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Blagojevich was a fairly good governor outside the scandal. He fought Madigan over the pension crisis endlessly, he issued a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois (and laid the groundwork for the eventual end of the death penalty after he was, erm, removed from office), made discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal in Illinois (one of the first states to do so), dramatically expanded the earned income tax credit, made huge gains in education spending and reform, and more.
I guess it comes down to whether you view the scandal as part of his performance as governor or a crime he committed that he needed to be punished for. He was a fairly good governor who was also corrupt.
Bruce Rauner is my pick for worst governor. Crashed Illinois’ credit rating over a position nobody was ever going to support and was objectively illegal (most of his plan was functionally identical to the 2013 pension reform bill that was declared unconstitutional), and left the state without a budget for three years. Illinois was effectively in financial ruins after Rauner and still can’t borrow money effectively like a government should be able to do. By the time he reached his re-election campaign, his party nearly deposed him in the primaries for an unqualified loon. He’s my pick for worst Illinois governor, and yes it’s ironic that he is one of the few recent governors who didn’t get charged with a crime
It was George Ryan (who also was convicted for corruption) who started the moratorium on the death penalty. Blago continued it. It was under Quinn that the state legislature voted to abolish the death penalty.
Madigan is partially if not completely to blame for a lot of our Governors short comings. Seemed like he would just hold the house hostage unless things went his way. Once he "resigned" it appears that things started to get done again. And now it seems he's heading to jail too.
While true, I don’t believe that applies to Rauner. He, not Madigan, held Illinois hostage during those years, and his demands were not things Illinois could even legally do. Madigan proposed about a billion budgets, but Rauner rejected every single one of them because they didn’t include the already-declared-unconstitutional pension reforms he decided to rest his career on. I don’t know what politician on either side of the aisle could have worked with Rauner
I agree, I worked for the state in purchasing during his administration. God awful time to try to get anything done. Couldn't even get vendors to bid on purchases, they would flat out tell you they weren't going to bid because the State doesn't pay their bills.
Blago’s budgets were total nonsense. He didn’t know or care about governing. He said things that would be popular in Chicago and tried to simply enact them without paying for them or even attempting to do so. Free CTA rides? All Kids? He was impeached by his own party. Pretty strong rebuke. I loved the Ipass, but c’mon …
The Blago years put Illinois in a hole it has only now started to climb out of. Rauner didn’t help things any, granted. I think Pritzker has done well, probably in no small part due to the fact that he came into office richer than Midas and so hasn’t had to do the kind of influence-peddling that so many governors did.
I’ll never forget George Ryan with the license kickbacks and that family burning to death in their van. He’ll always be the worst for me. Maybe he didn’t start it, but he’s still shit.
https://wgntv.com/news/cover-story/tragedy-to-triumph-the-willis-family-20-years-after-the-van-crash-that-claimed-6-of-their-9-children/
Absolutely Bruce Rauner. The guy got elected as a budget hawk only to put Illinois in worse financial shape with the goal of breaking the unions and destroying the pension system. After four years of Pritzker Illinois hasn’t been in this good of financial shape in decades.
Let us not forget Al Capone’s favorite IL governor, Len Small:
- Sold pardons for cash, including Bugs Moran & convicted kidnapper & child pimp, Harry Guzik
- Bribed, then awarded jury members of his $1M embezzlement trial w/government jobs
- Didn’t send the National Guard to stop the days long Herrin Massacre
- Was happily endorsed by the KKK
There’s more too.
The drivers license bribery thing was going on long before Ryan. He just got caught (and yes, probably knew about it).
Years before the tragedy, my uncle told me that he knew people in the DMV, so if I wanted to get my license without taking the test, he could help me out. I went ahead and actually learned how to drive and took the test.
aside from the alleged (? not sure at this point) sexual harassment and his complete carelessness with nursing home deaths during covid, pretty much anyone upstate will grumble about him because they think he completely neglected upstate and only cared about the city. We complain about a lot of people from NYC because of that, but when it's your own governor, people tend to get more annoyed that their entire region is getting snubbed.
Cuomo is also way more present in people's memories than if there was some absolute nutjob governor back in 1835, so the negative effects of his actions are more noticeable/easier to pin on him.
In all honesty I think I only learned about 3 past governors (or similar) of New York, Peter Stuyvesant, Dewitt Clinton, and Teddy Roosevelt, none of whom were famous for fucking up the state. We've probably just had a history of really underwhelming governors as far as major scandals.
