Word: reformer
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...Everything on the table-loopholes, pork, Bush tax cuts. "And then you gotta have a reform piece," Emanuel hydrofoiled. "Actually, that should come first. Clean up the relationship between lobbyists and legislators, same way we did donors and candidates. This place is a cesspool-gotta address the gifts, free trips, the revolving-door lobbying jobs for staff members...
...There are problems. These are Democrats, after all. They remain muddled on Iraq. Their special-interest groups, especially the teachers' unions, were strengthened last week by the defeat of Arnold Schwarzenegger's California reform initiatives. The teachers spent a shameful $7 million to defeat a mild proposal to delay eligibility for tenure from two to five years of classroom experience. Worse, congressional districting reforms failed in both California and Ohio; two decades of questionable gerrymandering deals, especially between white Republicans and black Democrats in the South, has increased minority representation but decreased the number of House districts where Democrats...
...provide defined-benefit pensions out of the goodness of their hearts. They did it because their workers were united in unions powerful enough to demand these benefits. With unions weak and shrinking, corporations feel free to discard what they regard as an onerous burden. A good legal reform would be to treat a pension obligation as a preferred creditor in any corporate bankruptcy proceeding or give pension trusts the first claim to all corporate assets. CHARLIE ROSENBERG Milwaukee...
...looked desperate, fighting to keep Terri Schiavo alive earlier this year and suddenly supporting a G.O.P. congressional plan to allow oil drilling 125 miles off the coast of Florida. Whether his latest proposal, to move Florida's Medicaid patients into managed-care plans, turns out to be a sensible reform or a conservative flop remains to be seen...
...public service unions appeared to be the most visible victors in the election, the Democratic party was also heartened by the results. By pushing this special election, Schwarzenegger took a risk by trying to circumvent the Democrat-controlled legislature in Sacramento and take his reform proposals directly to the people. Schwarzenegger's aides bragged that the governor's celebrity appeal would easily carry the day, but they turned out to be wrong...