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

We start the first Politics of the States for quite some time in Ohio, where Secretary of State Jon Hustead has reached out across party lines to reform the redistricting process in a state marred by partisan gerrymandering and other redistricting woes. Hustead, a Republican and former state Senator and Representative, sent a letter to Republican Speaker William Batchelder and to Vernon Sykes, a Democrat on the Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission, calling for an improvement to the system and restoration of trust in Ohio’s government. A spokesman for Batchelder, who represents a rural area outside of Cleveland, said the Speaker would “look into” the Secretary’s concerns. [Columbus Post Dispatch]

Judgeships are at work creating partisan divides in Wisconsin again, though this time, mostly within the Republican Party. A dispute has arisen in rural Marinette County, near the border with Michigan’s Upper Peninsula between two potential appointees to a vacant seat for a circuit judge in that county; the applicants are a lifetime Marinette resident and a former resident who had been living just over the border in Menominee County, Michigan. The details of the case are complex and deal largely with Wisconsin Republican politics, but it nevertheless highlights, as the article points out, the extent to which supposedly non-partisan judicial appointments and elections are driven by political affiliations. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

Florida is looking to reform car insurance, an industry that sees more than $1 billion in fraud per year in the Sunshine State alone. At the behest of Governor Rick Scott, several plans are being explored in the State Senate and House of Representatives– By Republicans. Surprising no one, these myriad plans have yet to attract any substantial measure of Democratic support in a state where the GOP controls both the executive and legislative branches. As a result of the lack of support from the left side of the aisle, legislators are beginning to look at proposals that had been discarded out of hand. [Tampa Bay Times]

It may be generously described as good news for California, but is certainly bad news for Illinois, as the Golden State has fallen behind the Land of Lincoln as the US State with the worst credit rating. Moody’s Analytics downgraded Illinois to an A2 rating as a result of that state’s inability to deal with outstanding pension liabilities, while California has slowly been crawling out of its massive debt hole, although a failed debt reduction deal earlier this year contributed to an increase in the state’s deficit. [Sacramento Bee]

It hasn’t been dominating headlines, but New York has been having a bit of a fight over whether to expand the State Senate to 63 seats from its current 62. The sides in the debate have fallen along, what else, party lines. Albany’s Times Union provides an interesting overview of the situation. [Albany Times Union]