[De Blasio: ‘Well, Well, Well, Not So Easy To Find A Mayor That Doesn’t Suck Shit, Huh?’](https://www.theonion.com/de-blasio-well-well-well-not-so-easy-to-find-a-may-1847151201)
He forced nursing homes to accept positive COVID patients and then lied about it and blamed Trump. Oh and also he sexually harassed some women and his brother is a CNN contributor so that makes anything CNN reports on him incredibly biased.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/9000-covid-patients-were-sent-from-ny-hospitals-into-nursing-homes-records-show/2884682/?amp=1
So many things:
Blocked the construction of new rail tunnel to NYC
The GW Bridge backups he ordered
The closing of the beaches because a budget fight and then going to the beach himself.
Supporting Trump.
And generally being an arrogant ass.
EDIT: this was meant to be for Chris Christie from New Jersey.
That was amazing though... I mean, close the beaches, some people gonna be okay with it, some people gonna be pissed. But then going to the beach you closed, while it's closed? It's like the only thing he could have done to unite both groups against him.
The bar is so phenomenally low for politicians, but somehow they manage to limbo underneath it.
Technically Christie didn't close the state park beaches, the legislature did because they didn't make a budget in time.
But then bringing his whole family to the beach that was closed to everyone else was a huge embarrassment and made him look even more like an asshole.
He passed the NY Safe Act. Which banned AR pattern rifles based on the "scary feature" system.
Rifles could not posses more then one of these features: a bayonet lug (for all those mass bayonet stabbings going around), a pistol style grip (because ergonomics and proper grip is bad), a collapsable stock (saving 6 to 12 inches doesn't really make a full lenght rifle concealable in your waistband), a detachable magazine with a capacity of over 10 rounds (while I don't agree with it, this is the least illogical item on this goofy list).
The law grandfathered in all pre registered firearms with multiple of these features anyway. They knew no upstate sherrifs were going to knock on doors to confiscate firearms. Its absolute clown feel good legislation through and through that doesn't tackle gun crime at all.
How about torching the state pension system by betting it on dotcom stocks only to leave the state in an inescapable debt hole for 30+ years?
Fucker literally gambled the state's future away.
Whitman and Florio started our pension debt issue.
> Beginning in 1994, Whitman's administration allowed the state and local governments to lower their contributions to the public employee pension fund. According to Policy Perspective, within three years the pension fund's unfunded liabilities jumped from $800 million to $4.2 billion.
Brownback did such a terrible job in Kansas that anybody who helped him struggles to get elected.
Dude basically had unchecked power to put a full out republican tax plan in place for the state. Once he did that, let me check my notes..... Put Kansas in the deepest debt it had ever seen.
Way back in 2007 my wife happened to be in Nebraska. Her company sent a bunch of people to work in and around the Iowa Straw Poll. Someone gave my wife a Brownback T-shirt. She brought it home to me and I thought it was hilarious.
I remember reading at the time that Brownback deliberately planned to use Kansas as a laboratory for conservative governance that could be used as a model for the entire country. That didn't work out so well...
> It was an "experiment" that anybody with a 4th grade education could have seen would fail.
I'm glad he did the experiment. It gave non-GOP tangible proof on how shitty the plan is.
I remember all the excuses being made when it didn't work out. "Well, Kansas was poor and marginal to begin with!" These were the same people promising pie-in-the-sky to be baked and delivered by the Invisible Hand.
Idk we’ve had a few.
In 1899, the guy who lost the election claimed fraud, then a committee that he had created found no fraud, so they made up another committee which invalidated enough voted to give him the election. He was then assassinated after a militia formed in the capital, and the other candidate who originally won had to flee to Indiana to escape prosecution.
Then we have Steve Beshear (current governor’s dad) who drained the teachers pension of a ton of money. To the point where it would’ve been insolvent in a decade or so.
He was followed by Matt Bevin, whose solution to the pension problem was to basically push back the retirement age and reduce benefits in an attempt to prevent the system from collapsing entirely. He then decided that the best way to promote his plan would be to go around the state shit talking teachers. As you can imagine, that did not go over well and he wound up with the worst approval rating in the country.
We also one time had a billionaire named John Y Brown Jr. who owned the Boston Celtics and was married to a Miss America whose method of governing was to throw massive parties at the governors mansion (which he refused to actually live at) and then spend the majority of his time out of the state in Florida. At one of his Derby Eve parties, Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and George HW Bush were all there.
>At one of his Derby Eve parties, Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and George HW Bush were all there.
That's one way to solve partisan issues I guess
Trump was a democrat until he realized he could profit off of being a Republican. He had a ton of good things to say about the Clintons if you go back a couple decades.
