An Addiction to Zealotry

Virginia Republicans delivered a rousing surprise at their gubernatorial nominating convention this month. They chose E. W. Jackson, an African-American minister and lawyer, as their candidate for lieutenant governor after he delivered a thunderously right-wing speech.

For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.

Mr. Jackson is known for his signature rants: that gays are “perverted” and “very sick people”; that Planned Parenthood has been “far more lethal to black lives” than the Ku Klux Klan ever was; and that Democrats are “anti-God” and “partners” in black genocide. Democrats, of course, instantly flashed Mr. Jackson’s record of hateful bombast through the state. Faced with his past words, he said he had nothing “to rephrase or apologize for.” Attacking him for his principles, he tried to argue, was to attack “every churchgoing person.”

No one could have been more surprised by the convention’s upset choice than State Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli II, the Republican nominee for governor. Mr. Cuccinelli will probably have to try to moderate some of his own extreme positions (he is dogmatically opposed to the health care reform law, measures tackling global warming, immigration reforms, gay rights, etc.) in his search for the Northern Virginia vote. But there he was, yoked to Mr. Jackson by the heavy sway in the party of conservative zealots. “We are not going to be defending our running mates’ statements, now or in the future,” Mr. Cuccinelli briskly announced.

The Virginia race should be a prime test of national Republican vows to reconnect with the mainstream majority. Heavyweight donors are lining up to defeat Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat candidate for governor who was President Bill Clinton’s fund-raising guru. Money may not win the election when Republicans can’t seem to resist a beguiling extremist who must face mainstream reality.

View the original article here

Obama’s Strategy Shows Misunderstanding of Terrorist Threat, Republicans Say

Republican lawmakers on Sunday criticized President Obama’s vision for winding down the war on terrorism, using talk show appearances to accuse him of misunderstanding the threat in a way that will embolden unfriendly nations.

“We show this lack of resolve, talking about the war being over,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What do you think the Iranians are thinking? At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine.”

In his first major foreign policy address of his second term, Mr. Obama said last week that it was time for the United States to narrow the scope of its long battle against terrorists and begin a transition away from a war footing.

In addition to renewing his call to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he said he would seek to limit his own war powers. He also issued new policy guidelines that would shift the responsibility for drone strikes to the military from the Central Intelligence Agency, and said there would be stricter standards for such attacks.

Mr. Graham, a strong supporter of the drone program, said he objected to changing the standards. Separately, he called for a special counsel to investigate both the Justice Department, which has come under scrutiny for seizing journalists’ phone records, and the Internal Revenue Service, which has acknowledged that it unfairly targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Democrats, including Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, praised Mr. Obama for what they said was a necessary rebalancing of civil liberties and national security interests. “We have to balance our values,” Ms. Wasserman Schultz said Sunday on the ABC News program “This Week.”

But at least two lawmakers — the current and former chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas and Peter T. King of New York — complained specifically about the president’s remarks about Guantánamo Bay.

Mr. McCaul warned against closing the detention center, especially if it meant moving prisoners to the United States. “Name me one American city that would like to host these guys,” he said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

More than half the remaining 166 detainees at Guantánamo Bay are Yemeni; of these, 56 have been cleared to go home. Mr. Obama has proposed repatriating detainees when he can, but will still face the thorny question of what to do several dozen men who cannot be prosecuted and who have been deemed to be too dangerous to release.

Mr. King, appearing with Ms. Wasserman Schultz on “This Week,” said the detention facility had been a success. “Many experts believe it did work,” he said, adding that he was “very concerned about sending detainees back to Yemen.” Noting that Mr. Obama had campaigned on a promise to close the prison, he said the president “could have done a lot more than he has done if he was serious about it rather than just moralizing.”

In calling for a special counsel, Mr. Graham said the Justice Department had begun to “criminalize journalism” and had engaged in “an overreach” in investigating leaks of classified national security information. He also complained of an “organized effort” within the I.R.S. to target political opponents of the president. “I think it comes from the top,” he said, although current and former I.R.S. officials have said Mr. Obama did not know of the targeting.

View the original article here

GOP: Draw voters in without irking base

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON The Republican Party, having lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, confronts a dilemma that's easier to describe than to solve: How can it broaden its appeal to up-for-grabs voters without alienating its conservative base?

There's no consensus yet on how to do it. With the next election three years away, Republicans are tiptoeing around policy changes even as they size up potential candidates who range from tea party heroes to pragmatic governors in Republican- and Democratic-leaning states.

There's a partial road map, but it's more than two decades old, and the other party drafted it. Democrats, sick of losing elections and being tagged as out-of-touch liberals, moved their party toward the center and rallied behind Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992.

Strategists in both parties say Clinton's achievement, however impressive, may look modest compared to what a Republican leader must do to construct a new winning formula, given the nation's changing demographics.

"Our challenge was to get voters back," said Al From, a chief architect of Clinton's political rise. "Their challenge is harder: get voters to come into a new coalition."

An array of Republican campaign veterans agree. They say the party's loyal base of conservative activists -- including evangelical Christians, anti-tax crusaders and anti-abortion advocates -- is too big, ideological and vital to be treated with anything but great care and respect. Republicans will go nowhere if they lose a hard-core conservative every time they pick up a new unaligned voter with a more moderate message.

While they circle that conundrum, Republican leaders hope for a charismatic nominee.

Several veteran strategists say Republicans should focus less on modifying their ideas than on improving their campaign mechanics and finding nominees with broader personal appeal than Mitt Romney, John McCain and Bob Dole.

"The foundation of the party as a conservative party hasn't been the principal liability, but the principal asset," said GOP campaign strategist Terry Holt.

Arizona-based Republican consultant Eddie Mahe said finding a charismatic candidate is more important. Given Americans' low opinion of politics, he said, "to sell the party as a party is nonsensical."

A 97-page post-mortem, commissioned by the Republican Party after Romney's loss last fall, said the GOP "is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future."

The report emphasized messaging and outreach more than possible changes to policies and proposals. "The party should be proud of its conservative principles," the report said, but it also must be more "welcoming and inclusive" to young voters, minorities and women.

