Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior…
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More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of…[more]

March 19, 2024 • 08:35 AM

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The Midterms in Prospect: The Governors (Part 1) Print
By Troy Senik
Wednesday, October 08 2014
This week’s installment will focus on the West and Midwest, while next week’s will examine the South and Northeast.

Over the last four weeks, I’ve produced a series of pieces examining the midterm races in the U.S. Senate, which — given the fact that the House of Representatives is universally understood to be staying in Republican hands — has represented the focal point of media coverage of the 2014 elections.

Lost in the focus on the federal government, however, is the tremendous change that could be coming to the states in a year where nearly three-quarters of governors are either up for reelection or leaving office.

What follows is a brief précis of the gubernatorial races to watch come election night. As with previous columns, this one will break down the races by region. This week’s installment will focus on the West and Midwest, while next week’s will examine the South and Northeast.

There are three races to watch in the West. The first is in Alaska, where Republican incumbent Sean Parnell (formerly lieutenant governor under Sarah Palin) is facing a stronger-than-expected challenge from independent Bill Walker — the former mayor of Valdez who ran as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2010 and is now campaigning on a unity ticket with a Democratic running mate.

Some recent polls have shown Walker ahead, but Alaska — given its dispersed population — is notorious for having some of the most unreliable sampling in the nation. That said, The Last Frontier has more of an appetite for unconventional candidates than most states and the idea of a Walker victory is far from implausible. Watch this one closely on election night. It will almost certainly surprise.

Another unusual scenario is playing out in Hawaii, where incumbent Neil Abercrombie was defeated (crushed actually, by 36 points) earlier this year in the Democratic primary, with the nomination going instead to State Senator David Ige.

This scenario has actually increased the possibility of a GOP governor in reliably liberal Hawaii. Ige will be facing off against former Lieutenant Governor Duke Aiona — a Republican — and former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, an independent. Ige is leading in the polls, but is usually within the margin of error against Aiona thanks to the support that is being siphoned away by Hannemann’s candidacy.

The Democrat still has to be judged the slight favorite, but it’s not at all outside of the realm of possibility that a Republican could be running the show in Honolulu come next year.

Slightly more conventional is the race in Colorado, where, as I noted in the Senate series, Democrats have spent the last decade systematically ripping up the state’s Republican roots (a process that’s been aided by demographic changes). Still, Republican Bob Beauprez (who, full disclosure, I’ve worked with in the past), a former Congressman who was also the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee in 2006, is roughly even with Democratic incumbent John Hickenlooper.

Hickenlooper has stumbled on a number of issues, not least of which was a controversial gun control law that didn’t play well in a state that, for all its recent changes, still embraces the rugged individualism of the Mountain West (last year, two Democratic Colorado state senators were recalled over the measure, a first in state history).

Democrats have a formidable infrastructure for turning out the vote in Colorado, but Republicans will also be mobilizing to help U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardner on Election Day, so this race could come right down to the wire. If both Beauprez and Gardner lose — especially after 10 years of Democratic victories in the state — it might be a sign that Colorado has slipped irretrievably out of Republican hands. If one or both win, the GOP will gain a newfound confidence that it can still compete there.

Two solidly Republican states in the region — Arizona and Texas —have GOP governors who are stepping down, though the dynamics in the two races couldn’t be more different. In Arizona, incumbent Jan Brewer is termed out, and it’s been widely assumed that she will be replaced by Republican State Treasurer (and former Cold Stone Creamery CEO) Doug Ducey.

Polling in Arizona, however, shows the race shockingly tight — Ducey is basically tied with Clinton Administration alum Fred DuVal — a surprising development in a state where Republicans have long been dominant.

It’d be shocking if — in a year where turnout will likely favor Republicans and there is no U.S. Senate race to complicate matters — Ducey doesn’t emerge with the victory. The polling, however, suggests that it’s a very real possibility. If DuVal pulls off the win, this will be one of election night’s biggest upsets.

There’s considerably less ambiguity in Texas, where Rick Perry is retiring after nearly a decade and a half as governor of the Lone Star State (the longest such stint in Texas history). As Perry likely heads off to pursue another presidential run in 2016, his almost-certain successor is state Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is running against Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis.

Davis became an icon among liberal activists when she staged a filibuster over proposed abortion restrictions, but she’s far more popular in the left-wing blogosphere than she is anywhere in Texas. Abbott will likely win this race by an extremely comfortable margin.

