Doggo Days of Summer edition

It’s just that time of year.

August.

Sweltering.

It feels like the dog days of summer are in full effect, but I may be a little bit behind on this one. Or I’m not, depending on where you are while reading this—astronomical dog days occur at different times, depending on things like latitude and the position of the stars relative to the Earth and such.

The term “dog days” originates in Greek and Roman literature and actually refers to the days when the dog star, Sirius, appears to rise just before the sun. It’s a time those civilizations generally associated with catastrophe.

Which may be a fair assessment of GOP electoral prospects this fall. And it’s almost always a reasonable take on Republican antics in statehouses.

Let’s fetch some news.

Hair Of The Dog: Kris Kobach’s fight to become the Kansas gubernatorial nominee got most of the headlines in Tuesday’s primaries, but interesting things were afoot down-ballot, too.

• Six Republicans lost their state House primaries this week, and at least five of those losses were moderates who got bumped off by more conservative challengers.

Big freaking deal, it’s Kansas, after all, right?

Wrong!

• The resurgence of conservative Republicans in the Kansas House presents a serious reversal of a pretty significant swing the other way in 2016, when not only did Democrats flip 13 seats in November, but 14 moderate Republicans ousted conservative incumbents while seven more won nominations for open seats in that year’s primary.
  • The power shift away from the conservative Republicans who’d controlled the legislature was so massive that the moderates forced the conservatives to share power in the House, with a conservative Republican assuming the speakership and a moderate becoming majority leader.
  • The moderates joined with Democrats to roll back then-Gov. Brownback’s disastrous tax cuts in 2017.
• It’s tough to predict what this shift back to right for Republicans means for legislative elections in November.
  • Will the contrast against the Brownback-esque policies that resulted in a disastrous budget chasm help Democrats flip even more seats?
  • Or is the conservative faction of the House Republicans on its way back to legislative hegemony?

(By the by, the state Senate isn’t up this year, and the Republicans there are just as divided as their House counterparts.)

...

Wolves: The judicial drama in West Virginia I wrote about a few weeks ago has reared its head again—just in time for GOP lawmakers to capitalize on it for a state Supreme Court coup.

• It all started last fall, when reports began to surface concerning Supreme Court justices indulging in Trump cabinet-esque spending on fancy furniture amid lavish renovations of their chambers (in the neighborhood of $700,000 for things like fancy couches, elegant flooring, and pricey rugs).
  • These ludicrously extravagant refurbs spurred the state’s legislative auditor to investigate the justices.
    • A series of audits revealed lots of other shady stuff, like judges taking expensive furniture home with them, improperly driving state vehicles for personal use, and court system budget shenanigans.
  • In June, Justice Allen Loughry was indicted on state and federal charges (54 in all!) of fraud, witness tampering, making false statements, and more.
  • In early July, Justice Menis Ketchum announced his resignation.

Fun fact! Republicans made state Supreme Court races nonpartisan when they took control of the legislature in 2014.

• Before the corruption scandal broke, Democrats had an ostensible one-seat majority on the bench.
• If impeachment proceedings had been concluded by Aug. 14, the open Supreme Court seats would have been on the ballot this November.

But why would the GOP-controlled legislature want that when foot-dragging would let the Republican governor just appoint the replacements himself?

• Just this past Wednesday, Republicans in the legislature finally got around to passing 14 articles of impeachment against all four remaining justices.
• The full House will convene to consider the impeachment articles this Monday.
  • So there’s just no way they wrap up by the Aug. 14 deadline.
• If the justices are successfully impeached, four GOP appointees will be able to serve at least two years on the bench.

Just in case you think this is anything but a brazen Republican attempt to replace an entire branch of government through GOP appointments, consider this:

• A Democratic member of the House attempted to initiate impeachment proceedings back in February—which would have left plenty of time to resolve the matter and place judicial candidates on the ballot this fall.
• At the time, Republican leadership called the move “a political stunt.”

And why entertain timely steps to remove corrupt justices when you can slow your roll and execute a Supreme Court coup instead?

Read the rest of this week's edition here.

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