What’s Forcing Legislative Leaders Out of Office

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What’s Forcing Legislative Leaders Out of Office: Dade Phelan’s political career nearly ended this spring. The Texas House speaker came in second in the GOP primary and then barely held on to win the runoff after spending more than $4 million on his campaign. Last month, several representatives who planned to challenge him for the gavel coalesced behind a single challenger who appears to have the support of a majority of the Republican caucus, meaning Phelan’s only chance to run the chamber will depend on votes from Democrats.

Phelan may end up being one of the lucky ones. This year, the leaders of four legislative chambers all lost their seats in primaries (the Democratic speakers in Delaware and Hawaii and the Republican Senate presidents in Idaho and West Virginia). In addition, Oklahoma Republican Greg McCortney, already tapped by his colleagues to serve as Senate president pro tem next year, lost his seat in a primary, while Wyoming GOP House Speaker Albert Sommers lost a state Senate primary.

In most cycles, it’s a surprising anomaly when one or perhaps two chamber leaders get knocked off in primaries. Having a whole cluster go down is unheard of, at least in recent memory. “In my 35 years of working with legislatures — most of them working with legislative leaders — I feel like their consternation in trying to hold their caucuses together has never been higher,” says Tim Storey, CEO of the National Conference of State Legislatures. “And that's saying something, because this is not a new trend. This has been going on for at least a dozen years, and leaders have always complained about their own caucuses.”

Their difficulty with caucuses is related to their failure with voters. Both are driven by dissatisfaction. There are more extremists in both parties, pushing harder and harder against leaders whose roles are necessarily more pragmatic because they have to strike deals with governors and the other chamber. “There are always factions within the parties, but the patience of both the electorate and colleagues in caucus seems to be in shorter supply,” says Jesse Richman, a political scientist at Old Dominion University in Virginia. “The willingness to go along and keep a particular leader, the willingness to compromise — all of that seems to be diminishing in many places across the country.”

Leaders have always had to deal with lone wolves who created headaches by being ideologically extreme or personally abrasive or both. Now those wolves have formed packs. There are super-progressive legislators on the Democratic side, but among Republicans there’s been a growing movement over the past couple of years to form freedom caucuses at the state level, highly organized groups of arch-conservatives who are quick to turn against more conciliatory leaders. 

In other words, the same types of lawmakers who drove U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from power a year ago are baying for blood in some states. This type of anger feeds on itself, moving out from the Capitol into districts where in a primary the most committed partisans can turn out even a powerful leader. There are networks of activists to help fund challengers, even on a nationwide basis if they can light a spark on social media. This has eroded the advantage of one of the most powerful tools 21st leaders have had, namely control of leadership PACs. “You’ve got a combination of disgruntled conservatives in the legislature, coupled with outsiders with resources who are willing to endanger and threaten if not topple the incumbent leadership of their legislative chamber,” says Matthew Green, a political scientist at Catholic University.

Leaders such as Phelan and Robin Vos (the Republican Assembly speaker in Wisconsin who survived a challenger backed by Donald Trump in 2022, as well as a more recent recall attempt) have been able to hold on thanks to their own fundraising networks and the seriousness with which they took the threat. Some leaders have been caught napping or simply can’t campaign much at home when primary season overlaps with legislative sessions. They might not be used to a fight, since many leaders got their jobs in part because they represented safe districts and could raise money for others. What seemed like safe districts become dangerous, however, when threats emerge in primaries.

The fact that so many leaders are being challenged and in some cases defeated has to give warning to their peers. They may think twice about cutting deals or blocking bills in ways that could buy them trouble within their own ranks. Some may wonder whether they want the job in the first place. “It’s a huge risk that Republicans are running in these states,” says Carolyn Fiddler, a Democrat who publishes a Substack newsletter on state politics. “If you understand the tiger that exists within the state GOP caucus, are you going to sign up to try to collar that tiger?”

London Breed Is Rising Up: Timing is everything in politics. The best proof for that cliché is the fact that London Breed is likely to win another term as San Francisco mayor in November.

Breed’s term was supposed to end last year, when she was being blamed for just about all of San Francisco’s ills, including a largely vacant downtown and major problems with drug use, crime and homelessness. But back in 2022, Supervisor Dean Preston sponsored a successful charter amendment that moved mayoral elections from odd-numbered to presidential years. Preston, a Democratic Socialist, believed that higher turnout would bring out more progressives who would vote to unseat Breed, a moderate by San Francisco standards. “Had the mayoral election been held last year, I would have been toast. But not now!” The San Francisco Standard columnist Adam Lashinsky wrote, channeling Breed’s point of view.

Preston managed to buy Breed more time. The city’s problems haven’t all magically disappeared, but there’s more of a sense that things are turning around. San Francisco is a big beneficiary of the AI boom, helping to alleviate some of the pain from tech layoffs and empty office space. Crime statistics have moved in a more positive direction, with Breed getting credit for increasing police funding (and getting the police union’s endorsement). Breed, emboldened by a Supreme Court decision in June, has been cracking down on the homeless population, including a recent proposal to tow recreational vehicles that are being used as shelter.

“The last few years have been quite a rebuke of some progressive policies and candidates on things like public safety,” says Jason McDaniel, a political scientist at San Francisco State University. “London Breed astutely understood where the city was going and has been trying to do things both substantive and symbolic to signal she understood the mood of the city has shifted.”

Polls this year have consistently shown Breed leading the large field of candidates attracted by her apparent weakness. San Francisco uses ranked-choice voting in local elections, which makes prognostication tricky, but the ideological mix of candidates makes it likely that she’ll be the second choice of enough voters to put together a majority in the end. On Tuesday, Breed skipped the last candidate forum of the race. Her opponents criticized her for it, but avoiding debates and forums is generally a sign that the leading candidate is feeling good enough to play it safe and avoid unscripted situations where she can make mistakes.

"It’s moved from 'things are bad and people are upset,'" McDaniel says, "to 'I’m doing things and the city’s turning around.'"

Odds and Ends: Speaking of luck, it took some breaks for Byron Brown to win a fifth term as mayor of Buffalo, N.Y., back in 2021. Brown lost the Democratic primary that year to India Walton, a Democratic Socialist, but managed to win re-election as a write-in candidate.

Now it seems that Brown has had enough of the job. On Monday, Brown announced he’s stepping down to run an off-track betting agency. He’ll receive a raise of more than $100,000…

Republican Stacy Garrity looks like a good bet to win another term as Pennsylvania treasurer. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is pointedly refusing to endorse his party’s candidate, Erin McClelland, who attacked him when he was under consideration to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. Shapiro isn’t the only Democrat who doesn’t like McClelland. A trio of Democratic officials has filed complaints about her campaign finance reports with the Allegheny County district attorney and the state attorney general, in addition to the Federal Election Commission regarding her earlier runs for Congress…

Add Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson to the list of Republican officials who refuse to support Trump against Harris. She’s received a number of threats for defending the integrity of elections in Utah, which votes entirely by mail. “I have a real struggle with people who do know better and should know better at the top of Republican politics, who are sowing doubt and chaos and confusion for political gain, no matter who it is,” Henderson told the The Salt Lake Tribune…