Who's best fiscally in the 5th?

It’s Republican primary time, when ambitions, conservative promises, and Reagan invocations are in full flower. And the only way to tell real conservative defenders from perennial conservative pretenders is to examine their records. Let’s start with the record of incumbent congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District. Mr. Lamborn is finishing his first term in Congress and in that time, according to Congressional Quarterly, he voted against the Democrat agenda in Congress more than any other Republican (“CQPolitics.com Candidate Watch,” Congressional Quarterly, Aug. 10, 2007). This includes social, economic, and fiscal votes.

Mr. Lamborn was also one of five members of Congress – that’s five out of 535, and only three of the 435 members of the U.S. House – that the nation’s leading fiscal conservative group, Club for Growth, has given a rating of 100% for 2007. Club for Growth tracked votes on a range of tax, fiscal, and regulatory issues in the last Congress and determined that Mr. Lamborn voted correctly every time. See the entire 2007 Club for Growth scorecard here:

http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2008/05/the_2007_congressional_scoreca.php

This is no new pattern. Over the twelve years he was a member of the Colorado legislature, Mr. Lamborn consistently led both the Colorado House and the Colorado Senate with his record of opposition to big-government spending, pork projects (these days fashionably referred to as “earmarks”), and tax increases.

With this kind of record, it is striking that Mr. Lamborn has a Republican primary opponent, Jeff Crank, attempting to criticize him on his fiscal record. It is well-known that, in justifying his own candidacy against a man who for a decade and a half has consistently defended all the things Mr. Crank claims to believe in, Mr. Crank has settled on one fundamental, earth-moving issue that gets the blood boiling of every principled Republican everywhere: franking expenditures.

That’s right, franking expenditures.

The franking privilege dates to the founding of the United States and covers expenses members of Congress incur in sending mail to their constituents. The purpose is obvious: communication between congresspeople and their constituents is a good thing. Clearly, this privilege like any legitimate privilege can be abused, so there are processes in place in Congress by which all franked mailings must be approved. Mr. Lamborn is a first-term congressman whose constituents need to get to know him and what he is doing on their behalf – again, this is not empty campaign-speak, but a rationale endorsed by the framers of American government – and all his mailings have been approved by congressional leadership. All such mail, moreover, is paid for out of a congressman’s official budget; what he does not spend on constituent communications he is fully authorized to spend on other things, and what he spends on constituent communications is not available for other things.

The use of this kind of issue against someone with the fiscal record of Mr. Lamborn says more about Mr. Crank than it does about the Congressman: from the standpoint of conservative policy, there simply is nothing more substantial on which Mr. Lamborn can be criticized.

Mr. Crank raised the franking issue most recently in a May 30 opinion column in the Colorado Springs Gazette, where he also offered glowing promises to, if elected, “rock the boat” of the Washington establishment, eliminate earmarks, eliminate the federal departments of Education, Commerce, and Energy, and cut federal spending by 20%.

Aside from the fact that even Ronald Reagan was not able to accomplish such heroic feats, if Mr. Crank were sincere in these convictions, he would be supporting Mr. Lamborn for Congress rather than running against him.

No Republican in the last two years, and very few Republicans in Colorado in the last half century, have more consistently, philosophically, and courageously opposed Washington (and Denver) excesses than has Doug Lamborn. It is the lack of people in Washington like Mr. Lamborn, and the interest of too many self-proclaimed conservatives in running against them, that is at the heart of the very Washington excess Mr. Crank now decries. It is also at the heart of the national Republican malaise that is quickly heading the GOP toward an electoral cataclysm in November.

Mr. Crank waxes poetic against earmarks. Again, if this conviction were superior to his personal ambition, Mr. Crank would be supporting Mr. Lamborn. Here are all Mr. Lamborn’s funding requests for fiscal year 2009, a list the Lamborn office has made public. All directly relate to defense spending, a core purpose of government, all Mr. Lamborn has offset in the budget by equivalent cuts in other programs so that there is no net increase in the federal budget, and all ironically recall Mr. Crank’s criticism of Mr. Lamborn during the 2006 campaign for allegedly not being as strong as Mr. Crank on defense:

Land Acquisition for Peterson Air Force Base Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center ACES 5 Ejection Seat Expeditionary Alternative Power Generator Radiation-Hardened Memory Technology Digital Engine Technology Military Information Management Software Space and Electronic Warfare Analysis Tools High Altitude, Long Endurance Communications and Surveillance System Improved Ground Access to Peterson AFB Improvements to Ft. Carson Gates 5 & 6

With requests like these, and with Mr. Lamborn now occupying a seat on the House Armed Services Committee, it is no wonder the defense criticisms have given way in Mr. Crank’s rhetoric to complaints about franking. As with his fiscal record, Mr. Lamborn’s history at the state level on issues of national security and defense was as impeccable as his federal record has now become.

