In case you missed it, the midterm elections came and went, and the absence of a “red wave” left pundits scrambling to explain why their predictions were wrong — and what it all means. On this much, everyone seems to agree: Majorities in Congress are slim, so gridlock will continue, with no easing of the bitter partisanship that has come to characterize American politics.

So, now what? The results of the November elections “definitely shift focus from the federal government, where things have already slowed down, to the states and localities,” says Melissa Horn, the Arthritis Foundation’s director of state legislative affairs.

“Thin majorities, political polarization, and changes in leadership and committees in Congress likely will make it harder to enact policy at the federal level,” adds Horn, who, until late in 2022, had worked in state and local government affairs for the National Association of Realtors for nearly eight years.

Joel Baise, senior director of state and local government relations for Walgreens, agrees but adds another wrinkle or two. “Whenever Congress is divided like this and gridlock continues, corporations and other organizations look to the states to lead and implement policy change,” Baise says. “Conservatives will go to red states with their bills, and progressives will go to blue states with theirs, hoping to create waves. States such as California and New York will pass legislation, with advocates hoping this will lead to comparable action in other states, while Texas and Florida will do the same, hoping to see ripples in other red states.”

But even if the hoped-for ripples do not result, “what happens in those states can have a considerable impact on a company as large as ours, with as big a presence as we have there,” Baise says. “What happens might not be national in scope, but it can still be significant.”

Even then, there are hurdles. “What is easy to overlook is the extent to which the partisanship we’re seeing in Washington can be just as intense at the state level as it is at the federal level,” says Anna Platt, the Council’s senior manager of government relations. “It’s not like a lot of people are splitting their vote when they enter the voting booth, though certainly some voters do, as we saw in the midterms. And you can’t assume more agreement among members of the same party than is the case. There isn’t necessarily a lot of agreement between the Senate Democrats in Washington and those in the House — and the same goes with Republicans. Members of both parties in both chambers won’t necessarily move in lock-step.”

Progressive Democrats in the House “wanted something more sweeping in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act than their counterparts in the Senate, where the Democrats there were more concerned with what they could actually get passed,” Platt notes. “Compromise at any level of government is hard enough to reach when you have a big majority. When a majority is slim, it is even harder.”

Peter Shelly, partner and co-founder of Shelly Lyons, a public affairs firm in Harrisburg, Pa., says the legislature in that state, for example, is “as tightly contested and as bitter as Congress. House Republicans here have just formed their own state-level version of the Freedom Caucus, so it is unlikely that they have any intention of moving toward the middle to work with the Democrats here.”

‘Higher Than Ever’

With the Supreme Court shifting the abortion issue to the states, and other social issues likely to follow, “the stakes in some respects are higher than ever,” Shelly adds. “This, too, will complicate matters. Under Trump and Biden, a lot of stimulus money flowed into the states, but that’s over and we are probably heading for a recession. Here in Pennsylvania for now we have a surplus, but that could easily turn into a deficit, and 2024 being an election year, nobody will want to raise taxes or cut programs. Things aren’t likely to get any less bitter.”

Just as stimulus money has dried up, a lot of COVID-19 emergency measures are expiring. “A lot of the action back at the beginning and height of the pandemic was at the executive level (with governors and mayor), given the emergency orders they needed to put in place to address the coronavirus,” Horn says. “With those orders expiring, the legislatures will need to evaluate whether to codify those health measures permanently into law. One example would be telehealth policy and access to health care. This elevates the importance and power of the state legislatures and with every state having a legislative session in 2023, the stakes will be higher.”