The Races: Moore v. Weaver, House 26
Hardin County
In the 26th district, former Democrat Representative Mike Weaver attempts to avoid his third loss in a row and defeat Republican incumbent Tim Moore.
Rep. Moore has been a disappointment in the General Assembly with middling results on the Kentucky Club for Growth Scorecard. He scored 49% in 2007 and only 57% in 2008. In the 2008 session, Moore voted for more health insurance mandates (HB 148), for a version of the most indebted budget in Kentucky’s history that included $148 million in tax increases (HB 406) as well as for other tax increases (HB 611, HB 635, HB 689, HB 734), and for creating additional penalties for employers who have already paid restitution for misinterpreting the rules (HB 654). On the positive side, he did cosponsor HB 105 which would have required greater transparency in government spending.
Mike Weaver has a similarly bad record, having voted to raise taxes or increase fees at least 15 times during his career in the General Assembly. He is sometimes honest about his liberalism, answering a candidate survey in 2004 saying he would want to increase gasoline, alcohol and cigarette taxes, but then claiming in 2005 in the News-Enterprise that he should not be labeled a “a liberal tax-and-spend Democrat.”
Weaver has also been quick to guard his own income when the rest of the government tightened its belt. In 2002, he voted against an amendment to the legislative budget that would have limited lawmaker raises to the same raises they gave the rest of state workers and teachers (RS02 HB657 HFA1).