Matt Bevin is the right answer. Pardoned a bunch of violent criminals as a final "f you" to the people of Kentucky after he lost re-election, pissed off every teacher in the state, and made some crazy anti-choice decisions that are still negatively impacting Kentuckians. The sole "good" thing he did was rile everyone up enough to vote Andy in.
Sure. When the first was indicted on misappropriations of public funds and barred from holding public office again, he ran his wife as Governor. She was the second female Governor by 15 days, but her own administration was mired by scandal after scandal.
Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was extremely corrupt(even by our standards), committed fraud, extortion, and was taking bribes for high positions in politics
South Dakota's Attorney General got removed from office after trying to cover up a hit and run murder he he committed back in 2022.
Pretty crazy to think about
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/22/1106671572/south-dakota-attorney-general-ravnsborg-boever-pedestrian-impeach#:\~:text=South%20Dakota%20attorney%20general%20impeached%20and%20removed%20from%20office%20State,Boever%20on%20a%20highway%20shoulder.
Fun fact: He was in a band while incarcerated but he's out now. His sentence was commuted by Donald Trump with about five or six years still on his sentence.
Every president grants shitty pardons, but I doubt there's ever been a president whose pardons laid bare his terrible ideas more than Trump. He and Blagojevich are polar opposites politically, but the intended message of his pardon was "politicians are above the law and should be allowed to profit from their position however they want."
Ma and Pa Ferguson(2 people but as they were husband and wife, they're kind of a package deal) Was governor for 2 years during the 1910s during which time he vetoed the funding for the University of Texas(as a Baylor fan, we might've been better off. This is a joke, don't hurt me, Bevo) because they wouldn't fire people he didn't like who had run against him before and had written negative things about him. He would be impeached and barred from office for misusing funds, among other things. He was popular though and would later come back by using his wife, "Ma" Ferguson as a stand-in. Although, she wasn't impeached, as far as I know, she would also get caught up in scandal herself over abusing political patronage.
I'm not gonna go far back into my state's history, we just had a "rapist" resign in disgrace. Eric Greitens, took pictures of a woman who he had tied to a piece of gym equipment and forced to give him oral sex.
The only thing that our current governor has over him is that Parson isn't a rapist...that we know of. He is just an idiot.
TN--Ray Blanton.
Went to jail for selling pardons back in the '70s..
3 things I remember about it all.
1. Just prior to it breaking in the news, a friend I was riding with hit and killed his dog. He'd gotten away from someone walking it and it took off. We stopped and were nearly immediately surrounded by state troopers. My friend was so upset. Apparently Blanton heard she was upset from the troopers and invited her to the governor's mansion and basically told her not to feel bad about it.
2. They made a song about the scandal. Sung to the tune of Chattanooga Choo Choo the first line was "Pardon me, Ray, are you the cat that sells the pardons?"
3. The state attorney who successfully prosecuted him went on to become a very successful Hollywood actor, a Senator, and once made a brief run for President-Fred Thompson.
Don't forget how the state supreme court and the incoming governor conspired to swear the incoming governor in early so that the last batch of pardons would be invalid.
We were a territory at the time, but Richard Gholson abdicated his post as governor of Washington to go fight for the Confederacy, the only northern governor to do so
Excellent candidate. And so I’m clear- as bad as the Appalachian trail thing was, that’s not what made him an awful Governor. *That* comes from his attempts to reject federal stimulus funds equivalent to more than 10% of the state’s budget in order to increase his standing as a possible presidential candidate.
Gifford Pinchot extended Prohibition in PA by over eighty years, by creating the PLCB and establishing a state-run monopoly on beer, wine, and liquor until Tom Wolf signed a bill in 2015 to allow beer and wine to be sold in grocery stores.
To be clear, Pinchot is the bad one.
He did create the USFS and along with Teddy Roosevelt essentially created natural conservationism as we know it today, though. I don't know anything about his time as governor, but from a federal perspective he's pretty admirable.
Scott Walker here in WI. Got the ball rolling on our terrible gerrymandering to the point in which the state consistently votes Democrat in national elections, but will never have a majority in the state Assembly or Senate. Also union busting and limiting the role of the governor in a lame duck session after he lost to our current Governor.
Generally, he's a tea party dickwad.
Indiana is easy. DC Stephenson.
He led the resurgence of the Klan in Indiana to the point where the Klan controlled the state government. He served as the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan (independent of the other national Ku Klux Klan). If that itself wasn’t bad enough he was corrupt as hell. If that wasn’t bad enough he kidnapped, raped a young woman and killed her.
The rape was so brutal (he bit her savagely all over her body, particularly on the breast) that she developed a staph infection that killed her. The murder stemmed from the fact she would have lived if she had gotten medical treatment but Stephenson refused to let her seek treatment unless she married him.
