The Fruits of Nixon’s Port Ploy

I wrote previously about Governor Jay Nixon’s freezing of $400 million in spending over the threatened override of his tax cut veto (HB 253). The spending he froze includes the $400,000+ allocated for a Jefferson County port. I suggested in my post that this was an effort to get wavering JeffCo legislators to vote against override.

This ploy seems to be working. In the Leader‘s opinion section last week, the paper asked each local legislator how they would vote on the tax cut override. The two local Democrats who voted yes on the original tax cut bill, Rep. Jeff Roorda and Sen. Ryan McKenna, both cited the port money in their responses. McKenna has flipped – he says he will vote no on the override. Roorda is still publicly on the fence – I personally expect a no vote.