From -- who founded the Democratic Leadership Council, a key proponent of Clinton's 1992 agenda -- says Republicans are on the wrong track. They must be more open to adjusting their policies, he said, if they want to win presidential elections.

Clinton's 1992 team believed "if you get the argument right, people will vote for us," From said. "Republicans don't have the argument right."

Clinton campaign aide Paul Begala said parties that win presidential elections are "always more mainstream and more unified. Right now, the Republicans are neither."

Begala said liberal activists made only modest complaints about Clinton's shift toward the political center because they were sick of losing elections with nominees such as George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

Begala said Republicans might need one more presidential loss to create a similar level of frustration, which can open the way to pragmatism and moderation. Nominating a tea party-leaning "true believer" such as Sen.

Ted Cruz of Texas could do the trick, Begala said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Senate backs Medicaid expansion

The Arizona Senate on Thursday approved expanding the state's Medicaid program, capping a rancorous debate that had split the Republican Party and had been building since January, when Gov. Jan Brewer issued a surprise call to increase Arizona's health-care program for the poor.

How they voted on Medicaid expansion

YES

Sen. Ed Ableser, D-Tempe

Sen. David Bradley, D-Tucson

Sen. Olivia Cajero-Bedford, D-Tucson

Sen. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa

Sen. Adam Driggs, R-Phoenix

Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson

Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix

Sen. Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix

Sen. Jack Jackson Jr., D-Window Rock

Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor, D-Phoenix

Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Tucson

Sen. John McComish, R-Phoenix

Sen. Barbara Maguire, D-Kearny

Sen. Robert Meza, D-Phoenix

Sen. Lynne Pancrazi, D-Yuma

Sen. Steve Pierce, R-Prescott

Sen. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale

Sen. Anna Tovar, D-Tolleson

Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa

NO

Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix

Sen. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert

Sen. Judy Burges, R-Sun City West

Sen. Chester Crandell, R-Heber

Sen. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford

Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson

Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Peoria

Sen. Don Shooter, R-Yuma

Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City

Sen. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler

Sen. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix

A handful of Senate Republicans teamed with Democrats to approve the fiscal 2014 budget plan and overcome a flood of amendments intended to scuttle Medicaid expansion, pushing through the governor's top legislative priority on a 19-11 vote after three hours of debate.

Although the legislation faces an uncertain future in the House, its passage late Thursday was a key victory in the governor's effort to bring health care to an additional 350,000 Arizonans.

Brewer and her supporters -- including some who, like her, oppose the federal health-care overhaul that makes expansion possible -- said Arizona could not afford to reject the billions of federal dollars that come with it.

But opponents of expanding the state-federal health-care program for the poor and disabled, including Republican legislative leaders, said it goes too far, beefing up an already unaffordable, unsustainable government entitlement program that goes against GOP principles and discourages people from taking responsibility for their own health care.

A standoff set in for weeks, with Senate President Andy Biggs, who was an early and ardent expansion opponent, saying he would not bring a Medicaid expansion bill to the floor and House Speaker Andy Tobin saying he didn't like Brewer's plan and was working on alternatives.

On Tuesday, Biggs cranked the legislative machinery into gear and started moving toward a vote on the fiscal 2014 budget without Medicaid. By bringing it to the floor, it allowed proponents of Medicaid expansion the opening they needed, setting up what Biggs called "the most consequential decision of a generation."

Weighing down the bill

The maneuvering began the evening before the vote, and it could be heard as the copy shop in the state Senate buzzed with activity.

As soon as the Senate Appropriations Committee finished its work Wednesday afternoon, setting up Thursday's vote, lawmakers started flooding staffers with budget amendments for the floor session.

By 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City, had filed seven amendments designed to weigh down the expansion proposal. Ward, a physician and freshman lawmaker, is one of the Senate's most outspoken Medicaid- expansion opponents.

Biggs came in with 13 anti-expansion amendments.

Majority Leader John McComish, R-Phoenix, filed two amendments, which contained the heart of the fight.

Though he had not publicly expressed support for the plan, he was thought to be on board and, in the end, became the spear carrier for Medicaid expansion.

In all, there were 24 Medicaid-related amendments, and 34 were related to other parts of the budget.

Decision day

Thursday opened with a tense Republican caucus meeting. GOP senators aired their differences on the the expansion proposal as a crowd of lobbyists, reporters and Capitol regulars listened in.

Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Peoria, called McComish's sponsorship of the Medicaid-expansion amendment a "betrayal" because most of his GOP colleagues were opposed to it.

And, he predicted, the move would be an incentive for more Arizonans to take a cut in pay so they would qualify for state-sponsored health coverage.

Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, urged his colleagues to reject the lure of the federal money that would pay for most of the expansion.

"To me, it's immoral and unethical to accept this money," he said.

The meeting lasted an hour and a half. McComish held his comments to the end.

"People of good faith and good conscience differ," he said. He wanted a civil debate.

With that, the meeting ended, and members filtered out of the room and up to the Senate floor, where proceedings opened with debate and voice votes on all the budget bills except the Kryptonite that is Medicaid expansion.

Other proposals pass

Proposals to increase spending on K-12, child welfare and universities passed with support from a changing array of three to six Republicans, who were joined by all 13 Democrats. Their amendments added about $34 million to the $8.8 billion budget, frustrating conservatives in what just two years ago was called the "tea party Senate."

Conservatives attempted to pressure their colleagues by forcing formal votes on motions to cut some of the spending.

They failed.

Ward, who is among the chamber's conservatives, tweeted: "The rolling of the conservative majority has begun."

Medicaid debate

Biggs had saved Medicaid for last and was ready with his amendments intended to kill, or at least weaken, the bill.

But again and again, McComish and four other GOP senators -- Majority Whip Adam Driggs and Sens. Rich Crandall, Steve Pierce and Bob Worsley -- stood with the chamber's 13 Democrats to defeat most of Biggs' amendments. And they teamed with Democrats to approve the Medicaid amendment on an 18-12 vote.

Democrats remained mostly silent, letting McComish do most of the work defending the governor's plan.