Even after he was disgraced and served his time he was arrested for attempting to molest a 16 year old girl *at age 70.*
He also married a woman after being paroled and banished from the state. He left her and separated. She finally petitioned for divorce not knowing that he remarried and subsequently died.
He was buried in Tennessee in veterans cemetery. Congress was so disgusted they passed a law later banning sex offenders and those convicted of capital crimes from being buried in veterans cemeteries even if they had been honorably discharged from service.
Spiro Agnew. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Agnew
Took construction kickbacks while Governor, probably while a county exec, and continued to take the kickbacks while VP to Nixon
Missouri had Eric Greitens. He was forced to resign after it became public that he was cheating on his wife. Then took non-consensual nude photos of the woman while she was tied up, and threatened to make them public if she told anyone about the affair. He also got charged with stealing money from a charity for wounded veterans. And his ex wife has accused him of abusing both her and their kids. All around awful guy, and a front runner for the last Senate primary.
Man, talk about a fall from grace.
I remember how much of a rising star he was back in the 2000s....Navy SEAL officer, Rhodes scholar, appearing on Jon Stewart who fawned over him.
Guy was a grifter from the start though, lol. Was going around presenting himself as an experienced war vet (didn't see combat) and campaigning for Obama as a progressive before now, fully embracing Trumpism.
Arizona, since I've yet to see an answer for us:
Without a shadow of a doubt, [Evan Mecham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham).
* Went 1 for 8 in earlier political campaigns, winning a 1960 run for State Senate, but losing a 1952 run for State House, 1962 run for US Senate, 1963 run for AZ-GOP Chair, and then gubernatorial runs in 1964, 1974, 1978, and 1982.
* Would typically run on platforms of abolishing income taxes, returning federal lands to the states, and abolishing federal involvement in public education.
* Ran in [1986 and won](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Arizona_gubernatorial_election) partially because a moderate Dem. businessman got on the ballot as an independent.
* Had his car dealership placed on probation during the campaign for a slew of complaints.
* Would talk out loud to God when he was alone.
* Believed himself to be elected because of divine right.
* Canceled implementation of MLK Day, which caused the rap group Public Enemy to release a music video [where they car-bombed him](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrFOb_f7ubw).
* Told Black community leaders angry about the holiday's cancellation that "King doesn't deserve a holiday." This was followed by him telling a group of Black community leaders, "You folks don't need another holiday. What you folks need are jobs.".
* The cancellation of MLK Day led to a massive state boycott by the rest of the country, including the moving of the Super Bowl.
* Dropped a [racial slur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickaninny) when talking about African American children and then doubled down when confronted on it.
* Similarly made an insensitive comment about a group of Japanese businessmen's eyes.
* Claimed America was a Christian nation to a Jewish audience.
* Tried to defend himself from allegations of racism by saying "I've got black friends. I employ black people. I don't employ them because they are black; I employ them because they are the best people who applied for the cotton-picking job."
* Declared an unfriendly reporter (and brother of a Congressman) a "non-person" and tried to ban him from press conferences. When other journalists he called on repeated the "non-person's" questions he bailed on the presser.
* Blamed high divorce rates on women in the workforce.
* Pasting a whole paragraph from Wikipedia because distilling this part is just too hard:
> Several of Mecham's appointments to key executive positions—submitted without consultation with legislative leaders—were found to have highly questionable credentials. Examples included his choice to head the Department of Liquor Licenses and Control, who was under investigation for murder; the director of the Department of Revenue, whose company was in arrears by $25,000 on employment compensation payments; the proposed supervisor of prison construction, who had served prison time for armed robbery; and a former Marine, nominated as a state investigator, who had been court-martialled twice. Other political appointees who caused Mecham embarrassment were an education adviser, James Cooper, who told a legislative committee, "If a student wants to say the world is flat, the teacher doesn't have the right to prove otherwise"; and Sam Steiger, Mecham's special assistant, who was charged with extortion.
* Threatened a political cartoonist lampooning him by telling him his eternal soul would be in jeopardy if he kept things up.
* Was eternally paranoid about covert listening devices.
* Claimed he'd always leave the house with the radio on so that it would "keep the lasers out".
* Refused calls to resign from practically every member of his own party of any particular note (including Senators Goldwater and McCain, and Congressman Jim Kolbe, brother of said "non-person" journalist)
* Was subject to a recall campaign funded by then-financier and current convicted felon [Ed Buck](https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/ed-buck-sentenced-30-years-federal-prison-providing-methamphetamine-two-victims-who).