As a side note, if Mr. Crank should criticize Mr. Lamborn for the above funding requests and call them “earmarks” as if they were pet pork projects, Mr. Crank should explain why as a lobbyist on behalf of a defense company in 2005 he requested, according to public lobbying records, “increased spending for the HH-6OL program” in defense authorization bills. The name of Mr. Crank’s lobbying company was Rocky Mountain Government Relations, and the HH-6OL is the Blackhawk medical evacuation helicopter now in use in the Army and National Guard. Earmark, or legitimate modernization of the armed forces that defend us and that are such central issues in the Fifth Congressional District?

In addition to franking, Mr. Crank can regularly be heard calling for better “leadership” in Washington, presumably implying that Mr. Lamborn’s leadership is somehow defective. For starters, here is a short summary of Mr. Lamborn’s legislative resume, a kind of resume of which Mr. Crank has not the beginning: Colorado House of Representatives, 1995; House Republican Whip, 1997; Colorado Senate, 1998; Senate President Pro-Tem, 1999; U.S. Congress, 2006; U.S. House Armed Services Committee, 2007. Mr. Lamborn is also a member of two other U.S. House committees.

Moreover, here is a quotation from a letter written to Mr. Lamborn last week by the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Crank’s former employer, concerning Mr. Lamborn’s funding requests. The letter is dated May 28, 2008 and is signed by the Chamber’s CEO.

“Your policy of only making requests that promote our nation’s defense, as well as providing full disclosure on these projects reflects not only their legitimacy, but also their important role in improving our nation’s defenses…It is with great pleasure that we offer our support, on behalf of the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, for not only the appropriations you’ve requested, but also the manner in which you have done so. In a time where real transparency is lacking in Washington, your actions provide a refreshing change of pace.”

Sound suspiciously like leadership?

It should be noted clearly what many noted during the 2006 primary contest between Mr. Lamborn and Mr. Crank. Nobody doubts that Mr. Crank maintains a coherent conservative philosophy of government and a genuine desire to serve his country. Given Mr. Lamborn’s stellar record at both the state and federal levels, what is in doubt is Mr. Crank’s ability to subordinate his ambition to his desire to see the things he believes implemented in government. There simply is no improvement he could possibly make to the record of Mr. Lamborn, and plenty of ways he would not likely match Mr. Lamborn; indeed, at least according to the Club for Growth, there are only a handful even among current members of Congress who are in Mr. Lamborn’s league.

There is only one wise route for Fifth Congressional District Republicans on the ground to follow this August: ignore empty criticisms and empty promises, and say a prayer of thanks that in this age of messianic Democrats and the empty-headed crowds who love them, Colorado and Colorado Springs have a congressman with the kind of real wisdom, real mettle, and real leadership that will far outlast the latest political fad and the latest self-promoting Republican challenger.

We need more Lamborns & Schaffers

The GOP picture in Colorado’s 5th congressional district is a picture of soulless politics and in microcosm of a national GOP headed for a November electoral disaster. Editor: So warns Dave Crater, Air Force veteran, CU law student, and founder of the Wilberforce Center for Colorado Statesmanship. Here's the article developing his logic for that somber verdict:

Loser GOP is Short on Doug Lamborns

“ ‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth…’ Just what does that mean? Not simply that they introduced something onto this continent. If so, where was it before they brought it in? And how could it be called a new nation if merely transferred? No, ‘bring forth’ cannot mean anything like ‘introduce from abroad.’ Lincoln is talking about generation on the spot. The nation is rightly called new because it is brought forth maieutically, by midwifery; it is not only new, but newborn. The suggested image is, throughout, of a hieros gamos, a marriage of male heaven (‘our fathers’) and female earth (‘this continent’). And it is a miraculous conception, a virgin birth. The nation is conceived by a mental act, in the spirit of liberty, and dedicated (as Jesus was in the temple) to a proposition. The proposition to which it is dedicated forms the bridge back from Lincoln to Jefferson, from the Address to the Declaration…” -- Garry Wills, Inventing America (Doubleday, 1978)

This is unfashionable language. So earthy; so full of male, female, procreation, and midwifery; all a very messy and laborious and old-fashioned business.