"We're faced with two unpleasant choices," he said. "If we don't do Medicaid expansion, our rainy-day fund will be totally wiped out."

Biggs chided his colleagues for not taking more time to consider such an enormous public-policy issue and warned that they would regret their decision for generations to come.

There had been no hearings, not even a proper bill, he said, just an amendment tacked on during floor debate -- hardly befitting a decision of this magnitude.

"This is the most important policy decision that we've encountered in a generation," Biggs said during a rambling floor speech that included lessons about why the federal government -- "a dubious partner" -- should not be trusted.

Unfair 'burden'

"This is not about expanding health care because it's some kind of altruistic program. It's about expanding health care to get federal money," Biggs said. "The money will unfairly burden our children and our grandchildren."

Sen. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, made an impassioned plea for an amendment to require a two-thirds majority vote in keeping with a 1998 voter-approved law intended to curb tax and fee hikes.

The assessment on hospitals, although it would be implemented by the state's Medicaid program, is clearly a tax, he said, adding that failing to require a supermajority approval is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent.

Two of Biggs' amendments were successful, including one requiring a three-year "sunset" review by the Legislature of the expanded health-care program. That provision also is contained in a package of bills unveiled this week by House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden.

The second amendment requires the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid program, to report each year how much uncompensated care hospitals are claiming and the amount each hospital pays in provider taxes.

The debate went on for three hours, then ended abruptly after the underlying budget bill, with the Medicaid-expansion amendment, won approval on a voice vote.

In a statement, Brewer thanked the Senate "for acting in a bipartisan, courageous and collegial fashion …. to approve the single most critical policy issue that has faced our state in years."

Next steps

House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, said he has not studied what he calls the Senate budget and can't yet say what he'll do with it. But, he said, he won't move a budget along unless he has Brewer's support. And he won't take up Medicaid expansion unless he has the support of at least half of his 36-member Republican caucus.

If he sends the Senate budget to the House Appropriations Committee, it appears a hostile welcome awaits it.

Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, called the Senate legislation so loaded with personal vendettas that have resulted from a rift in the GOP caucus in the Senate that he may just toss the whole proposal and start over.

"This is not policy, this is politics," he said.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

At the capitol

(PNI) TODAY'S AGENDA

Topic: Dueling Medicaid rallies.

What it's about: Gov. Jan Brewer headlines rally with supporters of Medicaid expansion. Rep. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, conservative blogger Bill Whittle and Republican Party officials rally against expansion.

Details: Brewer pro-expansion rally, 11a.m., House lawn; Petersen anti-expansion rally, noon, Senate lawn.

BILL TRACKER

Today's spotlight:

Summary: House Bill 2144, CPS omnibus.

Sponsor: Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix.

Status: Scheduled for debate in the full Senate.

-- Mary K. Reinhart

TODAY'S TALKER

There IS a doctor in the House …Rep. Eric Meyer, D-Paradise Valley, was on the case on Tuesday when a legislative assistant had a seizure. Meyer, a physician and former emergency-room doctor, has an office just around the corner from the incident, and was in the House when the call went out for help.

He got oxygen to the patient and helped stabilize the assistant before an ambulance arrived.

For his efforts, he got a shout-out from Rep. Doris Goodale, R-Kingman, when the House met on the floor.

-- Mary Jo Pitzl

QUOTES OF THE DAY

"We're simplifying, very complexly."

-- House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, on efforts to streamline the state's sales-tax code.

"This is the beginning of the end." -- Gov. Jan Brewer on Senate President Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, breaking the budget and Medicaid-expansion stalemate with his 2014 spending plan.

KEEP TABS

Follow us on Twitter to keep up with other politics junkies at twitter.com/azcinsider.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Gun-buyback stand shows Brewer is 2-faced

(PNI) Our governor has been saddled with many labels during her reign, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to add another: hypocrite.

This freedom-loving, finger-waving defender of personal liberty, individual initiative and the American way has signed into law a bill that denies the right of an individual to dispose of his/her personal blunderbuss as he or she chooses. If you want to get it off the streets through a buyback program, for whatever reason, you can't. It has to be resold! Big sister has spoken.

For shame, governor. Your effort to elevate the lowly firearm into the equivalent of religious icon is turning our state into the butt of late-night jokes. Keep your hands off my guns -- coming, or going.

--Mike Sheehan,

Grand Canyon

Rep. Issa, look in mirror

While Benghazi was and is a tragedy, I wonder where the concern from Congressman Darrell Issa was when, in 2011, he voted to deny the State Department's request for increased funding for the embassy security budget.

Keep in mind that Issa's vote to deny this request was as the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Now as the chairman of this same committee, he is asking how the Benghazi tragedy happened! If you want to talk about knowingly placing embassy personnel at risk, you need to look no further than this vote.

The State Department can only spend money as appropriated by Congress. Had this money been approved, the Benghazi fiasco might not have happened.

--Scott Peterburs, Mesa

Benson exploits 3 victims

Shame on Republic cartoonist Steve Benson for using the story of the three kidnapped victims in Cleveland to make comment about the Republican Party (Opinions, Friday).

These three women in Cleveland went through hell for nearly 10 years. One reportedly was beaten to force five miscarriages. To equate the Republican Party with the diabolical actions of the captor is beyond imagination.

Benson should let these women come back to some kind of a normal life and not use them for his political agenda.

--Joe Callahan, Peoria

A pension-reform idea

Pension plans for public employees do not focus the employee on saving for retirement. This is unfair to the employees who are "dependent" on the taxpayer while they are working and then are "dependent" on the taxpayer, and the pension plan's investments, for their future.

Promising police, firefighters, teachers and other municipal workers an absurd retirement income does not encourage those workers to take even a modicum of responsibility for their own futures.

We would be much better served -- and public employees would be much better served -- if we structured a sound retirement strategy that included saving and personal investment, without limiting contributions and taxing away profits made by employee investments.

If we did this smartly, with the focus on the future rather than the immediate benefit, thewhole system would function better, which is good for all!

