Over the summer, during the debt limit fight (or hostage situation, depending on your point of view), the most conservative Republicans were demanding one thing in particular: a balanced budget amendment. This amendment would essentially restrict the federal government from spending only as much as it takes in, except in national emergencies. Ignoring for a moment how horrible this would be or that such an amendment could pass both the partisan House and democratically controlled Senate with 2/3 majorities, could such an amendment ever realistically be ratified by 38 state legislatures? Well, because I'm a total political nerd, I decided to examine just such a possibility.
In order to be ratified by a state legislature, both chambers of the legislature (or Nebraska's Unicameral legislature) must ratify the amendment. Neither the president nor the governors of the states have a say in the matter. Assuming a chamber controlled by the Republican Party will always ratify a Balanced Budget Amendment, there are 26 state legislatures where the Republicans control both chambers and would pass the amendment right now. Nebraska's legislature is non-partisan, but the conservative leanings of the state make it likely to ratify any such amendment, bringing the total up to 27. Therefore, Republicans would need to sway or capture 11 more state legislatures to ratify the amendment, meaning the amendment wouldn't be ratified in this year or the next. But that's not typical for constitutional amendments anyway, which can await ratification by the states for years (or in the case of the 27th Amendment, 203 years!) The question then becomes, how hard would it be to get 11 more state legislatures to ratify the amendment? Very.
Currently, there are eight states where Republicans control one body of the legislature. In Alaska, where Republicans control the State House, the state senate is split 50-50. Alaskan Republicans had control of the state senate as recently as 2008, meaning they could very easily win back control of the chamber. I'm unsure of whether the state senate president could make a tie breaking vote, but either way Alaska could probably be relied upon to ratify the amendment. Similarly, control of Oregon's state house is shared by both parties, but because the State Senate is democratically controlled, it is unlikely to ratify a balanced budget amendment any time soon.
Beyond Alaska, the Republicans don't have many legislatures within in their reach. Controlling 27 state legislatures is likely something of a high water mark for Republicans, brought on by their 2010 wave election. Total control of the legislatures in states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, North Carolina and the volatile New Hampshire is unlikely to last long (and with the recall elections in Wisconsin, perhaps not even past August). States can rescind their ratification of an amendment, meaning that even counting Nebraska and Alaska, the 28 that could ratify a Balanced Budget Amendment are potentially fleeting. That said, if Republicans ratify it while they have control, they need only hold on to one branch to prevent a rescission, which makes it easier for them.
That said, Republicans still have a chance. Like I previously mentioned, a constitutional amendment can await ratification for centuries. In the next few decades, might some state legislature become more conservative? I'd say the writing is already on the wall for democrats in the south. Control of Mississippi's state senate is slipping away from Democrats, and Arkansas is fast becoming a more conservative state. Kentucky and Iowa certainly aren't becoming more liberal any time soon and could conceivably be captured by Republicans in the next few decades. And all four of these states might have enough conservative democrats willing to support a balanced budget amendment even before Republicans take complete control. Oregon, despite being reliably democratic at the presidential level, could realistically be captured by Republicans at some point. The state senate is currently only 2 seats away from their control and the Republicans need only capture one seat in the state house to swing it to their side.
So if Republicans can ratify a Balanced Budget Amendment in 28 states within the next year and a half, prevent any of those states from rescinding their ratification, they might have another 5 states join them in the next decade or so. That brings the potential number of states legislatures to 33. Are there 5 more that could ever logically ratify the amendment? West Virginia continues to elect democrats at the state level despite its turn toward Republicans at the presidential level. I don't think it's a stretch to say West Virginia's state legislature might someday be controlled by Republicans. Virginia and Colorado, where Republicans already control one branch of the legislature, could revert to their recently conservative pasts after going blue in 2008 (though Colorado democrats weathered 2010 surprisingly well). Nevada and Washington's state legislatures are both controlled by democrats presently, but not by overwhelming margins.
Are these the 5 states that could push ratification over the edge? The rest of the states currently controlled by Democrats are that way for a reason: they are extremely blue states. I'm already heavily extrapolating on the last 3-5 states the Republicans would need, so who's to say New Mexico or some New England state doesn't take a hard right shift in the 2020's? And if I'm extrapolating in one direction, why not the other? At some point, demographics are going to change the politics of Texas and Arizona, and it'll probably be in the democrats favor. And though I said that most of the south is probably lost for democrats in the near term, a Republican shift in Washington or Oregon is probably just as likely as a democratic shift in Georgia and Florida, where demographics are also in flux. Florida is also heavily gerrymandered in the Republicans favor right now, but that could be undone by a new non-partisan redistricting this year. And if you really want to extrapolate pointlessly, consider the possibility that were two more states added to the union, any amendment would require 39 states to be ratified.
Something else to think about is the amount of money states get from the federal government. If a Balanced Budget Amendment were actually close to being ratified, would states dependent on the federal subsidies like Alaska and Mississippi actually pass it? Billions of dollars of federal subsidies would almost certainly be cut, and these states in particular see a great deal of federal largess. Same with agricultural states like Iowa and low population states like the Dakotas. Who knows, maybe some day a coalition of liberal states, tired of getting less money from the government than they pay it in taxes, will actually push for a balanced budget amendment.
So if I were a democratic strategist, I wouldn't be all that worried about this amendment actually being ratified, at least not in this decade. It would certainly be a constant political danger for democrats, always waiting for another historic Republican wave to unleash its powers to strangle the federal government. But if the best Republicans can do in a wave like 2010 is 27 legislatures, any wave capable of putting this amendment close to ratification probably means democrats have other things to worry about (like what weather's like in Toronto during the fall).
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