It is not even fashionable among many who believe in the virgin birth of Jesus and the hieros gamos that produced it. A growing number of such, at least among educated elites, get nervous any time biblical language is used to describe the American founding or the continuing presence and spiritual power of American influence in the world. “Politicizing the gospel,” the accusation goes, or as the misguided authors of the recently published Evangelical Manifesto put it (www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com), the gospel should not be “confused with or reduced to political categories such as ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal.’”

Translation: we want Christian engagement with culture and politics, but we are tired of evangelicals being so widely identified as political conservatives. This compromises the gospel. We want civility. We want political choices to be more separate from theological choices so that more political liberals feel more comfortable being around us. We want a definition of “Evangelical,” which should be spelled with a capital “E” like every other religious option is, that is politically bigger-tent. We want to be more inclusive. We are tired of controversy.

Nice stuff, not unlike the “reach across the aisle” language and strategy on which GOP presidential candidate John McCain has built a lucrative national career. Who doesn’t want unity? Who doesn’t want the two sides of the aisle to come together once and for all? Who doesn’t want to be credited with having helped make the group hug happen? Why trouble ourselves with the laborious midwifery of an unfashionably conservative political heritage when an easier, more comfortable route is, at this hour as at every hour, so readily crafted and so ripe for the taking?

If Christ had followed this sure-winner public relations strategy, he might not have gotten himself crucified.

I’m not the only one with a better idea. GOP candidate for U.S. Senate and all-around Republican good guy Bob Schaffer captured it nicely on Saturday in the best applause line of a highlight-laden speech to the Colorado GOP state assembly: “Now, if we’re going to compete successfully against Democrats, we need to have a little bit of introspection and look at our own party as well. We could sustain a little bit of reform within the Republican Party, too. I’ve always believed that principles matter most, and I believe that it’s important even to take on leaders in our own party who have a tendency to drift from those principles that have defined our country.”

Ouch. The normal Schaffer grace, but a shot between the eyes to Republican leaders, all the way up to President Bush, whom Schaffer went on to tell the delegates he had publicly opposed on legislative disasters like No Child Left Behind and McCain-Feingold, which (my comment here, not Schaffer’s) is now hurting McCain’s campaign as badly as it is hurting free speech across the fruited plain. Note this is not any vague Scott McClellan sellout to the left; it is principled criticism from the right.

Schaffer’s simple truth was red meat for a leadership-starved Republican grassroots. Other ringers from Schaffer included a more-sincere-than-usual-from-Republicans-these-days appeal to the “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” of the Declaration – which went nicely with Mrs. Schaffer and the five Schaffer children, three of whom are training to become military officers, standing next to him – as well as a refreshing acknowledgement of the Almighty as the source of all good political things. It was a reference, given it is a piece of political theology almost always heard from conservatives and not liberals and which is the foundation of conservative political philosophy, that might have been a bit too flag-wavey to keep the signers of the Evangelical Manifesto smiling.

Watch Schaffer’s entire speech here.

But this is prologue. I imagine Schaffer would agree that good speeches are nice in their place and discomfitingly rare in today’s soul-starved GOP, but the energy and heart of the Grand Old Party and the larger American conservative movement are forged and proved on the ground, when and where nobody’s watching and applauding, and when the principles we claim to espouse are given flesh and blood by backbone in the trenches. The real question is not whether we can find someone with the combination of guts and talent to give the speech Schaffer gave. The question is whether and where we can find a few more with the spinal stiffness to argue and vote to implement these sentiments in public policy, to do so even when nobody’s applauding and flattering, and to offer no weak, self-doubting apologies or excuses in the process.

