The RP’s Weekly Web Gems- The Politics of the States

Earlier this month, California Governor Jerry Brown (D) shut down a transparency website that his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had established. The site, transparency.ca.gov, was lauded as a centralized point from which Californians could access the complete array of official documents and spending reports publicly released by their state government, though a spokeswoman for Brown said that all records will be available at other sites or by request. The latter group includes trip and spending reports, which the Brown Administration maintains are fare lower than those of the Schwarzenegger Administration. [Sacramento Bee]

A federal court indicated that Texas’s Republican-drawn Congressional map will almost certainly be thrown out in favor of a court-drawn map, at least temporarily. Because of a history of racial discrimination, Texas, along with several other Southern states, is required to have its Congressional maps approved by the federal government, which in this case will be drawing a map considerably less favorable to Republicans, affording Democrats further opportunities to capture the United States House of Representatives in 2012. [The Hill]

In New York, Democrats failed to obtain a veto-proof State Assembly when Republican Raymond Walter bested Craig Bucki, his Democratic opponent, in a Buffalo-area special election to replace retiring Assemblyman James Hayes. Unexpectedly, this outcome is considered a win for Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, as it strongly reduces the possibility of his party overriding vetos on issues where they are considerably to the left of the governor, namely property tax and budget cuts. [NY Daily News]

An attempt by Ohio Republicans to reach a Congressional map compromise with black lawmakers and avoid a Democratic-backed referendum is being met with further criticism, as it only significantly changes the borders of one district, which makes it only slightly less Republican. Moreover, There are now actually fewer competitive districts than in earlier maps, all of which lean Republican, giving the party a strong shot at winning 12 of the 16 Congressional seats Ohio will have beginning in 2013. According to Jim Slagle of the Campaign for Accountable Redistricting, the current map scores lower for competitiveness than all 53 submitted in a statewide competition that the Campaign held. [Columbus Dispatch]

Wisconsin’s fall legislative session continues, but lawmaking appears to have stopped, with key economic initiativs and plans left in the lurch. Although the state legislature would normally have several more weeks of floor debate and votes, a new round of recall votes is expected to slow or stop progress for the next several weeks, and highly-involved economic bills have been left unattended to, with simpler legislation like a bill providing legal protection to people who shoot home invaders has passed with no difficulty. This is, in many ways, a repeat of this past summer, when a suite of recall elections stopped Wisconsin lawmaking in its tracks for weeks. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]