Romney Working with State Legislature

On the October 28, 2012 This Week with George Stephanopoulos show, Newt Gingrich said – Barack Obama would love to have the worked with the legislature as well as Romney did – he worked with an 85% Democratic legislature.

Romney’s term as Governor began January 2003. Per Wikipedia Romney attempted to persuade the legislature to relax state rules to allow outsourcing state services to private contractors and it was rebuffed; he vetoed a funding bill for payment of attorneys representing the poor declaring that it was more important for the state to balance its books than to pay attorneys and the attorneys should provide the services pro bono - MA's court-appointed attorneys were being paid some of the lowest hourly rates in the nation and the cuts provoked outraged attorneys to strike and the plan to remake the court system was unsuccessful. Romney’s approval rating began to drop in April 2004 and a March 2005 poll found that only 32% felt he should be re-elected if he ran for a second term (69% Republicans, 31% Independents and 12% Democrats). In July 2006 Romney offered the assistance of the state police force to municipalities dealing with increased crime rates; his offers were rejected; officials from the Boston Police unions said "if state aid hadn't been cut in recent years, then the city's police force might be staffed adequately to handle the crime surge." With the 2006 budget all 250 line-item vetoes were overturned and for the entire year all of Romney's vetoes of legislative bills were overturned by the Massachusetts Legislature. Even though the state had collected a record-breaking amount of tax revenue in fiscal year 2006, $450 million from the rainy day fund was needed to cover the increased spending for fiscal year 2007. Romney vetoed the transfer of funds; it was overturned by the legislature. In November 2006, Romney used his emergency budget-revision authority to cut the $450 million from the budget saying "One of the primary responsibilities of government is keeping the books balanced. The problem here is not revenues; the problem is overspending…" Later, Romney restored some of the money. Romney issued 844 vetoes as governor and a large share were overturned by one or the other of the state houses. Late in Romney's term, his vetoes began to also annoy Republicans in the legislature and he lost support among them too. 

This does NOT sound like someone who crossed the bipartisan aisle to work with the legislature.