Despite the commanding Republican wave in the 2014 midterms, newly elected GOP governors have expressed "more muted, less ideological priorities" than four years earlier, when the tea party wrested control and administered "shock therapy" to the states they won, according to
The New York Times.
"One of the things about being governor is when you’re forced to actually balance your budget, it makes people become much more pragmatic very quickly," GOP Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee told the Times. Haslam sailed to another term in office and has also been elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
A host of other red state governors share a similar mindset that flies in the face of the most conservative faction of the party.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich wants to raise taxes on energy drilling companies to cover an income tax cut, and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has proposed upping the gasoline tax to pay for road improvements. Both ideas are not popular with members of the tea party.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s agenda calls for billions in spending on schools, the environment and transportation, while Tennessee’s Haslam and his counterparts in Wyoming and North Carolina have said they support Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, "arguing that it is fiscally smart to accept the billions of dollars in federal aid," according to the Times.
Even in historically blue Maryland, which elected Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in November, conservative issues are not a top priority. Hogan told the newspaper that he had no plans to "push in a conservative direction."
"My election had nothing to do with partisan politics," Hogan told the Times, suggesting instead that his responsibility is to "fix a broken economy."
For those governors who may have an eye on the White House in 2016 or beyond, leading from the middle is a calculated play, according to Politico, which cites as examples second-termers Kasich and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Both men spent their first terms pushing traditionally conservative causes such as limiting collective bargaining rights for union workers, but are now gambling that "they have room to establish more pragmatic profiles," according to
Politico.
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