“The Worst Of The Worse”: Maine’s Paul LePage Might Just Be The Worst Governor Of All
When Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released its report on “The Worst Governors in America” last summer, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was not even on the list. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker did make the “cronyism, mismanagement, nepotism, self-enrichment” list, but the review of his tenure was not necessarily the most scathing in CREW’s assessment of Republicans and Democrats who had gone astray. And Ohio Governor John Kasich was ranked as nothing more than a “sideshow.”
Now Christie is busy answering questions about blocked traffic, misdirected Sandy aid and political misdeeds. Walker’s facing national and state scrutiny of secret e-mails and illegal campaign operations so intense that even Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace interrupted him to say, “But sir, you’re not answering my question.” And Kasich is scrambling to deal with a “Frackgate” controversy touched off by the exposure of a public-relations scheme—apparently developed by his administration, Halliburton and oil and gas industry lobbyists—to “proactively open state park and forest land” for fracking.
The scandals surrounding these prominent Republican governors, some of them potential presidential contenders, are serious. And they raise the question: Could there really be a governor who is more controversial? And whose actions might be even more troubling?
Meet Maine Governor Paul LePage, who ranked in the very top tier of CREW’s “worst” list with this review:
The first-term governor packed his administration with lobbyists and used his office to promote their environmental-deregulation agenda, and allegedly went so far as to fire a state employee who testified in favor of policies the administration opposed.
Gov. LePage also attempted to gut his state’s open records act, and is under investigation by the federal government for trying to bully employees of the state Department of Labor into deciding more cases in favor of business.
Now, the federal investigation has been completed, and LePage is still very much in the “worst governor” competition. A report from the US Department of Labor Office of the Solicitor General concluded that LePage and his appointees meddled with the process by which unemployment claims are reviewed—apparently with an eye toward advantaging employers and disadvantaging the jobless.
When the governor and his appointees engaged with officials who consider appeals from Mainers seeking unemployment benefits, the federal investigation concluded, they acted with “what could be perceived as a bias toward employers.” Specifically, the investigators determined, “hearing officers could have interpreted the expectations communicated by the Governor…as pressure to be more sympathetic to employers.”
The headlines from Maine newspapers Thursday were blunt:
Federal probe finds LePage pushed jobless benefits appeals officers to show ‘bias toward employers
Federal probe faults LePage administration on unemployment hearings
Federal investigation finds that LePage, Maine DOL endangered fairness of unemployment hearings
The roots of the investigation into LePage’s actions go back almost a year, as noted by Maine’s Sun Journal in a front-page story Thursday:
An April 11 Sun Journal investigation cited sources who said the governor had summoned DOL employees to a mandatory luncheon at the Blaine House on March 21 and scolded them for finding too many unemployment-benefit appeals cases in favor of workers. They were told they were doing their jobs poorly, sources said. Afterward, they told the Sun Journal they felt abused, harassed and bullied by the governor.
Emails released under a Freedom of Access Act request echoed complaints made to the Sun Journal by the hearing officers who attended the meeting.
LePage denied the charges and claimed his communications with the hearing officers were “cordial.” When the US Department of Labor investigation was launched—because hearing officers are paid with federal funds and must follow federal rules—the governor denied it was going on.
But there is no denying now that LePage has been called out for creating what reasonable people would interpret as an unfair “bias” against the jobless in a state that has a significantly higher unemployment rate than its northern New England neighbors New Hampshire and Vermont.
LePage is expected to seek re-election this year. Among the candidates he will face is Democratic Congressman Mike Michaud, a third-generation paper mill worker who says, “I understand what people are going through, the hard times that they are facing. Whether or not they have a job today or tomorrow, the uncertainty is real.”
Providing a fair process for reviewing unemployment claims helps to address that uncertainty. Infusing bias into the process is not just wrong, it’s cruel. And that cruelty—as much as any political abuse or ethical excess—provides a vital measure for assessing the worst of the worst governors.
By: John Nichols, The Nation, February 27, 2014
“An Affront To Democracy In Ohio”: It Appears Ohio Republicans Didn’t Get The Message
About a month ago, President Obama’s non-partisan commission on voting issued a detailed report, urging state and local election officials to make it easier for Americans to access their own democracy.