Tough stuff. Not nearly as nice as big-tent John McCain Evangelical Manifesto inclusiveness. But as one of the nation’s – indeed, the world’s – favorite evangelical preachers, one who didn’t sign the Evangelical Manifesto and probably wasn’t invited to, is fond of saying, “Hard preaching makes soft people.” Converse: soft preaching may make for good media, but it makes for exceedingly hard hearts. Both may win you an election and get you out of short-term controversy; both will, whether you are an individual or a political party, eventually cost you your soul and your long-term political influence.

Fortunately for restless Colorado conservatives everywhere who don’t just say they agree with Schaffer that principles matter most, but so believe in their heart of soft hearts, Schaffer is not alone in holding high and proud the banner of principled political conservatism. Amidst the back-stabbing, ambition-soaked, slander-drenched, platitude-heavy, hard-hearted Republican atmosphere in El Paso County is an honest and sincere man with real convictions who happens to be a U.S. Congressman.

Name, Douglas L. Lamborn. Born 1954, Leavenworth, Kansas. Schaffer-like, has both a wife and five children. Bachelor’s in Journalism, National Merit Scholar, Juris Doctor, University of Kansas. Colorado House of Representatives, 1995. House Republican Whip, 1997. Colorado Senate, 1998. President Pro-tem, 1999. Impeccable conservative voting record at the state level. U.S. Congress, 2006. House Armed Services Committee, 2007.

According to Congressional Quarterly, through the August 2007 recess, Mr. Lamborn actually did what every Republican candidate for office tells party regulars he/she will do if elected: he voted against the Democratic agenda in the U.S. House more than any other Republican (“CQPolitics.com Candidate Watch,” Congressional Quarterly, Aug. 10, 2007). One of five members of Congress – that’s 5 out of 535 – to receive a 100% rating in 2008 from the Club for Growth, perhaps the nation’s leading free-market think tank and political advocacy group. “True Blue” rating from the Family Research Council for a 100% voting record on issues of social conservatism. That means a) men get to be completely and joyously satisfied with women as their only marital option, b) women not only get acknowledged as fully equal to this high calling but enjoy the same reciprocal satisfaction in their marital options, and c) cute babies get to be safe in the womb again.

In short, here’s a politico with soul and a soft heart. For his labors, he has two GOP primary challengers, both claiming to believe in all the same things Mr. Lamborn has now spent a decade and a half advancing in public policy via the messy and laborious midwifery always required so to advance. Their reasons for running? Lamborn spends too much money communicating by mail with his constituents. We therefore need to elect his opponents to “show real leadership” and “take our Colorado common sense values to Washington” and “reach across the aisle to get things done” and .

Other vague condemnations and abandonments of Lamborn, both explicit and surreptitious, have been common and ugly throughout the Fifth Congressional and Colorado GOP hierarchies. Lamborn’s resulting distrust of the local GOP structure led him to petition on to the August primary ballot instead of going through the normal caucus process.

Bob Schaffer experienced something of the same royal treatment in 2004, when he ran for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate against moderate beer magnate Pete Coors and was opposed by many of the courageous state Republican leaders who, with no alternative candidate and thus no reason this time to have the proverbial finger in the proverbial wind, are now supporting him.

Yet somehow, even according to Mr. Lamborn’s opponent, Lamborn leads his competitors by at least ten percentage points in current polling. Read more here. Perhaps the grassroots is not as unhappy with Lamborn-style, Schaffer-style principled political conservatism as media pundits and GOP leaders and self-serving challengers would have us believe.

The GOP picture in Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District is a picture of soulless politics and in microcosm of a national GOP headed for a November electoral disaster: persecute and marginalize family-man conservative heroes and celebrate cocktail-party mediocrities. Downplay decades of proven commitment and up-play glowing promises and smooth talk. Talk at campaign stops about what a great conservative and loyal Republican and fan of Ronald Reagan you are; talk on the phone about how useless Doug Lamborns are and how we’ll never be a winner party again until we are rid of them.

The nation was born maieutically, by midwifery, by men like Bob Schaffer and Doug Lamborn. Men like their critics may have won a few short-term victories in government, but their brief time passed and they ended their average lives as outsiders. The Grand Old Party was similarly born in the crucible of antebellum anti-slavery politics, where Abe Lincoln got scalded just as viscerally and irrationally and faithlessly as genuine Lincoln-style conservatives are getting scalded in today’s version of the party Lincoln founded.

