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Posts Tagged ‘Utah’
March 12th, 2016 at 10:09 pm
Tell Representative Rob Bishop to Say No to Obama’s “Super Restructuring” Bailout of Puerto Rico
The Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) today launched a radio advertisement in Utah warning against the dangers posed by the Obama Administration’s “Super Restructuring” proposal for Puerto Rico.

Right now, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) is considering the creation of an unprecedented restructuring regime to address Puerto Rico’s debt crisis. This restructuring mechanism, proposed by the Obama Administration, goes far beyond the authority that states possess under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code by allowing Puerto Rico to stiff bondholders who now enjoy constitutional guarantees of repayment in favor of bailing out government pensions.

Such a blatant and dangerous violation of Puerto Rico’s Constitution is neither a credible nor conservative solution to the Puerto Rican debt crisis.

As multiple governors have noted in letters to Congress, the precedent set by such a “Super Restructuring” regime would have major consequences for states, including Utah. Borrowing costs would skyrocket for state governments, harming their ability to finance critical services and infrastructure projects, and the value of retirement funds that hold Puerto Rico and other guaranteed state bonds would plummet.

Perhaps even more alarming: If enacted by Congress, this plan could pave the way for a series of Puerto Rico-like events to occur across the country. If Congress demonstrates a willingness to rewrite bankruptcy rules to bail them out, high-spending, debt-ridden states will be even less likely to cut spending and balance their budgets.

CFIF’s radio ad urges all Utahns to call Representative Bishop’s office at (801) 625–0107 and tell him to protect taxpayers and bondholders by saying “no” to the Obama Administration’s “Super Restructuring” bailout of Puerto Rico’s bloated, irresponsible government.

March 20th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Tea Party’s Next Stop: Indiana?
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A little over a year ago, I wrote a column here at CFIF looking at the potential primary challenges facing two veteran Republican members of the U.S. Senate up for reelection in 2012: Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Indiana’s Richard Lugar. Both have grown long in the tooth over decades in the upper chamber; and both are regarded with suspicion by conservative activists who find their sense of principle lukewarm. The difference between the two, as I emphasized then, is how they have approached the challenge. Hatch has been doing his ready best to convince Tea Party activists that he’s an effective defender of conservative values. Lugar, on the other hand, has regarded the resistance with an attitude bordering on contempt.

While neither’s fate is yet certain, both are becoming clearer. As I mentioned on the blog last week, Utah held caucuses on Thursday that determined delegates to the party’s state convention — delegates who would select the eventual nominee for the Senate seat. As the Wall Street Journal reported:

Sen. Orrin Hatch, targeted by primary challengers and a tea party-aligned group, apparently has won a healthy share of delegates to the Utah Republican convention. That gives him a good shot at avoiding being defeated at the convention, as a Senate colleague was two years ago.

The news isn’t looking as sunny for Lugar, however. From National Journal:

A new poll … shows Republican Sen. Richard Lugar leading GOP state Treasurer Richard Mourdock by single digits, 45-39 percent.

The poll of likely Republican primary voters shows Lugar’s lead shrinking over his underdog opponent ahead of the May 8 primary. In October, Lugar led Mourdock 48 percent to 36 percent. Fifty-seven percent of likely Republican voters said they would consider another candidate or vote to replace Lugar.

In the last six weeks, Lugar’s faced an onslaught of questions from opponents and the media about his residency. He lives in northern Virginia but is registered to vote in the Hoosier state at the address of a home he sold in 1977. The state has ruled that he is eligible to run for reelection but a county elections board ruled last week that he is not eligible to vote.

This kind of trajectory — with this kind of timeframe (approximately a month and a half until primary day) — looks very bad for Lugar. So do the dynamics moving forward. There’s a natural ceiling on the number of voters who will shift their allegiance because of ideology, favoring a more conservative candidate than Lugar. But many less issue-driven voters will likely be turned off by the residency question (a similar controversy contributed to Elizabeth Dole’s loss in the general election in North Carolina in 2008).

By election day, Lugar will likely be scrounging for every vote he can get. At that point, he may come to regret devoting so much of his energy to dismissing the concerns of conservative voters.