--Scott Keeffe, Scottsdale

Comparing cover-ups

Do you remember what led to impeachment proceedings against President Nixon? It was a cover-up of a break-in of a Democratic Party office.

Does that have the same weight as an administration that stood by and watched an ambassador and three others die and then lied to the American public about it?

Amazing how our values have changed in such a few years!

--Gary Yohe, Phoenix

Stay to right, slow driver

Regarding "Like to speed? Go around" (Opinions, Thursday):

The problem is not necessarily speed but traffic flow. While the posted speed is 65 mph, that does not mean you should labor in all the lanes going 65.

Most states have signs indicating "Keep to the Right Except to Pass" or "Slower Traffic Keep to the Right." However, Arizona's Legislature, with its Wild West mentality, will not post those signs.

I already leave 15 minutes early to dodge the inconsiderate slow driver, cellphone talker and texting hog and broken-down handyman and landscaping trucks in the left and middle lanes. It is dangerous to pass these self-centered people.

I want to be able to choose whether or not I want a speeding ticket.

Think about other citizens. Keep to the right.

Another problem is traffic-light synchronization. I encounter 24 lights on my way to work. I don't care what speed I travel, I will hit 18 of them. Talk about safety, environment and pollution.

--Bob Lament, Phoenix

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

GOP's ad blitz targets 2 Ariz. Dems

National Republicans, getting a jump on 2014, are sending two trucks carrying campaign billboards around Arizona targeting congressional Democrats they believe are vulnerable in the midterm elections.

The ads attack U.S. Reps. Ron Barber and Ann Kirkpatrick and seize on President Barack Obama's health-care program and recent controversy over the Internal Revenue Service.

Arizona is a top priority for Republicans, after the party lost all three of the state's toss-up congressional races last year, handing Democrats a majority of the state delegation. The billboard blitz is part of a National Republican Congressional Committee initiative to go after seven House members across the country, including Barber and Kirkpatrick, whose toss-up districts went for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last year.

"The point of these is a very public display of how highly we are targeting these districts," Annie Kelly, an NRCC spokeswoman, told The Arizona Republic from the party's offices in Washington on Tuesday.

The billboards, along with a recent spate of online ads, represent a trickle of money that is expected to turn into a deluge by next year.

The ads are meant to drive home that Barber and Kirkpatrick are too liberal for their constituents, said Kelly, who already is traveling to Arizona to recruit opposition candidates. The ads warn that the members of Congress will "put the IRS in charge of your health care" because they voted against repealing "Obamacare" and because the IRS will play a role in enforcing rules in the health-care law.

Spokespeople for Kirkpatrick and Barber said the GOP attacks are off base.

"These folks have no clue about rural Arizona," said Jennifer Johnson, spokeswoman for Kirkpatrick of Flagstaff. "While (Republicans) were gathering in Phoenix to launch a traveling circus, Congresswoman Kirkpatrick was hard at work in her district, honoring our veterans and talking jobs and economic development with small-business owners."

Barber spokesman Rodd McLeod said the Tucson Democrat is trying, along with some Republicans, to change controversial aspects of the Affordable Care Act.

Barber signed on to three such bills, which McLeod said the Republican Party should focus on passing instead of putting splashy billboards on the road.

"They should be focused on trying to deliver more value to Arizonans than a cheap political stunt," McLeod said.

Arizona's third swing-district Democrat, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, was not included in the blitz -- her district leans further left and supported Obama -- but the Republican campaign committee has pledged to target her with other efforts.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Speaker takes on Medicaid standoff

House Speaker Andy Tobin has emerged as the key player in getting Gov. Jan Brewer's Medicaid expansion plan through the Legislature, and momentum may be shifting in the nearly dormant Capitol as he appears ready to negotiate.

Tobin, R-Paulden, who opposes the Brewer plan as drafted, said he is working on an alternative that could include putting a time limit on the broadened eligibility and the hospital tax that helps fund it, stronger legislative oversight of the state's Medicaid program and audits of hospital finances.

The speaker's comments came as Brewer hit the pause button on legislation, saying she won't sign any more bills until lawmakers get moving on a new budget and Medicaid expansion.

"The governor simply believes that it's time for the Legislature to really get down to brass tacks with the budget and Medicaid," Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said Friday. "We are anxiously awaiting further details on Speaker Tobin's proposal."

Brewer has been prodding lawmakers to move on her expansion plan since she released draft language almost two months ago, and she has made clear that she won't sign a fiscal 2014 budget without it. But she has been battling members of her own Republican Party who say Medicaid expansion under the federal health-care overhaul is financially unsustainable and politically toxic.

The speaker's support is pivotal because it would bring along reluctant House Republicans to join Democrats and move a bill to the Senate, where a bipartisan majority favors expansion. Senate President Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, has vowed to block an expansion bill from coming to the Senate floor, but a majority could force a vote if a bill arrives from the House.

Tobin wouldn't say when, or even if, a Medicaid bill would be ready. But he has become more engaged in talks with House members, pro-expansion lobbyists and the Governor's Office, and says he wants to find a way to protect taxpayers, relieve the uncompensated care burden on hospitals and keep people from losing health insurance.

"I want to make sure if I'm going down the road that I have a decent ball to move, or I won't have one," Tobin said. "I'm trying to be helpful."

The two sides also have reached a near-consensus on estimates of how much it would cost to insure poor Arizonans if they passed up Medicaid expansion and did without the billions of federal dollars that come with it.

Tobin and Biggs floated that plan to Brewer earlier in the session, with the state picking up the tab for thousands of childless adults, but she shot it down.

Rank-and-file lawmakers are becoming restless as work at the Legislature has slowed to a crawl and narrowed to three days a week. In coming days, their daily stipend will be cut in half. Rumors are flying around the Capitol that a Medicaid bill could be unveiled as early as next week.

Brewer, a longtime opponent of the rest of the federal Affordable Care Act, is one of eight Republican governors to support expanding the state-federal insurance program for the poor and disabled to 133 percent of the poverty level, or about $15,300 a year.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott was overrun last week by the GOP-led Legislature, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich remains locked in battle with his. So far, 20 states have agreed to expand Medicaid, 15 have said no and 15 are undecided.

