During the course of the 2012 Presidential Election, Willard Mitt Romney’s record as Massachusetts Governor (from 2003-2007) will undoubtedly be dissected, examined, analyzed, cleverly packaged for maximum negative effect and then constantly broadcast to the public by the mainstream press and countless “experts”: They’ll talk about how he lost manufacturing jobs, saddled state residents with the highest per capita debt in the nation, didn’t help victims of the 2006 floods, cut education funding, raised government fees, trashed Affirmative Action, ruled by Executive Order, and as-yet-unknown various and sundry minutae.
But, they’ll almost certainly ignore the fundamental reason why Mitt was a bad governor - which I believe can be summed up in ONE CHART published recently as part of an excellent article by Real Clear Politics:
Bottom line? The Democrats have had a majority seats in the Massachusetts legislature for over 40 years – FOUR DECADES! They’ve been a dominant force in Massachusetts politics since the 1920′s, and it’s no surprise: It was a Democrat that was responsible for the word “Gerrymandering“.
While Governor of Massachusetts, over 700 of Romney’s 800 line-item vetoes to the state budgets were overriden by the Democrat legislature. In fact, in 2006, all of his nearly 250 budget vetoes were overturned. And that’s just his budgetary vetoes: As for his non-budgetary vetoes (some of which are listed here), I’ve not found a comprehensive list nor how many of them were overridden – I’ll leave that as an exercise for an enterprising reader, and would be curious to see the result.
FYI: For 2012, the Democrats hold 35 of the 39 seats currently filled in the 40-seat Senate (or, 90%), and 127 of the 160 seats in the House (or, 79%): A majority in both chambers that easily exceeds the 2/3rds requirement to override any veto by the Governor (An unlikely event, as the present Governor, Deval “Cadillac” Patrick, is also a Democrat).
Governor Mitt Romney was only one man in a state government dominated at the working levels by Democrats for decades: For Democrats to associate him with the shortcomings of Massachusetts, past or present, is disingenuous at best and an insult to voters at worst.
Thanks for reading!