Let us not dissemble: the GOP, both nationally and in Colorado, is far enough along its leftward path that only a stark electoral drubbing will awaken the collective party senses and once again create the political and cultural atmosphere where a new Reagan can rise to prominence and conservatives can re-take the party hierarchy, where a party and a nation once again remember the virgin birth – both the one in Bethlehem and the one in Philadelphia – and where both pledge anew, for the defense of a great set of eternal propositions about God, man, and government, not only their words during election season, but their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

Me generation in 5th CD

Republicans lost Congress in 2006, and may lose more seats in 2008, largely because members forgot it's all about the principles, the party, and the country, and acted as if it was "all about me." Unless I'm missing something, that's also the reason two primary challengers are hounding Congressman Doug Lamborn in Colorado's 5th congressional district this summer. As a freshman, Lamborn has compiled one of the most stellar conservative records in the US House or Senate, bar none. Club for Growth ranked him in their top 5 out of 535 members in the two bodies. National Journal rates him No. 1 among all House Republicans in consistently voting against Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.

He co-founded the House Caucus on Missile Defense and battled his way onto the diminished GOP side of the Armed Services Committee.

His endorsements for reelection, in addition to the Club for Growth, include National Federation of Independent Business, National Pro-Life Alliance, National Right to Work, Concerned Women for America, Republican National Coalition for Life, and the Minutemen Civil Defense PAC.

Other than that, he has done nothing, earned no one's admiration and support, and put up a big zero for the conservative cause, the state of Colorado, and the people of his Colorado Springs-centered district.

It's hard, therefore, to discern any motivation for the greater good or causes beyond themselves that would be driving ex-Hefley staffer Jeff Crank and retired Gen. Bentley Rayburn to force a rematch with Lamborn after losing to him two years ago.

These are two likable, accomplished, and capable men as best one can tell, but (news flash) we already have a solid Republican congressman in the 5th. So the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate objective reasons why either should displace the honored and honorable incumbent of their own party.

Absent some such reason -- and I've seen none -- the only remaining explanation is such nakedly selfish assertions as "I belong in Congress" or "He's not half the man I am" or "This is my destiny." Gag.

This is the kind of "me generation" thinking that eventually produced rank overspending, gross expediency, incumbency mania, scandal, and in some cases even prison terms for the GOP idealists of 1994 as things spiralled downward toward the voters' repudiation in 2006. Why dump a proven conservative whose record shows he is not susceptible to any of those things, and put another "all about me" contender in his place?

The sensible decision for Republican primary voters, come August, is to keep Rep. Lamborn right where he is, and encourage Mssrs. Crank and Rayburn to find other outlets for the public service which they unconvincingly claim is their only motive.

McCain & Hillman carry assembly

Colorado Republican conventioneers gave presumptive presidential nominee John McCain a strong vote of confidence at the state assembly in Broomfield on May 31, despite a loud and proud showing by Ron Paul supporters. Separately, Mark Hillman rolled to victory for national committeeman on his rousing speech, smoothly organized campaign, and statewide alliances from a near-miss for State Treasurer in 2006. Hillman scored 55% against 26% for impressive newcomer Leondray Gholston and 19% for Dave Schultheis, the Reaganite state senator from Colorado Springs.

The 44 slots for national convention delegates and alternates (see results listed below) were contested among a record 380 aspirants who included 70-plus Pauliacs with their mustard-colored T-shirts and defiant slogans. Winning tallies went mostly to the names (some familiar, others not) on a McCain Unity Slate flyer that papered the hall.

Republicans hoping for victory in November have to be concerned, though, with the tepid McCain feelings evident at Broomfield in contrast with the fire of Ron Paul's "real right" devotees.

Also ominous to me were the apathy manifest in some 4200 no-shows on Saturday for 6800 state assembly delegate and alternate positions, and the near-invisibility of President Bush in the day's proceedings. His name drew only the weakest applause when mentioned by National Committeewoman Lilly Nunez in her reelection speech.

Encouraging, in contrast, was the energy and determination mobilized among Republican legislators by their leaders, Sen. Andy McElhany and Rep. Mike May and their lieutenants. This bodes well for the fall, especially in light of Gov. Bill Ritter's repeated stumbles, most recently his court defeat on TABOR as colorfully related to the assembly by Jon Caldara.

