[Psudo]

The rumor around the Blogosphere these days is that "California is the only one of the nation's 10 largest states that is uniformly under Democratic control." This was reportedly first stated by the magazine American Perspective in June of 2002 as a good thing, along with the statement "the next new deal is in tryouts." The right-wing response to this argument is that California has, by far, the largest state budget deficit of any US state (source). Thus, it is suggested, there is a correlation between Democratic Party power and budget deficits at the state level, and the same thinking that led to the New Deal is precisely the cause of those expanding deficits.

The ten largest US states (by population) are: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina. They didn't explicitly say "by population", but that's the measure that makes the most sense to me. However, the idea that California is more Democrat-controlled than Illinois seems unlikely, somewhat disputing the American Perspective column.

Then again, of the top 10 worst deficits, only Florida and Virginia are Republican-dominated, while California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Massachusetts are all Democrat-dominated. Of the largest 10 states, Texas has no deficit and Georgia has a trivially small one. Maybe there's something to the Democrat/Deficit correlation after all.

Is there a good, empirical way to measure the party control of a state? If so, it could be compared to the deficits to see if there's a mathematical correlation. If it's not too much work.

[bootlegga]

I'll admit I don't know much about US state politics, but I thought the Governator was a Republican, so isn't it a bit of a stretch to say the state is Democrat-controlled? On another note, I have to admit I'm impressed by the job he is doing. I was expecting all sorts of silliness when he became governor, but he's had some pretty good ideas/proposals.

[westmanguy]

Arnold may be a (moderate) Republican, but the California Legislature has been dominated by the Democrats for decades.

[Psudo]

California has a pattern of having a Republican governor and a Democrat Lt. Governor. The two most recent exceptions were Gray Davis (both Democrats, recalled over budget mishandling) and Ronald Reagan (both Republicans, went on to the Presidency). There have frequently been two Democrat US Senators from California in recent years but not once since 1959 have there been two Republican Senators. California hasn't been for a Republican President since H.W. Bush, and hasn't had a majority of Republican US Representatives since I don't know when. That it's a Democrat power base is not really in question.

Incidentally, if California were an independent nation it would be the 36th most populous nation, just above Canada. Even if state politics generally don't interest you, it might be worth it to follow California politics.

Hrm... maybe there's some mathematical summary of past election victories from a state that would provide an empirical demonstration of party loyalty. Apply some kind of weight to the different offices and sum up the state's Dem and Repub victories over the past, say, 25 years. 3 points for each electoral support of a US Presidential Candidate, 2 for US Senators, 2 for Governor, 1 for Lt. Governor. Some number of points to be divided proportionally to party representation in the state legislature and US House of Representatives.

That'd be an awful lot of research, though, and the specific numbers of points per elected office would lack empirical validity.

[xerxes]

And for a Republican, Arnold is pretty moderate as well.

[Psudo]

And who knows moderates better than a moderator? Heh heh heh.

While the "moderate Republican" thing makes sense from an ideological standpoint, I don't see how a state being controlled by party moderates makes it any less controlled by the party. The argument "Arnold's a moderate!" doesn't seem to do anything to change the fact that Cali's got a Repub governor. A state legislature that's around 60% Dem (24 to 15 in the upper house, 51 to 29 in the lower) is a stronger proof of Democrat control.

I started collecting data on election results by party from the 10 largest states. I'm about 60% done.

[edit: fixed link]

[commanderkai]

It's somewhat important to note, the definitions of state parties vary with each state. The average California Democrat isn't the average Texan Democrat. Plenty of left wing/leaning states have elected Republican Governors, and right leaning states have elected Democratic governors. (Texas, after the 70s, was evenly split with three Democratic Governors asnd three Republican ones)

[xerxes]

That's a good point. Other examples are states like Texas. There, the Republican Party of that state is even further to the right wing than the national GOP

[Psudo]

That's true, state parties don't necessarily reflect the national parties' platforms. The stats should be weighted with that in mind to come up with a party affiliation index, making state-representation at the federal level worth more than at the state level. They should also be weighted with the significance of the office in mind (the party of the Governor is more important than the party of the Lieutenant Governor, for example). There's also some inherent bias introduced to the results by any possible date you draw the starting line for eligibility and with the influences of third parties. Some third parties in some states are pretty significantly influential. The research on that page can only be a starting place, not a solution.

To be scientifically thorough, I should also look for other correlations that may be stronger - demographics, population density, and other statistics that might explain the deficits better than party affiliation. But I probably won't be doing that. That's a bigger project than I can do in any reasonable span of time.

However, the extremity of the ideology of the state parties shouldn't be considered to matter too much. Of course Texas Republicans are to the right of Vermont Republicans ideologically. But we're not talking about ideology specifically, but about formal political party affiliation. Political party, as institutions, gain greater influence and power by being ideologically flexible, and it is institutional power we're talking about here.

Personally, I prefer the states have unique flavors to their various local cultures, and I commend parties for acknowledging that diversity and responding to it. It may not be ideologically pure, but it seems to me to be commendable for it's plurality.

commanderkai wrote:

(Texas, after the 70s, was evenly split with three Democratic Governors asnd three Republican ones)

Actually, it was 2 Democrats (2 terms) and 3 Republicans (4 terms). It was 3 and 3 starting in election of '72 (or '74 at the latest), but that's not "after the 70s". Also, weirdly enough, there were only two Lt. Governors during that period, both of them Democrats.