The remainder of the West is populated by safe incumbents. Five Republicans — Susana Martinez in New Mexico, Mary Fallin in Oklahoma, Brian Sandoval in Nevada, Butch Otter in Idaho and Matt Mead in Wyoming — are expected to cruise to reelection, as are Democrats Jerry Brown in California and John Kitzhaber in Oregon.

Four governor’s races in the Midwest deserve attention, three of them featuring vulnerable Republican incumbents.

In Kansas, former U.S. Senator (and presidential candidate) Sam Brownback is on the ropes as he attempts to stave off a challenge from Democrat Paul Davis, Minority Leader of the Kansas House, to win a second term.

Davis is consistently ahead in recent polls, though generally within the margin of error. While Kansas tends to be a solidly Republican state, Brownback has inflamed tensions between the state’s moderate and conservative wings of the GOP (virtually two different parties in the state), leaving him vulnerable as Election Day comes around.

Democrats think of this as one of their most promising sleeper races of the year. If both Brownback and Senate incumbent Pat Roberts lose reelection, it will represent a pair of massive unforced errors for the GOP.

Another Republican who may not be returning for a second tour of duty in his statehouse is Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. A businessman without previous electoral experience who ran for office as “one tough nerd,” Snyder was widely perceived as the kind of “go along to get along” politician that often emerges from the business sector … until he managed to get Michigan, historically one of the epicenters of union power in America, to adopt a right-to-work law in late 2012.

Snyder’s opponent is Democratic former Congressman Mark Schauer, who has kept the race competitive but has yet to take a lead on the governor. Snyder has been ahead in all of the recent polling, sometimes by a total outside the margin of error. Given that Republicans will likely overperform the polling in many states, this makes Snyder the favorite (albeit by a slim margin). If he wins, it will send an encouraging sign to Republicans around the country looking to enact big reforms in purple or blue states.

Whatever value a Snyder reelection may have, however, surely pales in comparison to the impact of Republican incumbent Scott Walker being reelected in Wisconsin. Walker has turned the Badger State on its ear during his first term, overhauling the collective bargaining process and striking at the ill-gotten power of the state’s union establishment.

Having already survived a recall election, Walker now finds himself in a tight race with Democrat Mary Burke, a businesswoman who has run a safe, bland campaign. As of late, Walker seems to be breaking away, posting a five-point lead in the most recent Marquette University poll.

On a national scale, this may be the single most consequential election of this cycle, as Walker is likely to mount a 2016 presidential campaign if he wins reelection. Given his reformist bona fides, he’s likely to be in the top-tier of GOP candidates if he makes the race.

The final race in the Midwest that bears noticing is in Illinois, traditionally one of the country’s great liberal strongholds (thanks largely to the influence of Chicago). The Prairie State has one of the nation’s most dysfunctional public sectors, plagued by fiscal chaos and hemorrhaging pension liabilities.

Democratic incumbent Governor Pat Quinn (who was elevated into the office upon the incarceration of the state’s previous chief executive, Rod Blagojevich) has only made matters worse, increasing state income taxes by 67%, a move initially billed as temporary, but now (unsurprisingly) one that he wants to make permanent.

Quinn’s general incompetence has opened the door for Republican challenger Bruce Rauner, an uber-wealthy businessman whose focus is almost exclusively on restoring the state’s economic viability.

That message seems to be penetrating, with Rauner now polling neck-and-neck with Quinn. A Rauner victory raises the prospect of Illinois becoming perhaps the largest laboratory for economic reform in the nation, an opportunity the GOP hasn’t had since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election as Governor of California in 2003. While the race hasn’t received much national attention yet, look for big changes in Springfield if Rauner is able to knock Quinn off.

The rest of the Midwestern governor’s races will likely proceed without fireworks. In Nebraska, Republican incumbent Dave Heineman is termed out, but the GOP’s nominee to succeed him, former Ameritrade executive and U.S. Senate candidate Pete Ricketts, should keep the seat in Republican hands with ease.

Safe incumbents in the region include Republicans Dennis Daugaard in South Dakota, Terry Branstad in Iowa and John Kasich in Ohio, as well as Democrat Mark Dayton in Minnesota.

This concludes our look at governor’s races in the West and Midwest. Next week: the South and the Northeast.

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