The delegates' blood was also stirred by excellent speeches from Bob Schaffer (as detailed in Crater's post above this one) and Tom Tancredo. Tancredo grinned as he hinted about the future. Is he taking aim on Ritter for 2010?

Backbone America congratulates our office manager, Kathleen LeCrone, on her election for RNC alternate in an earlier round of voting two weeks ago.

Yours truly, after being an RNC delegate at New York in 2004, a Nixon staffer at the Miami convention in 1972, and a page at RNC Chicago when Nixon bested Goldwater in 1960, passed on the delegate race this year. I hope to cover both RNC St. Paul and DNC Denver on a media credential for 710 KNUS.

Colorado Republican Party Delegation to the 2008 Republican National Convention Official Results as published by state GOP, May 31

At-Large State Delegates:

Marti Allbright Wayne Williams Kerith Brehm Alan Duff Charcie Russell John Carson Kristy Burton Crista Huff Albert Bollwerk Monica Owens Merilou Athens-Barnekow Conrad Ladd Beverly Henry Kent Lambert Thomas Kirk Mojie Adler Shari Williams Clif Sams Celeste Huber Douglas Robinson Gary Bartel Tom Wiens

At-Large State Alternates:

Mary Smith Ryan Call Candy Figa Art Onweller Patrick Johnson William Leone William Jeffers Jack Gloriod Roger Houdek Athena Dalton Patrick Kelly Michael Eddy Frieda Wallison Kevin Holst Lia Moran Jace Ratzlaff June Robinson Joe Smith Cynthia Hamlyn Haley Brooke-Hitching Clark Bolser Hugo Chavez-Rey

Congressional District 1:

Delegates: Gabriel Schwartz Michele Austin Sharon Johnson

Alternates: Joy Wood David Sprecace Harry Arkin

Congressional District 2:

Delegates: Marty Neilson Guy Short Kimberly Peticoles

Alternates: LeMoine Dowd Patrick Johnson Timothy Gilmore

Congressional District 3:

Delegates: Jack Taylor Geneva Taylor Carol Brown

Alternates: Mark Young Ralph Walchle Wendell Coats

Congressional District 4:

Delegates: Abe Villarreal Perry Buck Sue Sharkey

Alternates: Kevin Lundberg Anita Cornwell Travis Witsitt

Congressional District 5:

Delegates: John Suthers Robert Balink Ken Chlouber

Alternates: Robert McCombs Summer Vanderbilt Merilee O'Neal

Congressional District 6:

Delegates: Joe Nunez Kendall Unruh Nathan Chambers

Alternates: Kim Ransom Kathleen LeCrone Richard Murray

Congressional District 7:

Delegates: Matt Knoedler Shirley Sietz Lynn Cottrell

Alternates: Katherine Isenberger Jack Ott Jobadiah Weeks

Why the Statehouse Matters

“The Presidency is the ultimate prize.” “Congress matters most for the issues I care about.” “The world won’t end if the other side takes over our statehouse for a while.” Listen to the political talk for any length of time, and you will hear those three thoughts expressed. You have probably expressed them yourself. Are they generally true? Yes. But they’re not the whole story. Important as the stakes are in Washington DC for this election year, it also matters a great deal who holds the governor’s chair and who leads the legislative majorities, down at your state capitol. Note: The Claremont Institute, for whom I'm a senior fellow, was asked by a business group to spotlight some of the states where a political power shift has had adverse consequences for citizens and taxpayers. My own state, unfortunately, came to mind first, and four others quickly followed. This is the report I compiled for our clients as they mobilize for election 2008.

Depending whether the party in power tends to want more freedom or more government, your livelihood, your liberties, and your values will either thrive or suffer. Your state will either compete in the national and global economy, or it will lag behind. Those are the stakes and nothing less. Which way it goes is up to your neighbors and you.

Experience in a number of states during this decade illustrates the point. We’ll look at the dramatic gains for labor unions and the green lobby in Colorado; whopping tax increases in Michigan and Wisconsin; and the spending spree in Montana and Arizona. Other examples abound across the country, but these five are representative.