[commanderkai]

Psudo wrote:

commanderkai wrote:

(Texas, after the 70s, was evenly split with three Democratic Governors asnd three Republican ones)

Actually, it was 2 Democrats (2 terms) and 3 Republicans (4 terms). It was 3 and 3 starting in election of '72 (or '74 at the latest), but that's not "after the 70s". Also, weirdly enough, there were only two Lt. Governors during that period, both of them Democrats.

You're correct, I wasn't being too precise, I should of been more specific. My apologies, I was just snatching something quick as an example

[Psudo]

Not a big deal. I'm being obsessively precise.

I also found a New York Times article about states with budget surpluses (and the frivolous extravagances they're spending it on). New Mexico, Alaska, Arizona, Maryland, Oklahoma, North Carolina... There's going to be some conflict with my deficit source, though. They both list Georgia and Connecticut, probably because the deficit numbers are from 2008 and the surplus numbers are from 2006. Says the article, "all but five states -- Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan and Wisconsin -- reported surpluses." Obviously, that was pre-financial-crisis.

There's also this image from Reuters, showing that most states (most of the exceptions being "red states" in the sense of voting for Bush/McCain in the past three Presidential races) will be showing budget shortages in 2009. They didn't show Alaska, but it typically has a budget surplus, too.

The research goes on.

[Psudo]

A little update to my partisanship research. I'd say it's closer to 80% done now. I also changed the layout a bit.

If you only consider a state's support for federal offices (to minimize the influence of the state party being ideologically different from the national party) and disregard California, it separates rather clearly into three groups: 3 clearly red states, 3 swing states (all red leaning), and 3 clearly blue states. Only one of the red states has a deficit (average of $1.13 bn per state). Two of the swing states have deficits (avg. $515 m). And all three (four) blue states have deficits (avg. $2.39 bn). If you go by the averages, red states have twice the deficits as swing states, and blue states have twice the deficits as red states. If you go by strict hit-or-miss boolean logic, red states are more likely to have no deficit (2/3s of the time), followed by swing states (1/3), then by blue states (never).

Including California increases the average deficit to $7.29 bn per blue state. But California's deficit seems to be a rather obvious outlier, so that's not really fair. I'd love to call Florida an outlier, but it's deficit is only unusual for a red state, not for a state generally. Also, notice from my previous post that Illinois and Michigan (two of the clearly blue states in my 10 largest list) still had deficits even in economic good times when only 5 total states had deficits.

So, based on that logic, it's disputable whether it's better to be a red state or a swing state, but blue states are the clear fiscal losers.

The blue states are more loyal to the Democratic Party than the red states are to the Republican Party. It could be argued that strict party loyalty has the stronger correlation to large deficits than which party one follows. That is countered somewhat by the fact that the reddest red state (Texas) and the bluest blue state (Michigan) are both on the better side of the fiscal issue. Still, there seems to be a little lean in that direction, so taking that into account might reduce the Dem/Deficit correlation a bit.

[edit: fixed link]

[xerxes]

I know you don't have rep points enabled, but I'd like to give you a big for being so thourough.

[Xenterex]

how much would emergency response play into these deficits? I'd think that at least part of the factors for California and Florida would include natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, etc)

[Psudo]

xerxes: It's pure fun to be so thorough when it looks bad for the other party. It's almost like finding scientific proof that I've been right all along. =]

Xenterex, that does seem to be a correlation. But I was under the impression that most emergency funding came from the federal level. I can't find much in the way of useful sources on the subject, but here's a hint of one.

Douglas Jehl of the New York Times wrote:

President Clinton will ask Congress for at least $6.6 billion in emergency financing to help the victims of last week's [Jan 1994] California earthquake.

The White House request would add the full Federal bill for earthquake relief to the budget deficit, while the State of California would be asked to match just 10 percent of the total contribution, rather than the 25 percent that is usually required of states receiving Federal aid.
[...]
the new request would put total Federal assistance for the California quake at more than $7.5 billion.
[...]
By comparison, the total Federal bill for last summer's Midwest floods now stands at just $4.6 billion. In 1991, the cost to Federal taxpayers for hurricane damage surpassed $8 billion, but that figure included both Hurricane Andrew, which struck South Florida and Louisiana, and Hurricane Iniki, which struck the Hawaiian island of Kuaui and led to Federal aid approaching $2 billion.

For the earthquake that damaged the San Francisco Bay area in 1989, the total Federal cost has now reached $2.9 billion; for Hurricane Hugo, which struck South Carolina earlier the same year, it was $2.8 billion. None of the figures were adjusted for the effects of inflation.

The part about "25 percent [...] usually required of states receiving Federal aid." makes your theory tenable. Even if Clinton eventually got the state bill down to 10% as he wanted, that's $750 million in unexpected spending for California simultaneous with a major hit to the economy.

If 25% of the Hurricane Iniki bill was sent to Hawaii's state government, that's half a billion in disaster-deficit jumping out of the cake. Hawaii doesn't have any deficit now, but they may have immediately following the disaster 17 years ago.

Obviously, that doesn't explain all deficits; California has NOT had $22 billion in natural disasters since the '06 article that doesn't list California as one of the 5 states with deficits. But it's an idea with a lot of merit to it, and may be a better (or at least contributing) factor than party loyalty.