From Grover Norquist on Newsmax.com: The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would repeal a 2004 law requiring cities with more than 35,000 people to grant collective bargaining rights to non-uniformed city employees… Sen. Cliff Aldridge, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said he thinks it's unfair to force cities to participate in collective bargaining and that cities still will have option to choose to collectively bargain if they wish… The repeal of the law will allow for more local decisions concerning collective bargaining agreements.”
“Tax Increases Are Political Poison for the GOP” posted by Dan Mitchell on International Liberty. “First, some background. One side of this battle is led by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, who is the organizer of the no-tax-increase pledge. Grover argues that America’s fiscal problem is too much spending and that higher taxes are economically and politically foolish.The other side of the conflict is led by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who argues that America’s fiscal problem is too much red ink and that higher taxes are a necessary price to strike a deal with Democrats that supposedly will reduce budget deficits… If the ethanol credit is worth about $6 billion per year, as Senator Coburn’s office states, then find a tax cut of similar size, pair it with the ethanol credit, and kill two birds with one stone. Seems like the best of all possible outcomes, which is why Grover is correct from a policy perspective.”
“Norquist to Coburn: Drop Out” by Robert Costa at National Review Online. “Norquist, in an interview with NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE this afternoon, called on Coburn to drop out of the ‘Gang of Six,’ a bipartisan group of senators working on deficit reduction. ‘Coburn is negotiating with President Obama’s best friend in the Senate, Dick Durbin,’ he said. ‘They are playing Coburn like a Stradivarius. Durbin is walking him down into an alley where he is going to get mugged…He should walk away as soon as possible,’ Norquist said. ‘He should say that all the Democrats want to do is raise taxes, and we’ve got the Ryan plan, so let’s fight this out in 2012. Otherwise he is going to cost us Senate seats right across the board.’”
Grover Norquist’s response to Sen. Tom Coburn’s accusations is highlighted in POLITICO: “Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, just emailed a response to Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn's claim that his group is a narrow ‘special interest’ that doesn't represent American conservatives. And it's memorable… ‘The pledge that Tom Coburn signed was to the citizens of Oklahoma…Sen. Coburn knows perfectly well that the pledge is not to any organization but to the citizens of his state. He lied to them, not to Americans for Tax Reform. Before this recent television comment, Coburn told me personally in a phone call that he would not vote for a tax increase and repeated his commitment in writing in a public letter to me.’”