It appears Ohio Republicans didn’t get the message. Zachary Roth reports:
On party lines, the [Ohio state] House voted 59-37 to approve a GOP bill that would cut six days from the state’s early voting period. More importantly, it would end the so-called “Golden Week,” when Ohioans can register and vote on the same day. Same-day registration is among the most effective ways for bringing new voters into the process, election experts say.
The House also voted by 60-38 to approve a bill that would effectively end the state’s successful program of mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters. Under the bill, the secretary of state would need approval from lawmakers to mail absentee ballots, and individual counties could not do so at all. Nearly 1.3 million Ohioans voted absentee in 2012. The bill also would make it easier to reject absentee ballots for missing information.
The Senate quickly approved minor changes to both bills and sent them to the desk of Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, who is expected to sign them.
At the same time, Ohio Democrats spearheaded a new “Voters’ Bill of Rights,” intended to expand early voting and make it harder to disqualify ballots, among other things. Proponents hoped to put the measure on the ballot as a proposed constitutional amendment, but state Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) announced this week that he’s blocking the effort, citing what he called “misrepresentations” in the text of the proposed amendment.
In an editorial published before yesterday’s votes in the legislature, the Cleveland Plain Dealer argued, “Ohio House Republicans appear poised to pass two measures that, disguises aside, aim to limit voting by Ohioans who might vote for Democrats. That’s not just political hardball. It’s an affront to democracy. Voting is supposed to be about holding elected officials accountable. They won’t be, though, if those same officials massage Ohio law to, in effect, pick their own voters.”
In the larger context, let’s not forget Ohio’s recent history. A decade ago, during the 2004 elections, the state struggled badly with long voting lines, so state policymakers decided to make things better. And in 2008, Ohio’s voting system worked quite well and voters enjoyed a much smoother process.
So smooth, in fact, that Ohio Republicans have worked in recent years to reverse the progress. I’m reminded of Rachel’s segment from Nov. 20 of last year.
“[T]his is not a hypothetical thing in Ohio. The state has a really recent history of it being terribly difficult to vote in heavily populated, especially Democratic-leaning parts of the state. It was really bad in ‘04, and they fixed that problem by making changes like expanding early voting so the lines wouldn’t be so long on Election Day. About a third of Ohio voted early last year. It is much easier to do that.
“And the fact that so many people like early voting and are thereby finding their ways to the polls, that, of course, is a problem for Ohio Republicans. And so, Ohio Republicans moved to break that system again, to go back to the old broken system that didn’t work before. Today, Ohio Republicans voted to cut back early voting by six full days in Ohio. They’re also voting to end same day voter registration, to make it harder to get your vote counted if you have to cast a provisional ballot, and they’re considering cutting back on the number of voting machines at the polls.
“Yes, we’ve always had way too many of those. Your state government at work, Ohio. You’re hoping that your local state legislator would go to Columbus and start working overtly to make the process of voting a lot harder and a lot slower for you? Congratulations, if you voted for a Republican, you got what you paid for.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 20, 2014
“Very Well-Insured Critics”: Serving The Smug, Shortsighted, Dopes And Demagogues, Obamacare Will Be There Even For Its Enemies
Obamacare’s enemies are right about the disastrous Web site launch and the president’s misleading mantra about “keeping your plan.” I’m furious at the White House myself for having botched these technical and messaging challenges — issues that anyone could have seen coming three years ago and whose amateur handling has given needless ammunition to the foes of expanded health coverage.
But for those of us who think the health security the Affordable Care Act provides marks a fundamental advance in America’s social contract, these White House failures don’t come close to the vices of Obamacare’s adversaries. Let’s just say it: To judge by their behavior, the Affordable Care Act’s enemies couldn’t care less about helping millions of low-income workers achieve health security, and every time they open their mouths, it shows.
When conservatives rant about the latest mess-ups attending the rollout, they never add the obvious empathetic refrain. It would be simple, really. They’d just need to preface or append to their daily attack a line like this: “Of course we all agree we need to find ways to get poor workers secure health coverage that protects their family from ruin in the event of serious illness.”
