craziness into the mainstream. Where Crazy Comes From: Reckless Republicans in State Legislatures will encourage participants to help expose these shenanigans, push back on the insanity and share input and ideas on countering the crazy before it spreads. Panelists will provide examples of extremist Republicans in the states and how progressives have fought back. DLCC Communications Director Carolyn Fiddler will moderate the panel discussion and interactive questioning. 

Who:                The Hon. Mark Miller, Wisconsin Senate Democratic Leader
Michael Sargeant, Executive Director, DLCC
            Matt Glazer, Executive Director, Progress Texas & Progress Texas Institute
            Andy Birkey, Senior Reporter, Minnesota Independent          

What:               Where Crazy Comes From: Reckless Republicans in State Legislatures

Panel discussion with analyses of recent extremism in statehouses and how it affects not only politics and people on the state level, but also ideas, discourse, and even elections on the national level. Panelists and audience participants will also discuss pushing back on the crazy and how it may even be used to help progressive politics. 

When:              Thursday, June 16, 2011
10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.                      

Where:             Room L100 FG
Minneapolis Convention Center
                        Minneapolis, MN

The Netroots Nation 2010 conference provided a great opportunity to explain to the progressive online community, as well as some more “traditional” media outlets, what’s truly at stake in this fall’s state legislative elections.

As Executive Director Michael Sargeant put it to Charlie Mahtesian of Politico,

“With redistricting coming up, the future of the Democratic Party will largely be decided upon the results of the elections this November.”

Paul Rosenberg of Open Left certainly understood the long-term implications of this fall’s elections and the subsequent redistricting:

Arguably the most important, most overlooked aspect of the upcoming elections is the control of state legislatures, who play a crucial role in redistricting for next decades. I'll be writing more about this in the days and weeks ahead. But for now, I'll just say that it's typical of the broader need to focus on institutional forms of power. We can tell if we're making real progress when we stop being obsessively focused on the shiny surface of things, and instead find ourselves naturally at home with the deeper structures that shape the moment-by-moment flow, even if they do not determine the exact nature of moment-by-moment events.

MSNBC.com’s Tom Curry noted that, while we welcome opportunities to work together, the DLCC is unwilling to tip its hand in terms of strategy.

Michael Sargeant, the executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, who spoke at a Netroots Nation panel discussion Friday, pointed to Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio as battleground states for state legislative races.
…
One Netroots Nation attendee asked Sargeant if he could give activists a list of the ten seats in each state that could tip the balance in each legislature from Democrat to Republican.

“State bloggers and people interested in financing these campaigns could then have those targeted seats ready to go -- especially when we have an infrastructure on line that can really rally people at a moment’s notice,” he told Sargeant.

But Sargeant was unwilling to reveal the entire DLCC target list.

“There’s so little news coverage of a lot of these campaigns,” he noted, and in some cases he prefers to keep it that way. He doesn’t want publicity for sleeper races where Democrats have a chance to pick up a seat.

“We’re going to spend, with your help, a lot of money and use a lot of resources to win these races – but we don’t want the Republicans to actually notice,” he said. “We have to work through with our leaders with what they’re comfortable actually talking about,” he told the Netroots Nation questioner.

“Both sides – Democratic and Republican – don’t want the other side to know all their strategies,” Sargeant told me later. “I may have a target list for what races I think are important in Indiana, for example; I imagine my Republican counterpart would probably have a different list. Sometimes it’s very public which races overlap, and sometimes maybe there are a couple of sleeper races.”

The Netroots community is already an important part of the fight to win and maintain majorities in state legislatures. We were pleased to have the opportunity to meet so many great writers and reporters face-to-face, and we’re excited about working with progressive bloggers as we fight for “the future of the Democratic Party.”

Sum of Change and Five Steps Forward Media provided live streaming coverage of many of the panels and presentations at Netroots Nation last week.

Their coverage includes a complete video of our Redistricting Panel, which featured State Senator Steven Horsford, a DLCC Board Member and the Majority Leader of the Nevada Senate; Executive Director Bill Burke of the Foundation for the Future; and our own Michael Sargeant, Executive Director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

You can watch the video below or at USTREAM:

We'd like to thank all of our participants for generously providing their time, and we'd also like to thank the Netroots community for helping us shine a light on this critically important issue.

At Netroots Nation, I spoke for just about five minutes on why next year's legislative elections will have such a major impact on redistricting. Check out the video below:

To watch the entire panel, click here.

Today's political landscape is radically different from what it was in 2000. That set of elections and redistricting occurred at a time before rise of political blogging or YouTube or Twitter.

That's a point that Charles Mahtesian made in POLITICO last week:

It’s easy to forget that, while the practice of drawing political districts with the intent of maximizing power dates back at least two centuries, it wasn’t until fairly recently in our history that the dark arts of redistricting were perfected by the creation of software and databases that facilitated pinpoint line-drawing.

Now, I think, we’re about to see the next evolutionary step in redistricting — a round where the blogosphere plays a significant role in determining the final outcome.

Mahtesian was in the room for the redistricting panel at Netroots Nation. He saw an engaged audience, asking thoughtful questions.

Democrats in this country are already aware that this process is unfolding and aren't willing to let Republicans control redistricting yet again.

We hope to have video from the panel soon.

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

From August 13-16, a team from the DLCC will head to Pittsburgh for Netroots Nation.

There, we will join thousands of Democrats and progressives from across the country to discuss politics, policy, and strategy. The DLCC is helping to organize two panels at this year's conference.

In the first, we will discuss the 2010 election, reapportionment, and the importance of redistricting for the Democratic movement.

In the second, we will discuss how local campaigns are using technology to change the way that races are run in this country.

We hope you can join us in Pittsburgh, and as a supporter of the DLCC, we can offer you a special registration discount.

When you sign up to attend at http://regonline.com/nn09, use the promo code SPONSOR, and you will get $50 off your registration.

On Friday, about the same time that Megan was breaking down the National Popular Vote on this site, I was listening to a panel attempting to do the same at Netroots Nation. The guy sitting behind me was Matt Yglesias (who I read constantly and have linked to before).

He has more to say about the issue here and here.

Point being there are a ton of really good resources out there if you're interested in the NPV movement.