The incumbency re-election rate will still be ~80-90%. Something needs to keep incumbents in line with the agenda, and the randomness and persistence of successful challenges is one of those things.

It was azaeroprof and I who had that particular discussion. We settled on the fact that the AK operating budget rose 25-30% in the two years that she was in, and that the appropriate question to ask was to what extent this increase could be blamed on Palin. We also tossed some general questions about regarding the comparability of AK to the federal government/state governments in the continental US, how good she was on regulation, and some other qs. IN’s operating budget didn’t increase nearly as much as AK’s (in fact, factoring in inflation, growth of government in IN was virtually zero). Again, one can ask to what extent Daniels’ being governor played a role, but one cannot dispute that this happened.

He ended mandatory public-employee union dues in his state, rescinded collective bargaining rights for state employees, and lives to tell the tale. Him and Gary Johnson (probably Barbour too, but I haven’t looked as closely) both have extensive experience dealing with the public employee system, and have largely done a good job in facing them down.

and generally appreciate their research. Their report card on governors is certainly a good place to start when researching the fiscal conservatism of governors. However, much like Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedoms, there are just so many subjective aspects to Cato’s ratings that it makes ratings less than authoritative. For example, in my opinion, Cato tends to put too much weight on tax cuts, and doesn’t care what kind of tax cuts they are: a Democratic governor who increases government moderately while passing some targeted tax cuts and a tax credit bill for people who don’t get taxes can (and has) gotten fairly favorable ratings as a result, while a Republican who keeps government growth to a minimum but doesn’t concentrate on tax cuts would get the same score as the Democrat. To me, that’s an odd choice: not only are tax cuts politically popular (moreso than cutting government), they also put Republican governors at a disadvantage, for the reason that their states likely have low tax rates anyways, and even lower tax rates would be irresponsible, or literally a form of welfare (see “tax credits”). Then there’s the fact that an increase in legitimate government spending (more law enforcement in a law-free region) is seen in the same light as spending money on a crucifix in urine: an absurd way to measure spending, even by libertarian standards. I don’t remember what my qualm with its ratings vis a vis regulation was, but I remember thinking that they didn’t put enough emphasis on it.

This might have been done to allow Democrats to look more favorable (to throw Dems a bone or to make Cato look more “non-partisan”); I’m not really sure. It is in many ways more a rating of the state, legislature, and the state’s history as a whole than a measure of marginal change, which would be more useful, IMO. Whatever the case, it is more useful for looking at extreme outliers (Huck getting an “F” from Cato should be an indicator) than as an end-all, be-all measure.