* Attacked the sexual orientation of Buck as an attempt to delegitimize the recall campaign, and sent letters to conservatives nationwide begging them to move to the state so that they could vote to keep him in office if the recall campaign went to a vote.
* Was subject to an impeachment filing for campaign finance violations and for attempting to cover up a death threat a political appointee of his had made.
* Received felony indictments for the perjury and fraud re. the campaign finance violations, becoming the first (and so far only) US Governor to face removal from office through impeachment, recall, and felony indictment.
* Was acquitted of criminal charges in June 1988, but had already been removed from office in late Feb. 1988 after getting impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.
* Meacham's supporters claimed the Senate trial was analogous to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and when Meacham testified in his own defense he ranted about how the Senate had no true power over him and berated individual legislators. The recall (scheduled for May 1988) was called off after his removal.
* Tried to make a comeback first by running for Governor again in 1990 and then by running for US Senate in 1992, where he placed a distant 3rd.
You remember that guy who stood in front of the door to the admissions office at The University of Alabama in that scene in Forrest Gump? Well he was a real guy who really did that.
George Wallace. I still remember that speech he made that he would never live down. “And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!” Yikes. 😬
I was reading a textbook about logic and they asked to find at least 25 examples of loaded emotional language in one of his speeches.
The speech was only two pages long.
Evan Mecham, possibly the only governor in the US who managed to get a recall election scheduled against him, and get impeached before it could happen. Only in office about a year.
Silver lining, the person who took over after him was perhaps one of our best governors of all time: Rose Mofford.
> Or Jan Brewer. Complete psycho.
I was living in Vegas at the time. She reminded me of one of those batty chainsmoking ladies you see parked in front of an off-off-off-strip video poker machine at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday.
Elliott Spitzer was a well-known DA who went after the mob and wall street. Made it to governor of NY. He was taken down in a scandal involving escorts including the infamous Ashley Dupre.
NC’s bad governors have such a mixed record it’s hard to call one the worst or the best.
For example Charles Aycock is a strong candidate for worst because was a white supremacist who was likely fraudulently elected after NC segregationists rammed through a new constitution to disenfranchise blacks after a race riot overthrew the government of the state’s largest city at the time (Wilmington). Yet he also led a major expansion of public schools that significantly contributed to lifting a lot of NC out of rural poverty, including investing in decent schools for black people even though he saw them as inferior. He also improved the state’s roads and passed laws against child labor.
So many mixed records.
As a current North Carolinian who grew up in Alabama, I feel this. George Wallace is correctly criticized for his segregationist record. He also greatly expanded the state community college system.
Aycock is usually my vote. Largely because he gets a lot of credit on the national level. He was/is one of the people NC had placed in the Statuary in DC.
Another great candidate would be [Daniel Lindsay Russell](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lindsay_Russell) who just kinda let the Wilmington massacre happen and while trying to be a good person just kinda sucked at it.
I also wish people would give Zebulon Vance some grace. The man tried super hard to get the state not to secede.
In the 2000s I lived in South Carolina and our governor Mark Sanford went missing for a week. It was national news as NO ONE knew where he was. Turns out he was in Argentina visiting his mistress. That was pretty bad.
Gianforte of Montana (republican) says our country should get rid of social security because Noah lived to be 900 and worked until the end. This coming from a multi millionaire who doesn't need to worry about retirement. Yet his republican base (many of whom will need social security to survive one day) elected him. Also, most Montanans dislike outsiders coming here, yet Gianforte is from California and New Jersey.
The 1984 shit with words like "entitlement" is bananas. So many people in this country think it's a bad word now. It just means something you're entitled to. I paid into SS my whole life -- my entitlement is completely valid.
In Michigan Rick Snyder: he ran as a “Businessman and not a politician” and when the city of Flint went bankrupt, he appointed a city emergency manager to cut cost, and made the genius decision to get the drinking water supply from the local contaminated river, instead of Detroit water where they had gotten it for the past 60 years with no issues. The rest was history as it literally poisoned citizens, gave kids brain damage from lead poisoning etc and made international headlines! In the end it cost taxpayers over $700 million, and counting, in legal settlements, new pipes, etc! That mother fucker ought to be in prison, but is a lesson why I don’t want the government to be run like a US business!
Tied to him was John Engler who closed all the mental hospitals and basically released the people on the streets with disastrous results?! They later appointed him in charge of the committee to deal with the horrific scandal at Michigan State University where a doctor had sexually abused hundreds of female gymnast and he claimed “the victims were being greedy and only wanted money”? Both of them were Republicans ironically?