March 14th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Utah Conservatives Looking for an Escape Hatch
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Though you won’t hear much about it in the press, tomorrow will be a big day for the Tea Party movement. That’s because it will be the day that Republican voters caucus throughout Utah to pick their delegates to the state convention — delegates who, in turn, will choose which candidates to put on the Beehive State’s June primary ballot.

This is momentous because there’s a big push by Tea Partiers — with FreedomWorks leading the charge — to unseat incumbent Republican Senator Orrin Hatch and replace him with a more conservative alternative. This is how Politico frames it:

The group’s tactics are the latest chapter of the debate still hounding Republicans as they try to win a majority on Capitol Hill this November: Should they purge their own to find fresh blood who will be less willing to seek bipartisan compromises by straying from conservative principles? Or should they unite behind the most electable candidate and train all their fire power on Democrats?

Allow me to answer both of those questions: yes.

It’s all a matter of political prudence. One of the lessons of the 2010 midterm senate races was the importance of finding the right candidate for the right jurisdiction — and that means different things in different places. In Utah, for instance, which is the most Republican state in the nation, it was utterly sensible to replace incumbent Bob Bennett (not exactly a liberal, but not really a constitutional conservative either) with Tea Party darling Mike Lee, knowing that Lee could easily carry the general election in the fall. The Tea Party was similarly shrewd in getting behind Marco Rubio in Florida, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, and Rand Paul in Kentucky.

There were a few missteps, however. The hyper-conservative Sharron Angle was a poor choice for the swing state of Nevada, where either Sue Lowden or Danny Tarkanian (both of whom would have voted as conventional conservatives) would have stood a better chance at defeating Harry Reid. Even less suited for her contest was Christine O’Donnell, the conservative firebrand running in deep-blue Delaware. O’Donnell’s primary opponent, the moderate-to-liberal Republican Mike Castle, would doubtlessly have taken many votes as a U.S. Senator that would have made conservatives squirm — but fewer than the eventual winner, Democrat Chris Coons, who Castle likely would have beaten had he been the nominee.

So what does this principle mean for Utah? Hatch, like Bennett before him, has been an able public servant, who has, most of the time, been in conservatism if not exactly of conservatism. Were he from a swing state where moving to the right could be an electoral death sentence, then that would probably be a sufficient argument for retaining him. That’s not the case in Utah, however. And the state’s conservatives are going to have a hard time turning down the opportunity to elect another senator as consistently principled in his defense of limited government as Mike Lee.

It doesn’t help either that the best argument against Hatch comes from Hatch. I’ll let Politico have the final word:

In Utah, FreedomWorks distributed a 44-page brochure to 37,000 potential convention-goers, highlighting Hatch’s positions over the years on earmarks, the bank bailout and deals with Ted Kennedy over a child health care law.

On the inside page of the brochure is a quote from Hatch during his first campaign in 1976 against 18-year incumbent Sen. Frank Moss: “What do you call a senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.”

June 1st, 2011 at 11:38 am
Huntsman Sounds Like the Gipper, Governs Like a Maverick

If you like Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater you’ll love Jon Huntsman’s opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal.  Sounding themes of economic growth, fiscal responsibility, and balanced budgets as the key to a prosperous future Huntsman even borrows the Gipper’s famous “time for choosing” phrase to headline his column.  Heck, the former Republican governor of Utah and ambassador to China even praises Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” budget resolution.

One problem: Jon Huntsman isn’t the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan.  Rather, he’s a slicker, more polished version of John McCain.  In a word, he’s a maverick whose method of policymaking is open to whatever the political consensus of the moment requires.  As I wrote for CFIF this week, Huntsman is attracting the same kind of “progressive” Republicans that flocked to McCain’s failed presidential bids.

For all his red meat economic rhetoric in today’s column, Huntsman can’t hide from his past support for President Barack Obama’s stimulus spending, growth in (state) government, cap-and-trade, and state-run health care.

Back in 2005 as governor, Huntsman gave a summary of his approach to illegal immigration that can be used as a window into how he governs in general: “I want to be a catalyst and report good ideas that will lead to a philosophy. That’s what we need first and foremost.”

