On the latest Sunday edition of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” GOP strategist Mary Matalin championed the GOP’s successes in statehouses across the United States.
While Washington remains mired in dysfunction, the Republican Governors Conference makes President Obama, the Democrats, and their liberal-progressive agenda disintegrate from bad to worse.
The Democrats made gains in the U.S. Senate and took back the White House. Let President Obama and his elite upper-chamber caucus clean up the mess they started. Demonstrations against Democrats in the Beverly Hills-West Los Angeles area have engaged protestors lighting candles. Not for Chanukah, but as a vigil.
They are warning incumbent Congress members Henry Waxman, in his 19th term, and Karen Bass, in her second, who will have to explain to their constituents how they plan to solve the fiscal cliff without neglecting the cracked fiscal foundation. Re-elected Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill must explain away the “illegitimate rape” of the entitlement funds by our own federal government.
Now to the statehouses.
Kansas is GOP all the way, with Sam Brownback, former U.S. senator and Presidential candidate, the governor. He now oversees a supermajority Legislatuire composed of conservative Republicans, minus moderates purged in the last election. The new agenda for the state: Cut income tax rates to nothing and spur the economy. The Oklahoma GOP supermajority has signaled their support to do the same. Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal have rebuffed ObamaCare insurance exchanges. Florida’s “no income tax” still is a big draw in spite of the anemic housing recovery. Teacher tenure no longer has a hold on the Sunshine state.
Obama’s Pal?
New Jersey’s Chris Christie has lowered property taxes three times – with a Democratic legislature. He cut spending, reformed pensions, and took on the teachers unions. His stunning demonstration of leadership and bipartisanship, post-Superstorm Sandy, taught the nation where to find the real executive authority.
Susana Martinez of New Mexico is leading the fight to repeal one of the last remaining “undocumented driver’s license” laws in the country. Budget surpluses in the land of Georgia O’Keefe have resurfaced following deep cuts under Ms. Martinez’s leadership.
Jan Brewer of Arizona pressed through a necessary provision for law enforcement to check the immigration status of incarcerated suspects. Citizenship-profiling, not race-baiting, is the order of the day for a border state that has lacked support from the federal government.
For the first time since the Civil War, Arkansas Republicans not only control the state legislature, but command a two-thirds majority. While the generic media frenzy feeds off of GOP losses, this startling gain in Dixiecrat Arkansas must not be ignored. Alabama also boasts a Republican supermajority in both chambers of the state legislature, due in part to four defectors to the GOP. Alabama engineered its own immigration reform, resulting in a net drop in unemployment for all Alabamians.
Rick Perry of Texas may have flubbed in the Presidential debates, but his state is taking in work, workers, and working for the good of all. While California has sagged beneath the highest taxes, regulations and unemployment, Texas continues to rebound.
Talk About Growth
Indiana under outgoing Gov. Mitch Daniels witnessed budget surpluses, privatization of state roads (with a profit for the public coffers), right-to-work legislation, and now a voucher program. Indiana swung uncharacteristically for Obama in 2008, returned to the right in 2012, and will keep a right course under Gov.-elect Mike Pence with a GOP supermajority.
Wisconsin, the former home of the Progressives and Collective Bargaining, has witnessed the turnaround against these outdated programs. Scott Walker walked through budget reforms, tackling the high costs of worker pensions and benefits and curbing collective bargaining rights. Eighteen percent of Democrats supported his re-election post-recall. Post-2012, Walker’s GOP took back the state Senate and kept the state House. Lower taxes, mining rights and education reform soon will follow.
Encouragement Flares
Now for Michigan. The Great Lakes state serves as headquarters for the auto industry and, by extension, organized labor. Issuing a reform bill that rivals the Wisconsin budget reforms of 2011 in importance and legacy, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has signed into law right-to-work legislation for public and private sector unions, the 24th state to champion the Little Worker against Big Labor. Unions are showing their true colors in Lansing, red-hot with rebellion, forcing peace-loving supporters to spill theirs, red, as in blood. Union thuggery is on full display along with the decline and fall of the Labor Union Empire.
GOP stalwarts in Massachusetts and California have less to celebrate, so far, along with the GOP in Rhode Island and Illinois, where they remain barely-mentioned opposition. Yet even Rhode Island instituted one of the most comprehensive pension reforms in the country. One of Rhody’s worst performing schools submitted to massive layoffs and restructuring. California leaders have backpedaled on one projected tax increase, likely responding to the growing out-of-state exodus of residents. Last year, 100,000 more people left California than moved here. Massachusetts has lost a House seat. It may join Michigan with the dubious distinction of net population loss.
Final Note of Advice
Keep your eyes on the GOP-led states. Minority Republicans, press for the best for your state, no matter what. The new year and onward will bring on the sharper repudiation that was so lacking in 2012.
Mr. Schaper of Torrance, a teacher turned writer “on all topics timely and timeless,” may be contacted at arthurschaper@hotmail.com, aschaper1.blogspot.com and at asheisministries.blogspot.com Also see waxmanwatch.blogspot.com