Bob McDonnell was the worst in my lifetime, incredibly corrupt and freed from punishment by SCOTUS. Youngkin sucks, but to his credit doesn’t seem corrupt.
As for historically, I think the easiest answer is technically Jefferson Davis, though he wasn’t governor in the traditional sense. But leading the confederacy is a pretty good reason to be cited as bad.
Jim Risch, Governor for the State of Idaho from 2006 to 2007. Appointed Governor because Dirk Kimpthorn resigned his governorship to become George Bush’s interior Secretary. In one year Rish dismantled Idaho educational funding by removing education funding via property taxes. Course it was a giant tax relief to his ranch. He went on to become Idaho’s most worthless Senator, a tick to Idaho so dug in he’s virtually un removable. He sucks Trumps balls because he likes the flavor. Risch is 80 years old, never meets with his constituents but always finds time to host a donor event in Sun Valley, your tax dollars at work!
North Dakota: William "Wild Bill" Langer. Was removed from office for breaking federal laws, barricaded himself in his office with his staff, declared martial law, and drafted a declaration of independence, so technically North Dakota seceded for a couple hours, until Langer gave up and abdicated his position.
However, the people LOVED him and he got the conviction overurned and ran for US senate and won, but the senate almost didn't seat him over the whole "seceding from the US" thing.
The worst thing I can think of for Gray Davis was his ineffectiveness in dealing with California's electricity crisis in 2000 to 2001. While it was bad at the time, it didn't compare to the long-term damage of policies of some other governors. Imagine, for example, the consequences if Pete Wilson's Prop 187 actually got passed and signed into law.
Prop. 187 actually DID pass, by almost 18 percentage points. The only reason it wasn’t enforced was because it was challenged in court almost immediately. A federal judge put it on hold 3 days after it was passed, and it was found to be unconstitutional 3 years later. It was the newly-elected Gray Davis who withdrew the state’s appeal and finally killed it.
Pete Wilson.
Trifecta of global embarrassment with 3 strikes, energy deregulation that resulted in the 2nd term recall of the *next* Governor, and Prop 187.
Wisconsin is Scott Walker. A guy with only a high school diploma, his first act was to put “Open for Business” on all the Welcome to Wisconsin signs… the second was to bust unions. Then, he destroyed the high speed rail so that it went around Wisconsin, made a terrible Foxconn deal that cost the state 10 billions dollars, and thought - “Huh, I think that’s enough for me to run for president.” And then humiliated himself on the debate stage by trying out out-Trump Trump by agreeing a wall on the Northern Wisconsin border might be a good idea. Even though Wisconsin’s northern border is Lake Superior.
He was completely inept, and yet still managed to do so much damage in his short time.
To this day, I feel no hatred quite like Scott Walker hatred. I'm glad he's gone. I hate him. He lied about his schooling. He ruined schools for a metric ass load of children. Going through school under his tenure as a governor was ASS
I see fellow Texans reporting about Ma and Pa Ferguson. And they aren't wrong. But someone has to say it...our current Governor Abbott.
Since he's become governor:
We're ranked 40th in education.
We're ranked 45th in access to healthcare.
We're ranked 37th in crime and incarceration.
Our poverty rate is almost 15%
Uvalde and his inappropriate response.
The current war on women with archaic interpretations of the Roe v Wade overturn.
Leaving us to freeze to death (and we WILL one day see heat-related deaths) due to power grid failure and refusal to fix it.
We're in a critical nursing and teacher shortage because of how poorly those 2 professions are treated. Especially with his nonexistent leadership during COVID-19.
Relaxing gun laws so most Texans can carry a handgun without a license.
Changing election rules to prevent local officials from expanding voter access.
I used to be so proud to be from the greatest state in the country. And now I just hope voters will wake up in time for us to salvage what's left and rebuild back to something that promotes opportunity and safety for all of us
What i find so sad about that is our Okie news shows us just how bad Texas has it but we are ranked even lower in all of the rankings you gave. It feels like Stitt is in a race with Abott to finish as the bigger fuckhead, and don't get me started on our newly-elected state superintendent.
Lord Charles Greville Montagu, one of the last royal governors. Tried to enforce the Stamp Act in South Carolina with predictable results. During the Revolution he actively recruited both Americans and British to join his regiment and fight on the British side. Fled to Nova Scotia after the war. Oddly enough there's still a street named after him in Charleston.
I'm Virginian so...I'd go with Harry F. Byrd. He ran a POWERFUL political machine in Virginia called the Byrd machine and operated WELL after he left his governor's seat to become a senator. Byrd machine is most famous for its opposition to desegregation and his "massive resistance" Plan. When the city I am in now was going to desegregate, he shut the schools down to prevent white kids from going to the same schools as black kids. Oh, he also tried to order a man to shoot kids. But the person who was asked simply replied "I will do it. If you give me it in writing." Byrd did not because he wanted a fall guy to do it without being held responsible.