Wrong.  In the Age of Obama, conservatives aren’t looking for a presidential candidate that formulates his governing philosophy on the fly.  Think about this: If this is the way Huntsman thinks of his job as an executive, is it too much of a leap to assume that this is the kind of ad hoc philosophizing he’ll look for in judicial nominations?  Haven’t we had enough of judicial activists making up the law as they go along, rewriting the Constitution so that it fits whatever facts are in play?

Yet that is exactly what Huntsman’s “report good ideas that will lead to a philosophy” statement suggests.  We’ve seen the kind of cognitive dissonance that Republicans like John McCain truck in when their policy positions are not tethered to conservative principles.  Huntsman is right in his economic prescriptions, but what conservative isn’t these days?  The real question is whether he’ll be right dealing with future problems that require him to use his first principles, whatever those are.

May 4th, 2011 at 11:54 am
Carter Gives Huntsman Praise, Kiss-of-Death

Jon Huntsman has the looks, money, and credentials to be a top-tier Republican presidential candidate – if he can stop getting endorsements from the two most liberal presidents of the last 35 years.

President Barack Obama praised Huntsman for the latter’s “enormous skill, dedication and talent” to the job of being Obama’s ambassador to China the last two-plus years.  In acknowledgement of Huntsman’s rumored presidential campaign, his former boss said, “I’m sure that him having worked so well with me will be a great asset in any Republican primary.”

Jimmy Carter likes what he sees too.  Telling CNN that Huntsman is “very attractive to me personally” and an “attractive” candidate, Carter is giving the former Utah governor’s moderate positions on social issues, immigration, and the environment a very liberal hue.

If this keeps up, Huntsman may be tagged with the worst label for a GOP presidential contender: the kind of Republican Democrats will feel bad about voting against, but will do so anyway.

None of which helps with the GOP base.

After all, being Obama’s former ambassador to China is already a tough sell for conservative voters.  Getting praise from Jimmy Carter may be the kiss-of-death.

January 15th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
NLRB Pushing Card Check Through the Back Door

Here’s more proof the Obama Administration is bent on destroying the sovereignty of states.  The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is threatening to sue South Dakota, Utah, South Carolina, and, of course, Arizona, unless their attorneys general say new state laws protecting secret ballots for union elections are unconstitutional.

The NLRB construes its enabling legislation to allow employees to unionize if a majority signs cards stating that desire.  That process is called “card check” and allows union organizers to bypass secret ballots that protect the identities of those who don’t want the union.  All four states passed laws last November 2nd to guarantee workers in their borders of the right to a secret ballot.  Now, the NLRB says those laws conflict with current federal law, even though card check has not passed into legislation because it’s overwhelmingly opposed in Congress.

In effect, the pro-union forces running the NRLB are trying to do through administrative fiat what they can’t get passed through the legislative process.  Unless each state’s attorney general agrees with the NRLB in writing that the new law is unconstitutional, the NRLB will sue the states in federal court.  This is the same strategy the Obama Justice Department is using to challenge Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law Senate Bill 1070.

But tortured legal arguments can’t trump common sense:

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said he believes the state is on solid ground. He plans to coordinate a response with the other three states.

“If they want to bring a lawsuit, then bring it,” Shurtleff said. “We believe that a secret ballot is as fundamental a right as any American has had since the beginning of this country. We want to protect the constitutional rights of our citizens.”

What’s next in Obamaland?  Test oaths?

H/T: Associated Press

February 15th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Utah Making 12th Grade Optional?

At a time when governments at every level are confronted with the need to deliver services with less money, one Utah legislator is proposing a novel idea: encourage high school kids to graduate early.  The logic is simple enough: if students complete their graduation requirements a year early, they should have the option to graduate.  While the solution makes sense, it should require a broader rethinking of how education is structured.

Currently, most school districts receive funding based on the number of students in average daily attendance.  Thus, the way to get the most money is to have the most students on campus.  Unfortunately, that can create a perverse incentive to make it difficult for students who would otherwise graduate early, or leave campus during the day to take college courses.  While it makes sense to fund schools in proportion to the numbers in their student body, it is ridiculous to penalize schools when students want to accelerate their education.  Instead, schools should be rewarded for helping students graduate early.  Not only would the graduation of the 11th grade “senior” free up a seat, it would help to reorient the educational system back to its primary goal: educating the individual student.

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