Jay Nixon's agenda

Jay Nixon announces his bid for the U.S. Senate during a 1988 campaign stop in Cape Girardeau. (Southeast Missourian file )

• Jay Nixon: A life in public service

Throughout his 16-year tenure as attorney general, and doubly so since he started laying plans to run for governor, Jay Nixon has been the target of Republican criticism. As the campaign heated up, so did the back-and-forth between Nixon and the GOP.

MEDICAID
Criticism: Since the Missouri Legislature enacted cuts in the Medicaid program in 2005, Republicans have consistently argued that reinstating those services would result in a massive tax increase. "For nearly three years, Jay Nixon has campaigned to bring back a broken and fiscally unsustainable state health care system that would require a nearly $1 billion tax hike," Johnathon Prouty wrote March 27 on MissouriPulse.com, the blog created by political consultant John Hancock, adviser to Blunt, Hulshof and the Missouri Republican Party.

Response: "They are just wrong. ... The numbers we are using, the $261 million, comes from a fiscal note from the Blunt administration. Their own fiscal note. It's their numbers. They want to get into the political season and they want to exaggerate and scare people, and that's a usual tactic. But the bottom line is we have sourced our documents," Nixon said in an interview with the Southeast Missourian.


MISSOURI FOUNDATION FOR HEALTH.
Criticism: Formed after Nixon sued Blue Cross Blue Shield when the health insurer became a for-profit entity, the foundation, Republicans have said, is spending too much money supporting advocacy groups that criticize Republican policies. "Attorney General Jay Nixon selects all of the members of the Community Advisory Committee which nominates the candidates for the board of the Missouri Foundation for Health giving Nixon significant influence and control of the board and the actions of its members," Gov. Matt Blunt's office said in a news release issued May 13.

Response: "It's a private foundation. I don't appoint the members of that foundation. We appointed an original board, and after that time a community advisory board was appointed to screen applicants and present those applicants to the board that chooses those. And at no time, at no time, since the formation of that foundation, or even before it, have I at one single time asked for one penny to be appropriated to anything. And it's a nonprofit and it operates independently and should do so."

CHANGING ABORTION POSITIONS
Criticism: When Nixon ran for the Missouri Senate in 1986 and for the U.S. Senate in 1988, he ran as a pro-life candidate. Since then, he has softened and then changed his stance and is now pro-choice. In July 2007, Hancock's website MissouriPulse put up this posting: "After reviewing Nixon's latest clumsy attempt to 'set the record straight,' it's obvious he needs to come to grips with the fact that there is no nuance for a candidate who has changed his position, supports abortion on demand and actively courts those groups who articulate the most strident pro-abortion positions. Jay Nixon is what he is."

Response: "I support Missouri law as it currently exists. There's been a lot of changes to it since that time. I support the law as it sits right now, which I think strikes a fair balance. And that's borne through from a lifetime of experience and impressions and opinions. But the bottom line, as it sits right now, I support that. I don't support the zeroing out of family planning money, which has limited, especially among the many of the least among us, the opportunity to get family planning assistance that I think is so valuable if we are going to bring down the number of unintended pregnancies."

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* comb-over

-- Posted by OlderEagle on Sun, Sep 28, 2008, 7:45 am CDT

At least he's consistent when it comes to his come-over.

-- Posted by OlderEagle on Sun, Sep 28, 2008, 7:44 am CDT

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