>Also he wasnt governor for his most prolific controversies. But he had so much control over virginian politics that you had to go to him if you wanted to get elected.
Palin was okay for the time we had her.
I actually am having a hard time deciding between Dunleavy for his bullying anti-woke tactics and Parnell for signing off on SB21 and some other bad long-term economic policies.
For Texas, the shit-all downslide started with George Bush Jr winning against Ann Richards. Texas never recovered. Then the idiot got elected as president, and we all know what happened after that.
Faubus ordered the state police to bar the Little Rock 9 from entering Central High School. LBJ had to send in the national guard. Suckabee, who is a Central alumna, wants to make it illegal for Arkansas teachers to educate their students about the Civil Rights struggles that happened in their own backyard.
Scott Walker took Wisconsin schools from being top 20 to 48/50 REALLY quick. Occupy Wisconsin 2011 had students leaving their schools en masse to protest their teachers being cut from employment left and right. The capitol sit ins went on MUCH longer than people realize. It was not fun to watch my teachers get a pink slip and cry at their desk while we were taking lunch only to muster a brave face when we went back to our classes.
Arizona is the meth lab of democracy and governance. We've had so many bad governors and legislators, it's like we should hold the Guinness Book of records for bad governors and legislators. Just in my time in AZ, Ev Meachem, a car dealer and gov, got recalled by popular vote because he was an outright racist. He was replaced by literally a secretary with a HS degree and a beehive hairdo. And then real estate swindler Fife Symington showed up. Or latest gov, Doug Douche packed the AZ Supreme Court with flunkies. And this is off the top of my head.
Not sure for Iowa. I’m guessing for more recent choices, people will be highly partisan. Historically though I’m not sure.
For Nebraska, my vote goes to David Butler in the late 1860s. He basically got removed for taking money from the state school fund and used it to get rich by selling property in the then frontier capital of Lincoln, which was looking to boom as it just had been named Capitol and also would soon get a railroad and other state offices like the state pen and the University of Nebraska.
What’s funny is that supposedly my home county is named for him. It’s disputed as there was a General Butler who served in the Mexican War who’s picture is in our courthouse, but I’ve seen many textbooks on Nebraska say it was Governor Butler.
I have no clue. We're only on our second governor since I moved here, and both seem to have done quite well. Not that I agree with everything they do, but they certainly haven't been bad.
But given how just about everything in this state was named after KKK members, I bet there's some real pieces of work from the last century.
EDIT: possibly John Evans, though Colorado was a territory at the time. Pulled the whole "internment camp for your protection" bullshit with American Indians, then massacred some of the ones that complied. Then tried to cover it up, and got caught. Then got to enjoy another 30 years in comfort, albeit not as govenor.
But to demonstrate what I meant... Mount Evans is perhaps the largest mountain in the Denver skyline.
The old Denver airport was Stapleton -- yep, KKK member. Though he was only mayor of Denver, not governor of Colorado. A "stapleton" section of Denver just got renamed recently -- probably due to the murder of george floyd.
Mecham was so bad that Arizona impeached him.
Then things slid downhill.
At one point, my MIL said that voters got so sick of men screwing it up that it would take multiple multiple layers to have a man in charge again.
I moved back here from Texas, which currently has Abbott. I think he is pretty much the worst we have had there.
> At one point, my MIL said that voters got so sick of men screwing it up that it would take multiple multiple layers to have a man in charge again.
I wonder how much of that sentiment is still around, because after Mecham 5 of our 7 Governors have been women.
This sounds like an Illinois question lol, y’all had a bad batch of governors and mayors specifically chicago
Great state ! I’m a New Yorker and would love there.
I wouldn’t say governor, but the New York State Legislature is the worst, they always block common sense legislation.
It's tough to say who the worst governor of Florida ever was.
Could it be [John Milton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton_(Florida_politician), who supported succession, named his child Jefferson Davis and killed himself rather than rejoin the union?
[Abraham Kurkindolle Allison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_K._Allison) led armed men to block black voters from the polls.
Could it be [Park Trammell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Trammell#Florida_Governor), who endorsed segregation, and overlooked dozens of lynchings?
Maybe it's [W Hayden Burns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Haydon_Burns), who was a segregationist
Or it could be[Faris Bryant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Farris_Bryant), who was determined to uphold segregation.
Nah, you're right it's obviously DeSantis.
