Word: caperton
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...unlike any other in the state's history. Democrats and Republicans pushed through a thick package of legislation that would trim the state's tangled bureaucracy, reorganize its disastrous finances and launch an ambitious program of educational reform. The measures were ramrodded into law by rookie Democratic Governor Gaston Caperton, 49, a man who is determined to upend the state's feckless political tradition and sell mountaineers something they haven't had in decades: hope...
Only a year ago, Caperton, an insurance executive and political novice, was known to a scant 3% of West Virginia's voters. Flanked by his wife Dee, Caperton lit out for the hollows in a van, spent $3.2 million of his own money and ran away with last November's election, upsetting powerful three-term Republican incumbent Arch Moore...
...inaugural address, Caperton stunned the legislature by calling it into emergency session, declaring West Virginia to be "in crisis." During his first three months he has managed to reduce the number of state offices and commissions from 150 to seven. Confronted by a $230 million deficit and a scandalous $280 million loss in state pension funds, he persuaded lawmakers to raise taxes on groceries and gasoline. He introduced an innovative health- cost-containment plan for state employees, arranged for payment of West Virginia's debts and put through his own radical restructuring of the state's education system, including larger...
...Caperton owes much of his success to his personal style. While Moore tended to be aloof and adversarial with legislators, Caperton has invited Democrats and Republicans alike to the mansion for pizza after a long day spent on his agenda. At first, some Republicans wanted to obstruct the Caperton juggernaut, but the G.O.P., outflanked and outnumbered 4 to 1, had little choice but to go along. "Whichever side you were on," says house minority leader Bob Burk, "you realized we had to do something about the fiscal integrity of the state...
...Democrats also picked up a Governor's chair in West Virginia, where Gaston Caperton, 48, a wealthy insurance executive seeking his first political office, easily defeated three-term Governor Arch Moore. In Vermont, Madeleine Kunin became the first woman chief executive ever to win a third term...