Dem
47
GOP
53
Republican governors and legislatures can't wait for Donald Trump to enact conservative policies in many areas. Literally can't wait. In fact, they are planning to get a jump on him and do it themselves. The list is long.
Idaho lawmakers want to allow teachers to carry concealed guns, so the Shootout at the OK Corral can become the shootout in the school cafeteria. They also want parents to be able to sue libraries and school districts. Oklahoma lawmakers want to restrict even emergency abortions and mandate that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public schools. Arkansas lawmakers want to make pharmaceutical companies criminally liable for "vaccine harm." We knew that somebody would someday go after big pharma companies, but we were expecting it to come from California, not Arkansas.
Texas has the biggest plans of all. The legislature is going to create its own floating border barriers and border patrol, repeal in-state tuition for undocumented college students (and report them to state authorities), and get DNA samples of migrants to subsequently identify them. The legislators also want to allow state troopers to run their own mini-Operation Wetback, bar undocumented immigrants from all public services, and much more. It will be a conservafest.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) doesn't want to miss the party. He is going to try again to ban gender-affirming care for minors (the courts got in the way this year), require schools to teach anti-Communism (so when Republicans call Democrats Communists, the voters will at least know what they are), and forbid hundreds of books from being in school libraries. DeSantis is also a supporter of school choice, which is designed to destroy the public school system. He would surely compete with Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) for the "Conservative Governor of the Year Award," if there were one.
Everybody is going to go nuts on transgender rights, starting with banning puberty blockers and hormones, saying they are unproven. It's true that running double-blind controlled experiments in that area is more difficult than it is with new drugs. Banning biological boys from girls' sports teams and locker rooms is also high on the list. Here Donald Trump will help by changing Title IX regulations to eliminate transgender as a protected category.
There will be 27 Republican governors, 23 of which have trifectas, and they will go to town. Kansas has a Democratic governor, but Republicans have a supermajority in the state legislature, so they can rule from there. With the federal government unwilling to sue to stop any of this, the Republican governors can get going working their will on reproductive health, labor rights, free speech, and enabling private schools to compete with public schools—on the taxpayer's dime. Getting stuff done in deep-red states is easier than in Congress because most states don't have a formal filibuster rule where the minority can block bills for as long as they can stand and read the Bible or Shakespeare out loud.
There are two different goals at work here: fanning the culture wars and increasing the power of corporations. The two aren't necessarily in conflict, but legislatures sometimes have trouble focusing on two things at once. Different groups of lobbyists are pushing for different laws. In some states, one or the other might dominate, depending on who has the most clout.
Some blue states may try to implement the opposite policies from the red states, but in that case Trump might try to take that power away from the states, setting up federal vs. state battles that the Supreme Court will have to deal with. This could put the Court in a bind. On the specifics of the issues (e.g., "Can California require stricter emission controls on cars than the feds?"), the conservative justices might want to go with the feds and against the states, but they know that if a Democrat is elected president in 2028, they will be stuck with precedents they don't like, so they may tread lightly. (V)