They Can Multiply Without Dividing

By Richard Lacayo

The day after he unseated New York's Governor Mario Cuomo, George Pataki -- Republican state legislator, onetime mayor of the small city of Peekskill, former political nobody -- was promising to stick to his promises. Yes, he said at his first postvictory press conference, he would definitely sign a bill approving capital punishment, something Cuomo had repeatedly vetoed. And no, he would not back off from his pledge to cut state taxes 25% over four years. Pataki didn't need to be reminded that by talking tough on crime and pocketbook issues, Republicans had just picked up at least a dozen governorships. If you wanted to win a Governor's race this year, you learned your Ben Franklin: the sure things were death and taxes.

After last week's sweep, Republicans occupy a total of 31 statehouses (or as many as 33 depending on the final tallies in Maryland and Alaska), the first time they have had a majority since 1970. While keeping every Republican-held governorship, the G.O.P. gained seven states in open races and ousted four sitting Democrats, including the party's sharpest tongue, Ann Richards of Texas, and its smoothest, Cuomo, who couldn't talk voters into forgetting New York's high taxes. To the great advantage of the next G.O.P. presidential candidate, seven of the eight largest states will be run by a Republican.

It was a hexed year for Democrats. Richards, one of the party's most popular incumbents, posted a 60% approval rating virtually up to Election Day and still lost to George W. Bush, a political newcomer, a businessman and an S.O.G. (Son of George) who was no F.O.B. (Friend of Bill) -- a decisive plus in Clinton-unfriendly Texas. He didn't even have to run a single negative ad. Republican Pete Wilson of California, an incumbent whose approval rating had sunk to 19% two years ago, still managed a 55% victory over Kathleen Brown. Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, big industrial states that were once Democratic the way Italy is Catholic, all elected Republicans to a second term. In the northeast, where Connecticut and Pennsylvania also went to the Republicans and Maine elected an independent, only Vermont will still have a Democrat in the statehouse come January. And in the Democrat's once solid South, a march to the G.O.P. climaxed with the narrow defeat of Alabama's Democratic Governor James Folsom Jr. by Fob James, a former Democratic Governor who switched parties.

While the Republican sweep on the state level was part of the same upheaval that shook Congress, it was also different in some ways because Governors have a different kind of job. In a nation where the cameras are mostly turned on Washington, it's easy to forget that the real business of the public sphere -- schools, police, road maintenance, welfare -- is still largely the responsibility of states and the people who lead them. Political posturing will not get you far when you have to deal with an opposition majority in the state legislature -- the election put just 17 legislatures fully in Republican hands -- or laws that require a balanced budget, which most states have. "When you are Governor you cannot be such an ideologue. You have to be pragmatic, and you have to make government work," says Wisconsin's Republican Governor Tommy Thompson, who was re-elected to a third term in his generally liberal state with 67% of the vote. For that very reason, if Republicans in Congress slash federal programs that provide state funding, or ask the states to approve a balanced-budget amendment that would eventually require the same thing, G.O.P. Governors will balk.

They generally take a softer approach on the conservative agenda. In Pennsylvania, Representative Tom Ridge won the election this year by claiming outsider status -- no easy trick for a six-term Congressman -- and supporting heavier use of the death penalty and an end to parole for criminals sentenced to life. Having done that, he could safely stick to middling stands on abortion rights and welfare reform. "My basic philosophy is a conservative one," says Ridge. "But I recognize there are times when government intervention is appropriate, much to the chagrin of some of my Republican counterparts."

In Massachusetts, where Republicans represent a mere 13% of registered voters, Governor William Weld scored the biggest G.O.P. performance in a Governor's race -- 71% of the vote -- with a blend of fiscal conservatism and libertarian positions on abortion and gay rights. In short: keep government out of our pocketbooks and our bedrooms. "On social issues," says Republican consultant Roger Stone, "he is where the country and the majority of Republicans are."

Weld's first term featured a relentless, often brutal drive toward fiscal health for his state. In 1991, the year he succeeded Michael Dukakis, the state had to borrow $1.2 billion to pay its bills. On assuming office, he axed 8,500 state employees and then privatized everything from road maintenance to hospitals. Today short-term borrowing is well under $250 million. "Dukakis tried to bail out the sinking ship by hand," recalls Richard Larkin, managing director of Standard & Poor's municipal finance department. "Weld took the ship into dry dock and slapped a new hull on it."

California's Wilson, a moderate on abortion who espouses faith in activist government, also typifies the pragmatic breed of Republican Governors. During his first year in office he even raised taxes on upper-income groups -- not just to ease an emergency budget deficit but also to help finance programs such as health care and educational assistance for children. Like Weld, Wilson is often mentioned as a potential Republican candidate for the White House in 1996.

But at election time Wilson shook his fist, putting his clout behind Proposition 187, the ballot initiative aimed at illegal immigrants, and playing up his support for the death penalty. That, plus an upturn in the state's long-suffering economy, helped pull him ahead of Brown. When Brown too tried to play to her state's white suburbs, her equivocations on the death penalty made her seem a pale imitation of Wilson. Dan Schnur, an aide to the Governor, sums it up: "It was Wilson Classic vs. Wilson Lite."

Dedicated to budget cutting by whatever means necessary, Governors have gone forward with more radical policy experiments than anything Congress has attempted. Within months of first taking office in 1991, Michigan's Republican Governor John Engler earned a reputation as a cold-hearted budget cutter who couldn't tell the difference between fat, flesh and bone by eliminating payments to the state's 83,000 single welfare recipients. But the cuts saved more than $200 million a year, and many of the former welfare recipients were shifted onto federal disability programs. He now proposes to eliminate welfare for anyone who doesn't get a job, attend school or perform public service within two years. On Election Day he clobbered Democrat Howard Wolpe with 61% of the vote. "If there is any message out of this," says Engler, "it's that one can not only survive but thrive by keeping their promises."

But in a state enjoying Michigan's 5.5% unemployment rate and its budget surplus, tax-cutting promises can be easy to keep. Without those advantages, it gets tricky. One of the models for the new crop of Republicans has been New Jersey's popular incumbent Christine Todd Whitman, who was elected last year on a promise to cut the state income tax 30% over three years. She trimmed it 15% this year, but that required a slash in state contributions to the public- employee retirement fund and a big reduction in aid to education that may have to be offset by a rise in property taxes. And recently she allowed that the sluggish New Jersey economy may require her to stretch out her three-year goal to four. One day after the election, George Pataki got the news that New York may be facing a $4 billion budget shortfall next year.

And then there's John Rowland, who last week became Connecticut's first Republican Governor in 20 years by promising to eliminate an income tax adopted just three years ago. That tax provided a whopping $2.6 billion of the state's $9.5 billion budget for 1994. How will he cancel it without exploding a budget deficit already expected to be $430 million next year? Cut programs, he says. Which ones? Stay tuned. A successful candidate is the one who makes the right promises. A successful Governor is the one who figures out how to keep them.

With reporting by Sam Allis/Boston, Jordan Bonfante/Sacramento and Mubarak Dahir/Philadelphia