GOP’s Norquist: Don’t Trust Maldonado for Governor
Grover Norquist, America’s leading antitax advocate, said Friday that California Republicans should have no more trust in a moderate 2014 GOP gubernatorial candidate like former Lt. Gov Abel Maldonado than they would in Arnold Schwarzenegger “if he says he wants his wife back.”
Norquist, whom Jerry Brown once derided as a part of the California GOP’s “Legion of Acceptability,” an elite group of conservatives that Brown said dictates party policies, made the comments in a wide-ranging session with The Chronicle’s editorial board Friday.
The conservative who once declared he would like to see government so small it could be drowned “in a bathtub” talked about immigration reform, Silicon Valley politics and what he called California’s role as the poster child of bad tax policies under Brown, a Democrat.
The head of the national advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist’s antitax pledges have been signed by most of the Republicans in the California Legislature, and he has issued stern warnings to those who have considered voting for tax increases.
In 2009, Maldonado, then a state senator, became the focus of Norquist’s wrath, derided as a “tax-hiking Republican” after breaking with his party to give Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a crucial vote needed to reach the two-thirds threshold for passing a budget - one that included tax increases.