That’s all it would take. But they don’t say that. None of them. At least none that I can hear. A single omission might seem an oversight. A few might be a sign of distraction. But when day after day you wait in vain to hear such empathy amid the torrent of anti-Obamacare venom being spewed, you realize something bigger psychologically is at work.
Obamacare foes are more than just angry with the “lying” and the bungling they disdain. They are Very Well-Insured People. We all know about “VIPs.” Well, these are VWIPs. Or at least, a certain conservative species of VWIP.
For many on the right, being a VWIP seems to bring with it a certain blindness. They see the Web site comedy of errors and cry (rightly) “incompetence!” They see some people who have to change their health plan and cry (with some fairness) “liar!”
But that’s all they see. What they don’t see is nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, 20 million or so of whom stand to have relatively desperate lives made immeasurably more secure thanks to this law. These Americans will finally know what it’s like to go to bed at night certain that they can’t be wiped out financially by illness — and that free or affordable preventive care may help their loved ones uncover disease while there’s a chance for a cure.
Obamacare’s well-insured critics don’t see these Americans at all. And they seem unable to imagine what it would feel like to be one of them.
I want to be careful here. I know this isn’t the outlook of every Republican or conservative. John Kasich’s Medicaid expansion makes him the most prominent exception (though even Kasich can’t see the benefit for many Ohioans of Obamacare’s big private insurance expansion). Meanwhile, in yet another case in which your zip code seals your fate in the United States, millions of citizens who could have had Medicaid coverage will remain vulnerable, abandoned by well-insured GOP governors who think their job involves tending to well-insured GOP voters.
Poor uninsured workers didn’t make U.S. health care the costliest, most inefficient system on the planet. But these workers are the ones who suffer most under it. And VWIPs on the right don’t care.
New rule (as Bill Maher would say): Politicians and pundits who bash Obamacare should have displayed under their talking head or byline the source of their own coverage. Let’s caption Ted Cruz in flashing neon that reads, “Enjoys Gold-Plated Health Coverage from Goldman Sachs Spousal Plan.” Let’s have the subtitles for John Boehner and Eric Cantor read, “Has Never Worried About Going Broke From Illness A Day in His Life Thanks To Federal Government Insurance.”
And let Obamacare supporters begin their response to absurd claims that “Obamacare is the enemy” with this simple line: “Spoken like a Very Well-Insured Person.” (I’ve tried this on radio and TV — not only is it accurate, but it feels great to say so, too.)
My wife and I discovered we were uninsurable in the individual market in 2003. It was scary. And we’re the lucky ones — bona fide members of the Lower Upper Class with the wherewithal to maneuver to protect our family (and with access to the New York Times Magazine to write about the experience).
Obama said, “If you like your plan, you can keep it.”
The Very Well-Insured Obamacare critic effectively says to the uninsured, “If you enjoy being vulnerable to financial ruin or death from serious illness, under our plan you can keep that, too.”
Both of these positions are wrong.
But which, at the end of the day, seems more like a hanging offense?
The irony is that Obamacare’s protections will be there even for its enemies if, God forbid, they (or someone they love) find themselves sick, unattached to a large employer and looking for coverage in the individual market. I suppose that’s the beauty of the rule of law — it serves the smug and the shortsighted, the dopes and the demagogues along with the rest of us. Might be a more just world if it didn’t now and then, but them’s the breaks.
By: Matt Miller, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, November 6, 2013
“A War On The Poor”: This Is Now The Central And Defining Issue Of American Politics
John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, has done some surprising things lately. First, he did an end run around his state’s Legislature — controlled by his own party — to proceed with the federally funded expansion of Medicaid that is an important piece of Obamacare. Then, defending his action, he let loose on his political allies, declaring, “I’m concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor. That, if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy.”
Obviously Mr. Kasich isn’t the first to make this observation. But the fact that it’s coming from a Republican in good standing (although maybe not anymore), indeed someone who used to be known as a conservative firebrand, is telling. Republican hostility toward the poor and unfortunate has now reached such a fever pitch that the party doesn’t really stand for anything else — and only willfully blind observers can fail to see that reality.
