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States With Democratic Trifectas Are Failing to Meet the Moment
After the disappointing results in November, Democrats in blue states should be using their power to show how government can make life better for working people.
Apr 07, 2025
The anger and frustration Americans are feeling toward the Democratic Party reached a boiling point earlier this month, after ten Senate Democrats joined the Republicans in voting for a federal funding bill that slashes everything from disaster relief to school meals for our kids. Presented with an opportunity to stand up for working people, Senate Democrats immediately tossed in the towel. But the Democratic leadership crisis isn’t limited to the U.S. Capitol. In states where Democrats hold the majority, the reasons they’re losing working people become painfully clear.
Over the first two months of the new administration, we’ve seen states with Democratic trifectas and supermajorities duck for cover. Instead of exercising their power to make life better for working people and respond to the devastating actions at the federal level, they’ve kowtowed to corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors.
Look at Delaware—a bright blue state with a governing trifecta—where Democrats worked hand-in-hand with Elon Musk’s lawyers to land Musk a $56 billion pay package. Displeased with a court ruling that denied his bloated Tesla pay package, Musk made good on his threat to move the company’s copyright registration to Texas. But he didn't want to leave without his payday, and state Democrats were eager enablers.
Any person living in these blue states should be demanding that their governor, attorney general, and state legislatures use their power to stand up to Trump and Musk.
Democratic spines in other blue trifecta states are no sturdier. In Colorado, Democrats have advanced a bill to slash the tipped minimum wage, which could result in $8,000 a year in lost income for full-time food service workers. Directly to the south, in New Mexico, Democrats compromised their own paid family and medical leave bill that now leaves too many working-class state residents behind.
During the election, Donald Trump and Musk were able to capitalize on the Democrats’ disregard for working-class voters. However, it hasn’t taken long for Trump and Musk to show their true face. They’re already signaled their plans to make deep cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Republicans have no interest in governing on behalf of working people. Democratic pundits from across the spectrum have emphasized the need for Democrats to put working people at the center of the party. But the Democrat’s lack of a coherent message or plan of action to address the Trump-Musk destruction is pushing away those exact voters.
The steady drift of working-class people from the Democratic Party is the reason the Working Families Party was founded 27 years ago. And in the absence of a clear plan from Democratic leaders, WFP legislators are stepping up to fill the void. In Rhode Island, WFP legislators are pushing a 13-point agenda that, among other things, guards against cuts to Medicaid, lowers the cost of healthcare, and protects tenants against retaliatory evictions. In New York, WFP legislators are fighting to pass the Working Families Tax Credit, which will put money back into the pockets of working families. And in Philadelphia, housing protections enacted by Working Families Party City Council members have led to a 41% drop in eviction filings over the last year.
After the disappointing results in November, Democrats in blue states should be using their power to show how government can make life better for working people. Yet after months of soul-searching and post-mortems, the lessons of the past election have quickly worn off.
As Indivisible points out in their handbook, there are nine more states with Democratic trifectas than there were in 2017, and the 15 states with trifectas are major economic powerhouses making up nearly half of the country’s gross domestic product.
Any person living in these blue states should be demanding that their governor, attorney general, and state legislatures use their power to stand up to Trump and Musk. They have the ability to protect residents and ensure uninterrupted access to the services and benefits we all need. Waving the white flag and enabling their money grab doesn’t show working people that you’re in their corner.
Democratic legislators in triple blue states can choose to be courageous, unlike many of their congressional counterparts. In state after state, Working Families Democrats are putting forward a plan of action. It’s on their fellow legislators to follow their lead.
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Alarm Bells Ring as Delaware 'Radically' Shifts More Power to Corporate Insiders
"The Delaware lawmakers that enacted S.B. 21 are lapdogs for corporations and Musk," said one expert at the Open Markets Institute.
Mar 26, 2025
While Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer declared that "Delaware is the best place in the world to incorporate your business, and Senate Bill 21 will help keep it that way," critics reiterated concerns about the corporate-friendly state legislation he signed this week.
