Gerrymandering
While it has been widely reported how the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling open the flood gates of money into politics through Super PACS and other means, what has been largely overlooked is the timing of the 2010 ruling.
As a result of the Citizen's United ruling, a significant number of state legislatures turned Republican in the 2010 election cycle. Much of this was the result of large amounts of money mainlined into state races by corporations and wealthy individuals.
In North Carolina, millionaire Art Pope spent over $2 million in state elections resulting in the Republican takeover of the North Carolina House & Senate for the first time in over 100 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Pope).
Readers can read more about Art Pope in my Truthout article from 2012 at: (http://truth-out.org/news/item/6756-how-north-carolinas-shock-doctrine-artists-are-resegregating-higher-education) and at my 2014 article at Dailycensored at: (http://www.dailycensored.com/trickle-down-economics-the-rise-of-the-new-sociopathic-class/).
According to the Rasmussen report:
"Republicans now control the entire legislature in 25 states, 11 more than they had going in to the 2010 elections. ... The last time Republicans controlled this many legislatures was after the 1952 election, when they had 26.
The following 21 chambers moved to the Republican column:
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