Maryland’s GOP Governor Larry Hogan: Conservative Getting Things Done

Defeating the political machine in one-party Democratic stronghold Maryland, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan went from nobody to overnight (and still going) sensation among conservatives across the country, especially for Republicans in a state where, aside from a Congressman here and there plus a celebrity governor, Republicans never fared well. With “Change Maryland”, his non-partisan interest group with bipartisan support,  Governor Hogan pushed tax and spending cuts, supported education, and killed expensive public projects.

A team player interested not just in furthering his career but helping his fellow Republicans, the son of a former Congressman has invested time and energy improving the Republican brand and increasing GOP outreach to otherwise unknown or untapped constituencies, particularly young voter and minorities. With Republicans nearing majority status in select counties, plus the growing weariness of voters taxed and regulated beyond reason, Hogan declared joyfully on the steps of the state house: “It’s a great day to be a Republican in Maryland”. With majority control over five of nine county executive boards, the new Governor is setting his sights on long-term growth and development for a state which barely survived eight years of uber-liberal Martin O’Malley.

Hogan has issued executive orders to require state officials and legislators to end the endless gerrymandering which marginalizes the most resolute of Old Line State residents. Despite the current push-back from the still Democratically dominated state legislature in Annapolis, Hogan is gaining prestige and strength. People want change, and Hogan is bringing it. One of his most recent and popular measures? Reducing the tolls and fees for Marylanders as well as visitors traversing the state.  Following the Baltimore riots, the governor exulted with national press that Baltimore would celebrate its world famous horse race. Residents stepped out to clean up and improve their city. The port of Baltimore is open for business, and bringing in major commerce with the largest shipping firm in the world.

Law and order has become the order of the day under the Hogan Administration, too. Recently, he has shown some muscle against illegal immigration, particularly in cases where a violent crime has occurred, despite the two-to-one Democratic voter registration in the state and previous Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley’s relentless policies to promote illegal aliens and transform them into “new Americans”.

Departing from the previous governor’s policy of non-cooperation, Hogan informed Marylanders that he would change the course of the state’s non-compliance legacy, comply with the federal government, and detain illegal aliens for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The Washington Post reports:

Immigration advocates in Maryland are criticizing a decision by Gov. Larry Hogan to notify federal immigration officials when an illegal immigrant targeted for deportation is released from the state-run Baltimore City Detention Center.

Advocates consider Hogan’s stance to be a departure from the policy of his predecessor, Democrat Martin O’Malley, who last year joined other elected officials in refusing requests from the Obama administration to coordinate with federal law enforcement whenever a detainee was being released.

With a latent political savvy determined not only to thwart amnesty proponents but coalesce widespread general support for his decision, Hogan’s office responded:

When pro-amnesty group CASA de Maryland protested outside Governor Hogan’s mansion, hisoffice released another statement:

The Baltimore City Detention Center is simply complying with a request from the Obama administration in regard to individuals who have already been detained. If CASA has concerns about Obama’s Priority Enforcement Program, I would recommend they take those concerns to the White House.

“Priority Enforcement” comes in light of President Obama’s executive amnesty in late November last year, when he announced to the United States that he would defer deportation and permit five million illegal aliens to remain in the country who had not broken any other laws.

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What a supreme and gratifying irony: A Republican governor in a deep blue state is enforcing the law,, rounding up illegal aliens who endanger the public; an executive —whoa—enhances public safety all while rebuffing critics by referencing the President’s own unconstitutional order to expand immigration and benefits to illegal aliens. Even the “shrilly, shrilly liberal” Washington Post had to concede to the Republican governor’s “common sense” on immigration.

Following those bold measures, Governor Hogan took unprecedented action and shut down a corrupt, inefficient, and dysfunctional detention center in Baltimore City, too. Fiscal prudent and morally sound, Hogan practices fiscal discipline without sacrificing the safety and security of his citizens. Surviving and thriving in spite of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the (once considered unlikely) conservative Republican Governor of Maryland has become the face of the growing conservative upswing sweeping the country, a nation fed up with government serving itself instead of taxpayers, hardworking men and women who just want a leader who will get things done.

Via: Canada Free Press

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The State GOP Wave

Republican governors and local lawmakers push back against Obama-era progressivism with an array of pro-growth policies.

Shortly before leaving office in January, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley found himself speaking on the phone to a utility-company employee about setting up an account for his family’s new private residence. Asked how he spelled his last name, O’Malley, a Democrat, responded: “Like the outgoing governor.” The woman on the other end of the line quipped, “Ah, yes. The tax man.”

O’Malley himself tells this story, perhaps to burnish his left-of-Hillary credentials for a 2016 presidential run. But the tax-happy reputation he gained in Maryland—by one estimate, he hiked taxes and fees 40 times during his two terms—probably cost his party the governorship last November. Republican challenger Larry Hogan, founder of the antitax group Change Maryland, defeated the Democratic candidate, then–lieutenant governor Anthony Brown, in a state that Gallup recently declared America’s second-most Democratic. Hogan wasn’t the only 2014 GOP gubernatorial candidate to win in deep Blue territory. Republicans also captured the governor’s mansion in Massachusetts (the country’s most Democratic state, according to Gallup) and in Illinois (the ninth-most). Republicans picked up a governor’s seat in GOP-leaning Arkansas, too, with Asa Hutchinson succeeding term-limited Mike Beebe. The Democrats, by contrast, took only one governorship from Republicans, in Blue-tinted Pennsylvania.

JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AP PHOTO

. . . and Larry Hogan in Maryland.

The victories continued a remarkable state winning streak for Republicans since Barack Obama became president. Pundits initially described the 2008 election as a major leftward shift in American politics, and it’s easy to see why: as the Obama era opened, the GOP held just 22 governorships and 14 state legislatures. But voters almost immediately began electing Republican lawmakers who rejected Obama’s call for bigger government and higher taxes. And they kept electing them last year, despite failed efforts by Democrats’ union allies to unseat incumbent Republican governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin and John Kasich in Ohio. Today, Republican governors rule in 31 states, and the party has gained nearly 900 state legislative seats, giving it control of 30 state legislatures; Democrats hold the majority in 11, with eight split, and one (Nebraska’s) unicameral and officially nonpartisan.

That leaves the Republican Party with an array of highly visible elected officials in states likely to decide the 2016 presidential election. Further, if the GOP maintains momentum through the next election cycle, it will control a majority of state governments during the upcoming redistricting process, which will determine the election map for Congress and state legislatures throughout the 2020s. The long-term balance of power in American politics may well rest, then, with how the Republican governors perform during the next few years. And the Democrats know it: the national party’s Legislative Campaign Committee has launched a special fund-raising campaign—Advantage 2020—to help state parties retake state capitols.

Republican candidates’ recent success resulted partly from local voter backlash against state tax increases during the Great Recession. Confronting budget crises back in 2009, with tax collections plunging 8 percent as the economy reeled, many governors assumed that voters would accept a bigger government pinch on their income. After all, Obama had just won the presidency decisively, running on a liberal platform. States proceeded to pile on $29 billion in new taxes in 2009, according to the National Conference of State Legislators—collectively, the largest single-year state hike ever recorded. It turned out to be a bad move politically. Republican gubernatorial hopefuls ran successfully against the rising taxes and in favor of restraining spending in New Jersey, where Democratic governors had raised taxes by approximately $5 billion over eight years; in Wisconsin, where Democrat Jim Doyle had boosted them by $3 billion over the same period; and in six other states with tax-friendly Democratic governors.

Via: CITY

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