The Delaware House of Representatives sent the Senate-approved S.B. 21 to Meyer's desk on Tuesday in a 32-7 vote, with two members absent. The Delaware Business Timesreported that the governor "arrived in Dover to sign the measure into law less than two hours after it passed," and "the bill signing was closed to the press."
The bill sailed through the Delaware General Assembly despite anti-monopoly, economic, and legal experts blasting it as a "corporate insider power grab" and accusing state legislators of choosing "billionaire insiders—like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg—over pension funds, retirement savers, and other investors."
Delaware Working Families Party (WFP) political director Karl Stomberg said in a Wednesday statement that "at a time when rank-and-file Democrats across the country are begging their leaders to stand up to" President Donald Trump and Musk, his billionaire adviser, Democratic lawmakers in the state "just gave Musk a $56 billion handout."
That's a reference to Musk's 2018 compensation package for his electric vehicle maker, Tesla, which a Delaware judge ruled against, prompting the richest billionaire on Earth to ditch the state and encourage other business leaders to do the same. Fears of a potential "Dexit" led to lawmakers' frantic effort to pass S.B. 21.
"The Working Families Party has been standing up against this proposed bill for weeks now, and we recognize the need to fight back against corporate overreach in our government," said Stomberg. "WFP electeds proposed serious amendments to address our concerns with the bill that would protect the people of Delaware, but the Democrats chose to side with Musk and vote them down."
"This bill is an indictment of the failed Delaware Way, which continues to allow big corporations and the ultrawealthy like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to enrich themselves at the expense of working people," added Stomberg.
Zuckerberg is the CEO of Meta, Facebook and Instagram's parent company. CNBC recently revealed that "a day after The Wall Street Journal published its story on Meta considering a Delaware departure, Meyer, who was brand new to the job, convened an online meeting with attorneys from law firms that have represented Meta, Musk, Tesla, and others in shareholder disputes in the state, according to public records obtained by CNBC. Other attendees included members of the Delaware Legislature."
"The following day, records show, Meyer invited a second group to meet with him and new Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez. That invitation went to Kate Kelly, Meta's corporate secretary, and to Dan Sachs, the company's senior national director of state and local policy," according to CNBC. "The invite also went to James Honaker, an attorney with Morris Nichols, a firm that's represented Meta in federal court in Delaware, and to William Chandler, former chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, who is now part of Wilson Sonsini's Delaware litigation practice."
Just weeks after those meetings, the governor urged state lawmakers to swiftly pass S.B. 21. The Lever's Luke Goldstein wrote Wednesday that "the timing of the emails obtained by CNBC reveals clear motivations driving the current law which was rushed before the Legislature last month by the new governor: to let top executives off the hook for legal liabilities."
In earlier reporting, Goldstein highlighted that "Delaware, which has long been perceived as a billionaire playground and corporate tax haven, is the incorporation home to more than 60% of all Fortune 500 companies. That means, if enacted, the wide-ranging regulatory handouts in the bill will have sweeping consequences for corporate behavior across the country."
The Lever's founder, David Sirota, on Wednesday lamented the limited attention the Delaware law is receiving, compared with a major national security breach involving several top Trump officials' unsecure group chat about war plans. As he put it, "Cannot overstate how significant this is—while the national media is focused on the D.C. drama, a group of Democrats off the radar in a tiny state just radically shifted more power to the planet's largest corporations via world-changing legislation."
Daniel Hanley, senior legal analyst at the Open Markets Institute, said Wednesday that "the Delaware lawmakers that enacted S.B. 21 are lapdogs for corporations and Musk. How this one state came to control practically all of American corporate law is a long story, but regardless, Congress can and should take the power away."
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Why We Need a Progressive Shadow Cabinet to Counter Trump
A shadow cabinet would show us what it would mean to have a government of public servants who put the well being of American families ahead of the further enrichment of billionaires.
Mar 13, 2025
The rapid fire destruction initiated by President Trump, Elon Musk, and MAGA Republicans has overwhelmed Americans, with many scrambling to respond to one shock after another. Which was, of course, the point. The “flood the zone” strategy worked, for a while, leaving us alternating between fear and exhaustion.