The big question is why. But, first, let’s talk a bit more about what’s eating the right.
I still sometimes see pundits claiming that the Tea Party movement is basically driven by concerns about budget deficits. That’s delusional. Read the founding rant by Rick Santelli of CNBC: There’s nary a mention of deficits. Instead, it’s a tirade against the possibility that the government might help “losers” avoid foreclosure. Or read transcripts from Rush Limbaugh or other right-wing talk radio hosts. There’s not much about fiscal responsibility, but there’s a lot about how the government is rewarding the lazy and undeserving.
Republicans in leadership positions try to modulate their language a bit, but it’s a matter more of tone than substance. They’re still clearly passionate about making sure that the poor and unlucky get as little help as possible, that — as Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, put it — the safety net is becoming “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.” And Mr. Ryan’s budget proposals involve savage cuts in safety-net programs such as food stamps and Medicaid.
All of this hostility to the poor has culminated in the truly astonishing refusal of many states to participate in the Medicaid expansion. Bear in mind that the federal government would pay for this expansion, and that the money thus spent would benefit hospitals and the local economy as well as the direct recipients. But a majority of Republican-controlled state governments are, it turns out, willing to pay a large economic and fiscal price in order to ensure that aid doesn’t reach the poor.
The thing is, it wasn’t always this way. Go back for a moment to 1936, when Alf Landon received the Republican nomination for president. In many ways, Landon’s acceptance speech previewed themes taken up by modern conservatives. He lamented the incompleteness of economic recovery and the persistence of high unemployment, and he attributed the economy’s lingering weakness to excessive government intervention and the uncertainty he claimed it created.
But he also said this: “Out of this Depression has come, not only the problem of recovery but also the equally grave problem of caring for the unemployed until recovery is attained. Their relief at all times is a matter of plain duty. We of our Party pledge that this obligation will never be neglected.”
Can you imagine a modern Republican nominee saying such a thing? Not in a party committed to the view that unemployed workers have it too easy, that they’re so coddled by unemployment insurance and food stamps that they have no incentive to go out there and get a job.
So what’s this all about? One reason, the sociologist Daniel Little suggested in a recent essay, is market ideology: If the market is always right, then people who end up poor must deserve to be poor. I’d add that some leading Republicans are, in their minds, acting out adolescent libertarian fantasies. “It’s as if we’re living in an Ayn Rand novel right now,” declared Paul Ryan in 2009.
But there’s also, as Mr. Little says, the stain that won’t go away: race.
In a much-cited recent memo, Democracy Corps, a Democratic-leaning public opinion research organization, reported on the results of focus groups held with members of various Republican factions. They found the Republican base “very conscious of being white in a country that is increasingly minority” — and seeing the social safety net both as something that helps Those People, not people like themselves, and binds the rising nonwhite population to the Democratic Party. And, yes, the Medicaid expansion many states are rejecting would disproportionately have helped poor blacks.
So there is indeed a war on the poor, coinciding with and deepening the pain from a troubled economy. And that war is now the central, defining issue of American politics.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, October 31, 2013
“In The Name Of Creating Jobs”: Corporations Are Hijacking Government With GOP Help And At Taxpayer Expense
After being swept into statehouses in the red wave of 2010, Republican Govs. Scott Walker, John Kasich and Terry Branstad each presided over the replacement of a state agency responsible for economic development with a less public, more private alternative. Arizona’s Jan Brewer did the same in 2010 after replacing Janet Napolitano, who’d been tapped for Obama’s Cabinet. Walker’s Wisconsin, Kasich’s Ohio, Branstad’s Iowa and Brewer’s Arizona were only the latest to institute a “public-private partnership” approach to development: States including Indiana, Florida, Rhode Island, Michigan and Texas had done the same years earlier. Now North Carolina’s Pat McCrory, who entered the governor’s mansion in January, aims to do the same. A new report from a progressive group warns that means good news for the wealthy and politically connected, but bad news for just about everyone else.
