Free Republic

Colorado’s Proposition 103, the biggest tax-increase proposal of the off-year November election, was headed to a sound defeat early Wednesday, an indication that voters still expect government to solve its economic woes with spending cuts instead of revenue increases. The measure, which would have raised state sales and income taxes to fund education, was losing by a margin of 65 percent to 35 percent with 59 percent of precincts reporting. The vote on Proposition 103 was being monitored closely nationwide as activists in other states contemplate their own tax-hike initiatives. Efforts to place tax increases on the 2012 ballot are...

Accusing the insurance industry of a "serious breach of the law," state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi asked federal and state officials Tuesday to investigate his claim that a group of insurers tried to blackmail him. Garamendi charged Monday that an insurance industry representative contacted him through an intermediary and offered to drop a pending $2 million ad campaign that attacks proposed auto insurance regulations drafted by Garamendi's office if he would abandon the regulations. "I firmly believe that this amounts to a serious attempt to blackmail me in my role as California's elected insurance commissioner," Garamendi said in a letter...

State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi accused a group of insurance companies Monday of trying to blackmail him by threatening to run a $2 million ad campaign against his pending auto insurance regulations in the midst of his campaign for lieutenant governor. Garamendi said a woman who represented either the insurance industry or an insurance company contacted him through an intermediary and offered to drop the ads if Garamendi abandoned the regulations, which would limit use of ZIP codes in setting auto insurance pricing. "There was a threat made to me to back off or else," he said in an interview....