Before reviewing the record, let’s be clear about a phrase used above, “the party in power.” That doesn’t necessarily mean Republicans vs. Democrats. As Montana State Rep. John Sinrud observed, “Sometimes it’s a matter of what kind of Republicans.” Or again, as Arizona taxpayer activist Tom Jenney related, “A Democrat voted with us to stop a tax hike after two from the GOP deserted.”

So our focus here will not be on partisan stereotypes. It will be on philosophies of government. Now for those case studies from the states.

Colorado’s Big Chill

During the 1990s and into this decade, under governors of both parties and with a Republican legislature, Colorado was widely admired for its strong business climate, stable tax and regulatory atmosphere, and innovative policy models. Democratic Gov. Roy Romer helped lead the national movement for education standards. His successor, Republican Bill Owens, was named “America’s Best Governor” by National Review.

Things changed abruptly after Democrats captured first the legislative branch in 2004 and then the executive branch in 2006 through a combination of their dynamism and Republicans’ complacency. The term-limited Owens cast over 100 vetoes of anti-business and anti-family bills, but was forced into unfavorable terms for a tax-and-spend package demanded by Democrats. When Bill Ritter succeeded him in 2007, the floodgates opened.

Less than a month in office, Ritter was presented with a bill to overturn the Colorado Labor Peace Act after more than 60 years of bipartisan support. He rejected it but soon repaid the unions with an executive order mandating collective bargaining for all state employees. Renewable energy mandates, a Carbon Fund, and an adversarial rewrite of the state’s oil and gas regulations signaled his indebtedness to the environmental lobby. Over $1 billion in oil and gas investment fled the state in Ritter’s first year. Undeterred, he is now pushing a ballot issue to raise severance taxes on oil and gas.

Meanwhile, the Democratic legislature is weakening tort reform and worker’s compensation to accommodate the trial lawyers, pushing toward single-payer health care, and stalling on highway programs. Speaker Andrew Romanoff has another ballot issue that would repeal the constitutional restraint on annual growth of state spending.

Certainly all these changes have their enthusiastic proponents. But the cumulative effect is sure to drive down Colorado’s 7th-best national economic ranking (“Rich States, Poor States,” www.alec.org). Colorado business knows now, if it didn’t before, why the statehouse matters.

Michigan: Insult to Injury

Michigan, the onetime industrial powerhouse of the Midwest that has been mired in a one-state recession since 2001, didn’t experience same kind of the political sweep that Colorado did. Only a few seats in its state House of Representatives switched parties in 2006 after a massive spending campaign by liberal activist Jon Stryker.

But the installation of a Democratic House majority to partner with Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm has really changed things in Lansing, and not for the better as far as taxpayers and small business are concerned.

Working with Speaker Andy Dillon, Granholm wooed enough moderates in the narrowly Republican Senate to pass huge tax increases, 12% for the income tax and 22% for the business tax – despite grim trends that have seen personal income declining in the state every year since 2004, companies shutting down or relocating, and many residents moving away (unless trapped by mortgages that exceed their shrinking home equity).

“We have the 5th highest-paid state workforce in the country, yet legislators prefer raising revenues over cutting expenditures,” laments Leon Drolet of the Michigan Taxpayers’ Alliance. “One big employer, Comerica Bank, recently left the state. Who’s next?”

As a cry for help and a warning to “everyone in Lansing,” Drolet’s group has sparked a recall drive against Speaker Dillon, which will be on the August ballot if proponents can weather a swarm of court challenges. But the damage is already done for a Michigan economy that was 50th in job creation and 49th in personal income growth over the past decade (“Rich States, Poor States,” www.alec.org).

Wisconsin’s Near Miss

A bad dream very similar to Michigan’s – one legislative chamber changing hands, quickly followed by open season for the tax hikers – befell neighboring Wisconsin last year. Democrats rode the 2006 congressional tide to gain 8 seats in the state House, where Republicans clung to control, and 4 seats in the state Senate, taking control. It was the moment Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle had been waiting for.

His Senate allies startled the country with a $15 billion universal health care plan, bigger than all the rest of Wisconsin’s budget put together. Along with that came well-supported Senate bills for a hospital tax, a car rental tax, and – bizarrely timed, considering the trend of the economy – higher gas taxes as well as a doubling of the tax paid upon selling a home.