In Arizona, Medicaid expansion would insure an estimated 350,000 people, prevent 60,000 from falling off the state's current insurance program for childless adults, and bring in roughly $1.6 billion in fiscal 2015, the first full year.

Under Brewer's plan, the state's additional expenses would be covered with a tax on hospitals, money the facilities would recoup by seeing more insured patients and spending less on uncompensated care.

A policy decision this massive should not be rushed, Tobin said. In an interview Thursday, he bristled at the notion that he has had months to work through the details and rewrite a bill.

"It's not that I haven't been working on it," Tobin said. "I think I've probably put a lot more time into it than the people who wrote the governor's plan."

Tobin said he spoke with Brewer on Tuesday and understands her desire to see action on the big issues of the session, but he can't move any faster than he is now.

"I'm spending all my waking hours trying to figure out a better way for Arizona," he said. "I can't speed that up (just) because she's not signing any more bills."

Tobin said the governor's draft bill was a "non-starter," as he has said since she unveiled it, but he provided a few more details about what should be included in a Medicaid bill for it to get an airing in the House, mostly posed as questions.

"Is the 'circuit breaker' a strong enough circuit breaker? And what do you do to make it stronger?"

Brewer's plan includes a so-called circuit breaker, a provision to roll back coverage for those between 100 percent and 133 percent of the poverty level if federal funding falls below 80percent of the expansion cost.

"Do you say this thing is all going away at a certain time? … Do you want something that goes on forever?"

That calls for a sunset review, which other lawmakers have suggested could come after three years, to reassess the program.

"How do we know that the hospitals won't continue to shift" costs for uncompensated care to privately insured patients?

Hospitals have seen their uncompensated care costs soar since Brewer and lawmakers capped the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System's program for childless adults. More than 150,000 people have fallen off AHCCCS rolls since then, and an unknown number have been frozen out.

Brewer and expansion supporters, led by the health-care industry, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and the AARP, say those with insurance are paying a "hidden health-care tax" because the costs of treating the uninsured are passed on to them in higher hospital rates and insurance premiums.

Tobin and other expansion skeptics want to make sure hospitals don't continue to pass along those costs to paying customers if more people become insured under Medicaid and hospitals' financial strain is eased.

That could mean a law that gives the Legislature a look into hospital finances.

They also want to curb AHCCCS authority to set the tax rate on hospitals to raise funds for expansion.

And although Biggs and Brewer have said they don't support sending the measure to the ballot for voters to decide, Tobin said he would not rule that out if negotiations failed.

"I don't take any options off the table on any of these big issues," he said. "I don't know why anyone else would. If the goal is, how do we get from Point A to Point B, then nothing should be off the table."

Republic reporter Mary Jo Pitzl contributed to this article.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Gosar, Nev. cohort team up on issues affecting region

BULLHEAD CITY — BULLHEAD CITY The stucco housing developments that stretch into the empty desert here on the Arizona side of the Colorado River are home to many who work straight across at Laughlin's casino towers on the Nevada side.

The twin cities' economies are so closely linked that they both suffered from the downturn in tourism and gambling in recent years, as vacationers and retirees cut back sharply on their discretionary spending.

So finding ways to boost these economies became a hot topic at joint town halls this week held by Republican congressmen representing both sides of the river.

U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, of Arizona, and Rep. Joe Heck, of Nevada, said they are working hand in hand to secure funding for a second bridge to connect the cities and drive commerce. They are pushing for a crucial transportation link that would become Interstate 11 between Phoenix and Las Vegas, the only major cities in the United States that lack a direct interstate connection. And along with other members of Congress, they recently stopped the Federal Aviation Administration from closing the local airport control tower as a result of budget cuts.

Though Gosar supported the budget cuts, known as sequestration, he said the FAA needed to find other ways to cut spending than closing towers.

The congressmen were visiting among the hardiest GOP strongholds in their states.

"Even the sky is red in Mohave County," joked Mohave County Republican Party board member Michelle Arnett, after the meeting of about 50 people at Bullhead City Hall.

Audience questions on gun control, immigration and Arizona's Medicaid expansion reflected the area's political bent, though some appeared to be based on conspiracy theories, which the congressmen explained were debunked. Gosar drew applause by criticizing President Barack Obama's use of executive orders, pledging to fully investigate the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, and calling for the Republican Party to regroup and win more elections in 2014.

Summing up the failure of a bill in the Senate last month to expand background checks for gun purchases, which Gosar opposed, he said, "The Constitution won."

Gosar and Heck, who were swept into office on the "tea party" wave of 2010, promised to continue their partnership in this second term.

"We've got a lot of things in common. We both were in health care. We're both small-business owners. … We represent states with a lot of land but not many people," Heck, a physician, said, referencing Gosar's career as a dentist. "We realized that we share this common border. ? We should be doing things that will benefit both sides of the river."

Bullhead City residents afterwards said the town hall and Gosar's visits to a dinner and ribbon-cutting in recent days were more than they had seen of past representatives. Given the brutal Republican primary Gosar went through last year, they said, he was the right person to be elected.

"When you can see your congressman proactively involved in issues of concern to the constituents, it gives you some hope," said Dave Gaines, 66. "It kind of lends an argument to term limits, too. That these two young guys could come in and hit the ground running and get things done."

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Feds say no to funding a leaner Ariz. Medicaid

Federal health officials dealt a blow to opponents of Medicaid expansion Thursday, saying they're unlikely to fund a slimmed-down version of the state's indigent-health-care program as the political battle over the issue intensified.

Gov. Jan Brewer declared the federal announcement a game-changer in the debate, which is holding up a new state budget. She told GOP legislative leaders to stop delaying a vote on Medicaid expansion and move swiftly to present her expansion plan to lawmakers.

Senate President Andy Biggs rejected the governor's calls, and during a rally on the House lawn, expansion opponents played down the news from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Local Republican Party officials and "tea party" members cheered as GOP lawmakers pilloried Brewer's plan and said Arizona can do better on its own.