But waiting for the lawsuits to stop the worst illegal moves or for disasters to expand to the point of collapse are losing strategies. Likewise, focusing exclusively on the failures of Trump administration policies leaves us feeling powerless and isolated.
What we need is a path forward.
Here’s one idea, discussed by North Carolina Democrat Rep. Wiley Nickel and historian and author Timothy Snyder: a shadow cabinet. The idea comes from other parliamentary democracies especially in Europe. In these systems, the opposition party establishes an alternative cabinet with specific portfolios that mirror those of the ruling government. These shadow ministers serve two crucial functions: they critique current policies while offering constructive alternatives.
Imagine having a shadow Attorney General who could provide journalists with informed counterpoints to administration claims while also creating a secure channel for alarmed federal employees to share concerns and leaks. Imagine a Secretary of Interior who could speak to the enduring value of American forests and parklands and why they should be protected.
What we need is to restore our sense of collective agency — to set a people’s agenda for the future and choose our own leaders.
A shadow cabinet would show us what it would mean to have a government of public servants who put the well being of American families ahead of the further enrichment of billionaires. During this time of overwhelm, when our physiological resources are limited by the impulse to “fight or flight,” this process could refocus us on our rights as citizens of this nation to have a government that works for us.
I propose one crucial variation on the approach proposed by Nickel and Snyder. The cabinet should not be appointed by the Democratic Party establishment — instead, we should embrace a truly democratic (small d) selection process. The Democratic Party establishment has failed to rise to the challenges of the times on many fronts, and many have felt alienated or left out.
Moreover, we need to recover our voices after the failed primary season of 2024 in which the nominations of Pres. Joe Biden followed by Vice President Kamala Harris were forgone conclusions. If Party leaders once again tell us who our leaders should be, alienation and cynicism would grow instead of engagement.
What we need is to restore our sense of collective agency — to set a people’s agenda for the future and choose our own leaders. So let’s create a grassroots process to debate priorities, hear from potential shadow cabinet candidates, and make selections collectively. We could consider a few key cabinet posts at a time. Caucuses at the local level could elect representatives to take community priorities and nominations for shadow secretaries to a national gathering for final selection.
This approach would be newsworthy, energizing, and shift our focus from mere opposition to creative problem-solving, visionary imagination, power-building, and community empowerment.
We could do this in locations across the country led by non-MAGA organizations that have large memberships and local chapters, for example The Working Families Party, Indivisible, the Women's March, Black Lives Matter, and Democratic Socialists of America come to mind, alongside local Democratic Party districts.
Americans are seeking genuine solutions to their everyday challenges, not ideological litmus tests. The questions we should be asking center on values and on practical approaches to improving the lives of current and future generations.
Our shadow cabinet members would serve as forward-looking spokespersons with the legitimacy of having been chosen through an inclusive process. They could effectively articulate alternative visions while also forming a deep bench of potential candidates for future elections.
Importantly, the democratic process itself would be enlivening. It would shift us away from the stale red-vs blue argument that too often miss the point. Is advocating for healthy lifestyles inherently conservative now that RFK Jr. is in office? Is supporting peace in Ukraine a right-wing position? Are immigration enforcement policies exclusively Republican when Democratic administrations have also implemented deportations?
Americans are seeking genuine solutions to their everyday challenges, not ideological litmus tests. The questions we should be asking center on values and on practical approaches to improving the lives of current and future generations.
This caucus process would provide valuable practice in democratic deliberation about real issues that are affecting our lives in local communities throughout the country. And it would expand our political imagination beyond the limitations imposed by establishment thinking, potentially embracing such popular proposals as Medicare for All.
No one is better equipped to define our national priorities and develop solutions than the American people themselves, engaged in pragmatic local conversations focused on constructive action. A democratic shadow cabinet offers a way to channel our energy toward building the future we want. By reclaiming our democratic voice through this process, we can begin building our vision and our power, re-engaging in our communities, and doing the essential work of renewal.
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