“Privatization augurs against transparency …” Good Jobs First executive director Greg LeRoy told Salon. LeRoy is a co-author of the new report “Creating Scandals Instead of Jobs: The Failures of Privatized State Economic Development,” which his group released Wednesday afternoon. Based on recent years’ scandals and controversies in several states, the authors conclude that “the privatization of economic development agency functions is an inherently corrupting action that states should avoid or repeal.” They argue the record shows that “privatization was not a panacea,” but instead fostered misuse of taxes; excessive bonuses; questionable subsidies; conflicts of interest; specious impact claims; and “resistance to accountability.” Goods Jobs First funders include unions and foundations.
A spokesperson for Gov. Kasich emailed Salon a one-sentence take on the report: “We don’t pay much attention to politically motivated opponents whose mission is to combat job creation.”
Kasich promised as a candidate to substitute a new entity, led by “a successful, experienced business leader,” for the existing Ohio Department of Development. The result, JobsOhio, features prominently in the GJF report. The authors note that its board included some of Kasich’s “major campaign contributors and executives from companies that were recipients of large state development subsidies.” They write that JobsOhio “received a large transfer of state monies about which the legislature was not informed, intermingled public and private monies, refused to name its private donors, and then won legal exemption (advocated by Gov. Kasich) from review of its finances by the state auditor.”
The authors also fault the Arizona Commerce Authority, whose first head reaped a privately paid $60,000 bonus and resigned after one year; and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which they charge has been “racked by scandals and high-level staff instability.” They cite accusations against WEDC including spending millions in federal funds “without legal authority”; failing to “track past-due loans”; and having “hired an executive who owed the state a large amount of back taxes.” LeRoy told reporters on a Wednesday conference call that, of the four newest public-private partnerships, Iowa’s was the only one to so far avoid significant scandal.
The report also slammed some of those four entities’ predecessors, including the Indiana Economic Development Corp. – GJF noted “a state audit found that more than 40 percent of the jobs promised by companies described by IEDC as ‘economic successes’ had never materialized” – and Enterprise Florida Inc.: while “more than $20 million in subsidies has gone to EFI board member companies,” in 2011 the Orlando Sentinel “reported that since 1995 only one-third of 224,000 promised jobs materialized.”
Gov. Scott’s office referred an inquiry to Enterprise Florida Inc., whose strategic communications director emailed that the group’s “efforts have resulted in an increase of competitive jobs projects established, private-sector jobs created and capital investment.” He noted that EFI “has received a clean opinion on its financial statements as conducted by its independent auditors and presented to EFI’s Board of Directors.” The offices of Govs. Walker, Brewer and Pence did not immediately respond to Wednesday evening inquiries.
“If we don’t know how the money’s spent, if we don’t get accurate assessments of the outcomes that we accept from our economic development subsidies or support, then there’s no way for us to evaluate the job they’re doing,” Donald Cohen, who leads the foundation- and labor-backed privatization watchdog In the Public Interest, told reporters on Wednesday’s call. “It’s fundamental to being able to manage our resources.” Cohen added, “When we’re talking about giving away the power and authority to give away public dollars, to make public decisions, then it is all the more important that public control be established in the strongest possible way.”
By “mingling private money or having board seats for sale,” LeRoy told reporters, public-private partnerships are “giving undue influence to a tiny share of mostly large companies that can afford to pay and play, potentially to the detriment of the focus of the entity.”
“You want people who are covered by ethics and disclosure and sunshine laws and oversight,” said LeRoy. “We know that government agencies aren’t perfect, but they by far are more accountable.” He also argued that public sector collective bargaining – which came under high-profile attack by Walker and Kasich – was also a check against abuse, because it “helps shield whistle-blowers and protect taxpayers.”
While GJF has proposed various safeguards for public-private economic development groups, it emphasized that its first choice would be for states to simply return their functions to fully public departments. “The economy is soft right now – we need to focus on the basics,” said LeRoy, rather than “tweaking the rules of a captive entity that co-mingles public and private money to get into all of these sort of gray areas.”
By: Josh Eidelson, Salon, October 24, 2013
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 