"We don't have to expand," said Biggs, R-Gilbert, who has vowed not to bring Brewer's proposal to the Senate floor for a vote. "We have an alternate plan, a plan that will not unfairly burden our children and grandchildren to pay for medical care today."

Thursday's developments, which included a significant increase in legislative cost estimates for rejecting expansion, served only to further entrench both sides, with rumors flying about everything from the potential collapse of budget negotiations to a Senate coup to bypass Biggs.

Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said nothing will change the governor's mind on Medicaid expansion.

"She's committed to this proposal and is prepared to see it through, regardless of how hot it gets," Benson said. "This is life and death. … It's not some petty political problem."

In a memo released Thursday, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials indicated federal matching funds would not be available to continue Arizona's enrollment-capped Medicaid program for childless adults. The federal officials said, "We do not anticipate that we would authorize enrollment caps or similar policies" under the program, which would mean no federal funding.

Brewer and lawmakers froze the childless-adult program in 2011, and it will be eliminated entirely on Dec. 31 barring federal approval of a new application. That would end health coverage for an estimated 60,000 Arizonans.

Biggs wants to maintain the freeze and use state funds to cover those people, who include thousands with serious mental illnesses and other chronic diseases.

Under the GOP leadership's alternative, people above 100 percent of the poverty level could get subsidized health coverage through online insurance exchanges set up through the federal health law.

Under Medicaid expansion as part of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government would pay all the costs of insuring people between 100percent and 133 percent of the poverty level.

Brewer seized on the federal memo to renew her push for her top legislative priority, saying it eliminated the leading alternative to broadening Medicaid eligibility.

"Today's clear guidance from CMS makes it apparent that there is really only one viable option," the governor wrote to Biggs and House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden. "It is time for us to complete the people's work."

But Biggs, Tobin and other GOP Medicaid-expansion opponents viewed the federal guidance as a "maybe" and refused to be deterred by it.

"Whether the feds chip in or whether they don't chip in, this is the best option that we have," Biggs said of forgoing expansion, continuing the freeze and insuring the poorest Arizonans with state money. "At bare minimum, we have three years to watch 'Obamacare' implode around the nation while we don't have to suffer."

Biggs and Tobin, who have become the main roadblocks to Brewer's expansion plan, say their GOP members oppose broadening Medicaid eligibility as fiscally unsustainable and politically poisonous.

They don't trust the federal government to keep its promise of covering nearly all the expansion costs, and members fear voter backlash in the 2014 primary if they support it.

Brewer, a longtime opponent of the Obama administration's health-care overhaul, is among eight GOP governors to support expanding Medicaid, the state-federal program that covers more than 1.2 million poor and disabled Arizonans.

Her plan would add roughly 400,000 people to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid program, with $1.6billion in federal funding by fiscal 2015 and a tax on hospitals to cover the state's additional share.

She is backed by business leaders, non-profit organizations and the health-care industry, including hospitals caring for a growing number of uninsured Arizonans. But she is facing stiff opposition from legislative leaders and grass-roots GOP loyalists.

While Tobin has not ruled out an eventual vote on Medicaid expansion, Biggs said he will not bring any legislation to the floor of the Senate if it includes the federally funded expansion.

In an interview with The Arizona Republic, Biggs said it's his responsibility as the Senate leader to stand firm against a policy that fellow Republicans oppose.

He said beyond his own objections to the federal health law, recent polls, constituent communications and conversations with lawmakers prove it is wrong for Arizona and for the GOP.

"I'm not going to put (Medicaid) expansion on the floor. The Republican Party in this state has said, 'Don't do this,'" he said. "Republicans hate this, and they're not going to vote for a Republican in a primary who's (supported) this."

Biggs said even GOP senators who support the expansion -- and there are at least three and perhaps as many as six or seven -- aren't eager to vote on it. But he conceded that there are other ways for a Medicaid bill to come to the floor, and he expects that it will.

"At this point at least, I'm not ready to give up," Biggs said. "At the bare minimum, we have an obligation to rationally discuss with the executive branch … (our) position and why."

Brewer's office, however, said Biggs' alternative is neither financially nor politically viable.

"He doesn't have the votes for that," Benson said. "There are enough votes in the Senate for the governor's plan. … But if legislators would prefer to do this later as opposed to sooner, that's their option."

Brewer met with 15 to 20 Republican House and Senate members last week. Many GOP lawmakers say they're undecided, but there appear to be just enough votes for a simple majority in the House, where Tobin said he isn't ready to advance Brewer's plan.

"I don't like her bill," he said this week.

Tobin said he is open to alternatives but conceded it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a middle ground between the governor's proposal and the concerns raised by opponents.

"If there's a middle, it would be the first in the country," he said.

But Tobin said there must be changes to Brewer's plan, both to win GOP support and to ensure an expanded Medicaid program won't run out of control.

At the Capitol rally, physician and Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City, said she supports good quality, accessible health care for as many people as possible, but she believes that Medicaid offers "substandard care" and that expanding it reduces the incentive for people to improve their circumstances and get off the public dole.

Ward said she doesn't know exactly what alternative Medicaid legislation would look like, but it would include funding to keep childless adults insured. Voters in 2000 expanded AHCCCS to cover everyone living below the poverty level, but more than 150,000 people have fallen off since the program was capped.

Also Thursday, legislative budget analysts significantly increased their estimates of the cost to insure poor, childless adults without using federal funding, surpassing Brewer's cost projections.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee now estimates it would cost $266million to cover 55,800 people who would remain on the program Dec. 31, compared with the governor's estimates of $200million and 60,225 people for fiscal 2014.

Lawmakers had been working with much smaller numbers, projecting coverage for just 35,000 people at a cost of $83million in fiscal 2014.

Under the new JLBC estimates, keeping the freeze on the childless-adult program would cost $880million through fiscal 2016. Brewer's budget office puts that number at $863million.

The cost of expansion has been a sticking point, with opponents maintaining the state can afford to reject federal funding and supporters saying infusion of billions of federal dollars would be a boon to the economy.

