'Hot-button issues': GOP state lawmakers view Trump victory as 'mandate' for far-right legislation

With 2025 having arrived, Donald Trump's second presidency is less than three weeks away. And when the president-elect is inaugurated on Monday, January 20, both branches of Congress will have small Republican majorities.

Trump's Democratic critics fear that most Republican lawmakers in Congress will go along with his far-right MAGA agenda, and conservative attorney George Conway — a vocal Never Trumper — doubts that most Senate Republicans will have enough "spine" to reject the more "appalling" nominees for his administration.

Meanwhile, The Guardian's Eric Berger reports that GOP lawmakers in red states view Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November as a "mandate" to push extreme legislation.

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Berger, in an article published on New Year's Day 2025, reports, "The policies include steep tax cuts, environmental legislation, religion in schools and legislation concerning transgender medical care and education, among other hot-button social issues. Republicans will have trifecta control — meaning both legislative bodies and the governorship in a state — in 23 states next year, while Democrats will only control the three entities in 15 states. The other states have divided government."

But liberal and progressive activists, according to Berger, are vowing to fight extreme policies that Republicans enact in red states in court.

Skye Perryman, president of the liberal legal group Democracy Forward, told The Guardian, "We are in a moment right now where the incoming administration (won)…. by distancing themselves from these very policies that it now seems that they are seeking to accelerate…. We are laser-focused on protecting the American people and on ensuring that people in this country have the tools to make their voices heard."

Anti-gay bills introduced in GOP-controlled state legislatures, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), are on the rise.

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"Earlier this month," Berger notes, "there were 129 pending anti-LGBTQ+ state bills, including proposals to prohibit doctors from prescribing to minors puberty-blocking drugs or gender reassignment surgery, according to the ACLU."

Perryman is vowing to fight MAGA extremism at both the federal and state levels.

The Democracy Forward president told The Guardian, "Some of the same architects behind the extreme federal policies also work at the state level. We are obviously monitoring the bills that are being filed in various sessions and ensuring that people at the state and local level can make their voices heard, including through using the courts."

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Read The Guardian's full article at this link.