Mitch Daniels

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Mitch Daniels : biography

07 April 1949 –

Fearing a future government may overturn the statute enforcing property tax rate caps, Daniels and other state Republican leaders pressed for an amendment to add the new tax limits to the state constitution. The proposed amendment was placed on the 2010 General election ballot and was a major focus of Daniels’ reelection campaign. In November 2010, voters elected to adopt the tax caps into the Indiana Constitution.

Daniels’ successes at balancing the state budget began to be recognized nationally near the end of his first term. Daniels was named on the 2008 "Public Officials of the Year" by the Governing magazine. The same year, he received the 2008 Urban Innovator Award from the Manhattan Institute for his ideas for dealing with the state’s fiscal and urban problems.

Voter registration

In the 2005 session of the General Assembly, Daniels and Republicans, with some Democrat support, successfully enacted a voter registration law that required voters to show a government issued photo ID before they could be permitted to vote. The law was the first of its kind in the United States, and many civil rights organizations, like the ACLU, opposed the bill saying it would unfairly impact minorities, poor, and elderly voters who may be unable to afford an ID or may be physically unable to apply for an ID. To partially address those concerns, the state passed another law authorizing state license branches to offer free state photo ID cards to individuals who did not already possess another type of state ID.

A coalition of civil rights groups began a court challenge of the bill in Indiana state courts, and the Daniels’ administration defended the government in the case. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state in late 2007. The petitioners appealed the bill to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and that body upheld the State Supreme Court decision in the case of Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. Upon appeal the United States Supreme Court also ruled in favor of the state in April 2008, setting a legal precedent. Several other states subsequently enacted similar laws in the years following.

Reelection campaign

Daniels entered the 2008 election year with a 51% approval rate, and 28% disapproval rate. Daniels’ reelection campaign focused on the states unemployment rate, which had lowered during his time in office, the proposed property tax reform amendment, and the successful balancing of the state budget during his first term.

On November 4, 2008, Daniels defeated Democratic candidate Jill Long Thompson and was elected to a second term as Governor with 57.8% of votes. He was reinaugurated on January 12, 2009. Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza named the Daniels reelection campaign "The Best Gubernatorial Campaign of 2008" and noted that some Republicans were already bandying about his name for the 2012 presidential election. Daniels garnered 20 percent of the African American vote and 37 percent of Latinos in his 2008 re-election campaign. He won with more votes than any candidate in the state’s history.

On July 14, 2010 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Daniels was on hand to help announce the return of IndyCar Series chassis manufacturing to the state of Indiana. Dallara Automobili will build a new technology center in Speedway, Indiana and the state of Indiana will subsidize the sale of the first 28 IndyCar chassis with a $150,000 discount.

Daniels has been recognized for his commitment to fiscal discipline. He is a recent recipient of the Herman Kahn Award from the conservative think tank the Hudson Institute, of which he is a former President and CEO, and was one of the first to receive the Fiscy award for fiscal discipline. A November 2010 poll gave Daniels a 75% approval rate.

Second term

Democrats won a majority in the Indiana House of Representatives in the 2006 and 2008 elections. This caused Indiana to have a divided government, with Democrats controlling the Indiana House of Representatives and the Republicans controlling the Governor’s office and the Indiana Senate. This also lead to a stalemate in the budget debate, which caused Mitch Daniels call a special session of the Indiana General Assembly. The state was faced with a $1 billion shortfall in revenue for the 2009–11 budget years. Daniels proposed a range of spending cuts and cost-saving measures in his budget proposal. The General Assembly approved some of his proposals, but relied heavily on the state’s reserve funds to pay for the budget shortfall. Daniels signed the $27 billion two-year budget into law.