While Biggs and Tobin have the authority to decide what bills are voted on, there are ways around them.

Brewer's proposal isn't officially a bill yet, but several parliamentary strategies are being discussed behind the scenes to turn Medicaid expansion into formal legislation, including adding it to an unrelated health-care measure as an amendment during floor debate or combining it with bills in a conference committee.

Biggs could not prevent those moves, but he likely would refuse to schedule the amended bill for a formal vote of the full Senate. That's when a majority of senators could vote to suspend the rules, insist that the bill be brought forward for a vote or even replace the president.

A majority vote in the House also is required to force a vote on a bill that hasn't been scheduled by the speaker.

Barry Aarons, a longtime lobbyist who doesn't have a client on either side of the debate, said there are "so many moving pieces," including Medicaid's connection to the budget, that the endgame is difficult to predict. "This is not a policy issue anymore. This is a mechanical issue," he said. "This is not a monolithic up-or-down vote on Medicaid expansion."

Republic reporter Mary Jo Pitzl contributed to this article.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Ex-Navy SEAL Gomez wins GOP primary for US Senate

BOSTON — BOSTON Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey and Republican former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez won their party primaries on Tuesday, setting up a race between a 36-year veteran of Washington politics and a political newcomer for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by John Kerry.

Markey defeated fellow U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch in the Democratic primary while Gomez, who's also a businessman, bested former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and state Rep. Daniel Winslow in the GOP primary, according to unofficial returns. The special election is scheduled for June 25.

The race to fill the seat Kerry left to become U.S. secretary of state has been overshadowed by the deadly Boston Marathon bombing, and the candidates had to temporarily suspend their campaigns.

Even before the April 15 bombing, the campaign had failed to capture the attention of voters compared with the 2010 special election following the death of longtime Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy. Former Republican Sen. Scott Brown won the seat, surprising Democrats, but was ousted last year in another high-profile race by Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren.

Markey, 66, led all the other candidates in fundraising and had won the backing early on of Kerry and a large segment of the Democratic establishment. Lynch, a South Boston conservative and self-described "pro-life" Democrat, was dogged in part by his decision to vote against President Barack Obama's 2010 health care law.

Gomez, 47, was virtually unknown in Massachusetts politics before announcing his plan to run for Kerry's seat earlier this year.

Gomez, the son of Colombian immigrants, celebrated his outsider status, wearing his lack of Washington experience as a badge of honor. Gomez also had a compelling life story, learning to speak English in kindergarten before going on to become a Navy pilot and SEAL, earn an MBA at Harvard Business School and launch a career in private equity.

Gomez, of Cohasset, cast himself as the new face of the Republican Party, which has struggled to reach out to minority populations following the defeat last year of GOP presidential candidate and former Gov. Mitt Romney.

Gomez has introduced himself in Spanish in campaign ads and on the stump in a state where Hispanic voters are a small but growing slice of the population.

Sullivan, an early favorite among conservative Republicans, touted his law enforcement and national security background, having helped investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and the failed attempt to blow up an airliner using shoe bombs.

But Sullivan, of Abington, collected the smallest amount of campaign contributions of the three GOP candidates and was unable to run any statewide TV ads.

Winslow, a former judge from Norfolk who served as chief legal counsel in Romney's administration, finished third despite putting $150,000 of his own cash into the race.

While Gomez easily outraised his challengers he also loaned his campaign at least $600,000.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

How to Put America Back Together Again

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty ImagesA power plant in Shippingport, Pa., has been a source of pollution in the town. A carbon tax could help effectively drive clean-tech innovation.

UNTIL we fully understand what turned two brothers who allegedly perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings into murderers, it is hard to make any policy recommendation other than this: We need to redouble our efforts to make America stronger and healthier so it remains a vibrant counterexample to whatever bigoted ideology may have gripped these young men. With all our warts, we have built a unique society — a country where a black man, whose middle name is Hussein, whose grandfather was a Muslim, can run for president and first defeat a woman in his own party and then four years later a Mormon from the opposition, and no one thinks twice about it. With so many societies around the world being torn apart, especially in the Middle East, it is vital that America survives and flourishes as a beacon of pluralism.

Thomas L. Friedman

Rebuilding our strength has to start with healing our economy. In that regard, it feels as if our budget drama has dragged on for so long that it has not only been drained of all emotional energy but nobody even remembers the plot anymore. It’s worth recalling: What are we trying to do?

We’re trying to put America back on a sustainable growth track that will expand employment, strengthen our fiscal balance sheet to withstand future crises and generate resources to sustain the most needy and propel the next generation. That requires three things: We need to keep investing in the engines of our growth — infrastructure, government-financed research, education, immigration and regulations that incentivize risk-taking but prevent recklessness. We need to reform Social Security and Medicare so they can support all the baby boomers about to retire. And we need to raise more revenues, in the least painful way possible, because we can’t just cut everything. As I’ve said, you can lose weight quickly by cutting off both thumbs, but that will be a problem at work.

It was good to see President Obama put out a budget proposal that addressed all three needs. The attacks on him from the left are unfair because, ultimately, we will need to do all three even more. As Bloomberg News reported on Monday: “Typical wage-earners retiring in 2010 will receive at least $3 for every $1 they contributed to the Medicare health-insurance program, according to an Urban Institute study.” That’s unsustainable. The Republican budget plan, though, would cut so much so fast — including taxes — that it would leave virtually nothing for investing in our growth engines. That’s irresponsible.

So what to do?  We need a more “radical center” — one much more willing to suggest radically new ideas to raise revenues, not the “split-the-difference-between-the-same-old-options center.” And the best place to start is with a carbon tax.

A phased-in carbon tax of $20 to $25 a ton could raise around $1 trillion over 10 years, as we each pay a few more dimes and quarters for every gallon of gasoline or hour of electricity. With that new revenue stream, we’d have so many more options. One, preferred by Republicans like the statesman George Shultz and the Nobel laureate Gary Becker, is to make the carbon tax “revenue neutral.” It could be offset entirely by a rebate or by cutting tax rates for every U.S. citizen and corporation, which would increase spending. Another option, the one I’d prefer, would devote half the carbon-tax revenues to individual and corporate tax cuts, use a quarter for new investments in infrastructure, preschool education, community colleges and research — which would create jobs now and tomorrow — and then use a quarter on deficit reduction.