“We beat all of them in the House,” says Deb Jordahl of the Wisconsin Club for Growth. “House Republicans found their backbone,” she adds, with the help of her coalition – business and taxpayer organizations, pro-family groups, and other players outside the two-party orbit.

But Jordahl worries that the GOP’s three-seat edge in the House may not survive a tough election season this fall. If that happens Wisconsin’s economy, already sagging in the bottom half of ALEC’s “Rich States, Poor States” ratings, both its scorecard for the decade past and its outlook for coming years, may take another hit from big government.

Montana Spending Spree

The pattern continued in Montana, on much the same timeline as Colorado. Prior to 2004, Republicans held both the executive and legislative branches, and fiscal discipline was the rule. But that year, Democrats took the governor’s office with Brian Schweitzer, gained control of the state Senate, and wrestled the 100-member House to an exact tie, resulting a power-sharing arrangement for leadership. The economic consequences were not long in coming.

Montana’s budget has increased 50% in just four years under Gov. Schweitzer, according to Rep. John Sinrud, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Sinrud says Republicans’ return to a one-seat edge in the House (50-49 plus a Constitution Party member who votes with the GOP) hasn’t been enough to halt the spending spree, as the governor is often able to pull several moderate Republicans his way.

Hence Sinrud’s cautionary remark, quoted earlier, that “it’s a matter of what kind of Republicans” comprise a legislative majority. Nominal control by those with an R by their name doesn’t always translate to working majorities for limited government and restraint on taxes and spending.

John Sinrud also describes how Schweitzer in Montana, like Bill Ritter in Colorado, consistently does the bidding of the environmental lobby and the labor unions, public employees in particular. The Democratic governor has notably fattened the retirement systems for teachers and the state workforce in gratitude for their political support.

Frustrated with his GOP colleagues and harassed in his architectural firm by Schweitzer’s regulators, Sinrud says he’ll pass up reelection this year in order to form a citizens’ group “to apply pressure from outside.”

Arizona: Bipartisan Bloat

There could be no better example than Arizona of our initial point that it’s the reigning philosophy of government, not the partisan stereotype of R or D, which determines a state’s course.

Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano has consistently faced a Republican-led legislature since taking office in 2003. Yet she’s gotten her way fiscally year after year by making deals with some of the easy-spending Republicans in the House and Senate, exactly as we saw with her counterparts in Montana and Michigan.

The GOP edge in Arizona is two senators and three House members. It only takes a few weak links to break the chain. Leaders have tended to settle too low in budget negotiations ever since their hard line in 2004 was repudiated by a dozen members defecting to the Democratic position, which handed Napolitano a 12% spending increase. That’s the analysis by Tom Jenney, Arizona director of Americans for Prosperity. He says she has won annual increases of that much or more, ever since.

The last couple of years it’s been closer to 15% growth in spending, according to Rep. Russell Pearce, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “She owns the negotiation when it’s clear our party can’t deliver real majorities in either chamber,” Pearce says.

He and Jenney both observed that the legislative spending culture is now so entrenched, and Napolitano’s hand is so strong, that borrowing and bonding schemes will likely be utilized in lieu of budget cuts to meet the looming deficits of this year and next as the economy softens.

Times have been good in Arizona of late. The state was 2nd nationally over the past decade in both job creation and in-migration (“Rich States, Poor States,” www.alec.org). Politicians obviously felt they could afford the open spigot that has pumped state spending from 5.4% of personal income in 2003 to over 7% today. But there’s a consequence for such government bloat. Arizona’s competitiveness and attractiveness will eventually suffer.

Conclusion: Our Responsibility

The statehouse matters greatly to your business, your family, and your future, whichever of the 50 states you call home. That’s vividly illustrated by the examples we’ve looked from Arizona and Montana, Wisconsin and Michigan. I see sobering evidence of it every day from the Claremont Institute’s office within view of the Colorado state capitol.

Who sits in the White House after January 2009 makes an immense difference for America and the world, to be sure. Likewise, it’s vitally important whether the U. S. Senate and House are committed to limited, constitutional government or to unlimited, progressive government.

Yet we’re still a union of states, and in those less-publicized 2008 races closer to home, the stakes for liberty are high. Our responsibility as citizens isn’t either-or. It’s both-and.