Democrats win the OTHER Houses 
In a victory that could be every bit as important as taking the US House and Senate, Democrats also took back a majority of state legislatures.
Democrats picked up control of at least nine chambers in Tuesday's election, winning the House and Senate in Iowa and New Hampshire, the House in Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, and Indiana, and the Wisconsin Senate, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Why is this as important as gaining control at the federal level? Remember Tom Delay.
What got the bug man in such trouble wasn't really all the dirty dealing he did in D.C., it was how he funneled funds back to his home state to help a Republican-led Texas state legislature gerrymander Democrats out of their districts. The fact that so many state legislatures were in Republican hands -- and often under the control of Republicans much more radical than any who could survive a contest to win federal office -- made these states vulnerable to the same kind of slicing and dicing that went on in Texas. That was especially true since the Robert's led Supreme Court has ruled that such redistricting at for political purposes and at arbitrary times is perfectly legal.
Democrats could potentially end up in control of still more states, including Maine, Montana, Oregon and Pennsylvania, all of which were still up in the air after a number of tight contests. You don't have to look any further than the scramble for control of US House seats in Pennsylvania districts last night to realize how important this could be.
KEYWORDS: election 2006, state legislatures
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