In short, if you added such a carbon tax to Obama’s budget, you’d have the makings of a radical grand bargain: Republicans would have the income tax cuts they want; Democrats would get the additional infrastructure stimulus they want, plus a new revenue stream to start gradually addressing the deficit, while reducing the amount that we’d have to bite from entitlements now; and the country would have a vehicle to address climate change, to drive clean-tech innovation (and to take money away from people who fund jihadist hate sites on the Internet).

View the original article here

Howard J. Phillips, Stalwart Conservative, Dies at 72

The cause was temporal frontal lobe dementia, his sister, Susan Phillips Bari, said.

Along with Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, Terry Dolan and others, Mr. Phillips was a leader of the New Right, a movement that gave more clout to the right wing of the Republican Party in the 1970s and ’80s, much as the Tea Party has in recent years.

Even among stalwart conservatives, Mr. Phillips was known for being especially devoted to the ideological principles of the right, including limited government, traditional family values, strong national defense and opposition to abortion.

“He was our true north,” Mr. Viguerie, famed for pioneering the political use of direct mail, said in an interview on Monday. “You could compromise on strategy, but on principle Howie was unswerving.”

Mr. Phillips’s integrity as a conservative was on display in President Richard M. Nixon’s administration. In early 1973, the president signaled his intention to withhold financing from the Office of Economic Opportunity, an antipoverty agency with roots in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty. The president named Mr. Phillips acting director and charged him with dismantling it.

“I believe Richard Nixon epitomizes the American dream and represents all that is great in America,” Mr. Phillips said at the time.

Nixon was unable to carry out his plans, however, after Democrats successfully sued to prevent him from starving an agency that Congress had authorized. And when Nixon yielded and continued to finance Johnson’s Great Society programs, Mr. Phillips considered the president to have broken his word and resigned.

“The thing that changed him was that while he was working for O.E.O., before he became acting director, he went around the country looking at all the grantees,” Ms. Bari, his sister, said, and concluded that much of the money was supporting liberal advocacy groups.

“Not to what the taxpayers thought they were supporting,” Ms. Bari said. “That’s what radicalized him.”

In 1974, Mr. Phillips founded the Conservative Caucus, an advocacy group, based in Warrenton, Va. He stepped down as its chairman in 2011.

Mr. Phillips could be a thorn in the side of presidents, even fellow Republicans. He lobbied against President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court and against the first President George Bush’s nomination of David Souter to the court, arguing that they would favor abortion rights.

“Whether he won or lost, he always said that what is right is what he was going to do,” Charles Orndorff, the administrative vice president of the Conservative Caucus, said in an interview on Monday. “His honor, as a conservative leader, meant the most to him.”

In 1990, believing that neither major party would enact the policies he favored, Mr. Phillips led the formation of the U.S. Taxpayers Party (later renamed the Constitution Party), which declares that its policies are based on the founding documents of the nation and the original intent of the founding fathers. He was its candidate for president in 1992, 1996 and 2000. His best showing was in 1996, when he received one-fifth of 1 percent of the vote.

Howard Jay Phillips was born in Boston on Feb. 3, 1941, and grew up in nearby Brighton, Mass. His father, Frederick, ran an insurance agency; his mother, the former Gertrude Goldberg, was a homemaker. Though he was raised Jewish, he became a Christian in the 1970s. He was present at the 1960 conference at the home of William F. Buckley Jr. in Sharon, Conn., that created the conservative organization Young Americans for Freedom. Mr. Phillips graduated from Harvard in 1962.

In the mid-1960s he was chairman of the Boston Republican Committee, and in 1968 he managed the Senate campaign of Richard S. Schweiker, a Pennsylvania Republican congressman who unseated Senator Joseph S. Clark, a Democrat. Mr. Phillips worked in several positions in the Nixon administration before landing at the Office of Economic Opportunity.

Somewhat quixotically, he sought the Democratic nomination for senator from Massachusetts in 1978 in order to oppose the Republican incumbent, Edward W. Brooke III, a defender of Great Society programs. Mr. Phillips lost in a primary to Paul Tsongas, who went on to defeat Senator Brooke.

In addition to his sister, Mr. Phillips is survived by his wife, the former Margaret Blanchard, whom he married in 1964; three sons, Douglas, Bradford and Samuel; three daughters, Elizabeth Lants (known by her middle name, Amanda), Alexandra and Jennifer; and 18 grandchildren.

On Monday, Mr. Viguerie recalled the occasional derision that he and Mr. Phillips endured for their political ardor.

“He and I did an interview with Dan Rather at the G.O.P. convention in 1984, and Rather asked us about George H. W. Bush, and we were very critical of his conservative credentials,” Mr. Viguerie said. “And the next night, Rather had Bush on, and he said, ‘Richard Viguerie and Howard Phillips say you’re not a conservative. Well, Mr. Vice President, what about it? Are you a conservative?’

“And he said, ‘Yes, Dan, I’m a conservative, but I’m not a nut about it.’ ”

View the original article here

Gun Control: A Republican Lashes Out at His Party

My heart is broken. The Senate killed even the most modest gun legislation, something that is desired by the majority of the American people (front page, April 18).

Additionally, the National Rifle Association gave up all semblance of moral authority.

Only the Republican senators Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, John McCain of Arizona, Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine acquitted themselves well by voting yes to expand background checks.

There is no doubt in my mind that Republicans, under political pressure from Wayne LaPierre of the N.R.A., will be marginalized to the point of irrelevancy, as the American people move inexorably to force the adoption of reasonable gun legislation.

I just wish that our Republican leadership had done the right thing. We just handed President Obama the perfect way to defeat many Republicans in the next election.

ALFRED HOFFMAN Jr.
North Palm Beach, Fla., April 19, 2013

The writer is a Republican fund-raiser and a former Republican National Committee finance chairman.

View the original article here