biggest victory that year. the republican state leadership committee started a project they called the redistricting majority project, or red map for short. and for this red map project they started raising a lot of money. it was not formally affiliated with the republican national party. they were not strangers, but they were at arms length. so red map, separate from everything else the party was doing, publicly trying to do well. it was the job of red map to specifically try to win in the states. and to get more specific than that, their plan what they were designed to do was to flip as many state legislatures as possible from democratic control to republican control. from blue to red. state legislatures state houses, state senates. after the census is done every ten years, state legislatures get to redraw election districts both for themselves like for
right to work this seems to be an issue that the republicans are quiet about, but on a state level where they re making a push here. how successful do you think they could be? i think they can be successful. unfortunately they ve gotten a majority that is you know vetoproof, and it s really difficult for these minorities at the state houses and state senates to overrule. so it takes the rest of us people like you to talk and to let people no and let the republicans know that we don t want toss right to work states. i love in one. this is a real avalanche comer. number one what does it mean to the workers? and number two, what is the best way to filed it. what it means is raising wages or eliminating bargaining power. for those of you who have unions, we have to constantly
control of some state senates. the big one might be here in the swing staet of virginia but also a special election in iowa. virginia is a big one because everybody is on the ballot and there are some key swing districts. one in northern virginia. republicans feel like they might be able to take that state senate back. it could give us a kwlu about the nation s mood in this very important battleground state. there is also a special election going on for the state senate in iowa. another battleground. we re talking ohio, iowa and virginia tonight. all three elections i always like to throw in washington state because for some reason they just believe in governing by referendum which of course we know is what is probably taking down the entire state of california. tongue little bit in cheek there. more money has been spent on these than ever before. one issue that people want to make a lot of money off of.
drug abuse which are the most predictive of violent behavior. now, members of congress hopefully will be motivated by this as will people in the state houses and state senates to look carefully at their mental health systems and their involuntary commitment system laws and make some determinations do we need to do some things so that these things can be prevented in the future. congresswoman, to be totally honest here, there s no more money in the budget, and i find impossible the notion that state houses who have cut billions nationwide out of services for the mentally ill or that the federal government is going to pony up any more money. you are so right, and unfortunately, it s not something that we focus on that brings votes as you ve heard before, these youngsters don t vote. the parents, there s not been enough cohesiveness to say to them, treat them like the illness it is.
party. here s another new one that i think nobody s been talking about thus far at the national level but this could be really important. today the national conference of state legislatures said that they re watching for party control to potentially flip this year in 11 state senates and in 7 state assemblies. in the vast majority of those they expect to flip they are republican controlled now, which means if they flip, they re ready to flip to democrat, if the now expected blue wave comes in just at the right time and the right way. that s another part of the bad news that the republican party i think can largely blame on the presidential candidacy of donald trump. so i get that. but what we reported here on monday night that has now all of a sudden come to fruition as truly bad news for the republican party brought upon them by donald trump, it s a