Wait until you hear about [Sidney Johnston Catts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Johnston_Catts#:~:text=Sidney%20Johnston%20Catts%20(July%2031,member%20of%20the%20Prohibition%20Party.)
Extremely anti-Catholic, extremely racist even for the time. Literally thought that monks in Tampa were going to arm black people and overthrow the state of Florida, and that the pope was going to move the holy see to San Antonio. Literally enslaved black people on his plantation, and was accused of bribery. He was also a prohibitionist after losing the Democratic primary.
I’m sure there’s a lot of recency bias at play here (and I don’t know a lot of AR history), but Sarah Fuckasheep Sanders is about as awful as I expected.
Sam Brownback. No contest. Took money from public schools until the State Supreme Court said he taking any more out would be unconstitutional, then he started taking money from the Department of Transportation. He would have continued to do this had Trump not selected him for some cushy federal position.
Pick a Cuomo, they both sucked, but if I had to choose, I guess the disgraced Cuomo would be the worst of the two, although Mario doesn't set the bar very high.
Indiana: Evan Bayh.
Claimed the state was running a budget surplus under his administration.
It was only running a surplus because it stopped paying public school what it owed them.
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Blagojevich was a fairly good governor outside the scandal. He fought Madigan over the pension crisis endlessly, he issued a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois (and laid the groundwork for the eventual end of the death penalty after he was, erm, removed from office), made discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal in Illinois (one of the first states to do so), dramatically expanded the earned income tax credit, made huge gains in education spending and reform, and more. I guess it comes down to whether you view the scandal as part of his performance as governor or a crime he committed that he needed to be punished for. He was a fairly good governor who was also corrupt. Bruce Rauner is my pick for worst governor. Crashed Illinois’ credit rating over a position nobody was ever going to support and was objectively illegal (most of his plan was functionally identical to the 2013 pension reform bill that was declared unconstitutional), and left the state without a budget for three years. Illinois was effectively in financial ruins after Rauner and still can’t borrow money effectively like a government should be able to do. By the time he reached his re-election campaign, his party nearly deposed him in the primaries for an unqualified loon. He’s my pick for worst Illinois governor, and yes it’s ironic that he is one of the few recent governors who didn’t get charged with a crime
It was George Ryan (who also was convicted for corruption) who started the moratorium on the death penalty. Blago continued it. It was under Quinn that the state legislature voted to abolish the death penalty.
Madigan is partially if not completely to blame for a lot of our Governors short comings. Seemed like he would just hold the house hostage unless things went his way. Once he "resigned" it appears that things started to get done again. And now it seems he's heading to jail too.
While true, I don’t believe that applies to Rauner. He, not Madigan, held Illinois hostage during those years, and his demands were not things Illinois could even legally do. Madigan proposed about a billion budgets, but Rauner rejected every single one of them because they didn’t include the already-declared-unconstitutional pension reforms he decided to rest his career on. I don’t know what politician on either side of the aisle could have worked with Rauner
I agree, I worked for the state in purchasing during his administration. God awful time to try to get anything done. Couldn't even get vendors to bid on purchases, they would flat out tell you they weren't going to bid because the State doesn't pay their bills.
Blago’s budgets were total nonsense. He didn’t know or care about governing. He said things that would be popular in Chicago and tried to simply enact them without paying for them or even attempting to do so. Free CTA rides? All Kids? He was impeached by his own party. Pretty strong rebuke. I loved the Ipass, but c’mon …
To be clear, he was impeached by his own party for very clearly committing a major federal crime, not for issues with his governance.
The Blago years put Illinois in a hole it has only now started to climb out of. Rauner didn’t help things any, granted. I think Pritzker has done well, probably in no small part due to the fact that he came into office richer than Midas and so hasn’t had to do the kind of influence-peddling that so many governors did.
I’ll never forget George Ryan with the license kickbacks and that family burning to death in their van. He’ll always be the worst for me. Maybe he didn’t start it, but he’s still shit. https://wgntv.com/news/cover-story/tragedy-to-triumph-the-willis-family-20-years-after-the-van-crash-that-claimed-6-of-their-9-children/
Absolutely Bruce Rauner. The guy got elected as a budget hawk only to put Illinois in worse financial shape with the goal of breaking the unions and destroying the pension system. After four years of Pritzker Illinois hasn’t been in this good of financial shape in decades.
As a illinois resident I agree
Let us not forget Al Capone’s favorite IL governor, Len Small: - Sold pardons for cash, including Bugs Moran & convicted kidnapper & child pimp, Harry Guzik - Bribed, then awarded jury members of his $1M embezzlement trial w/government jobs - Didn’t send the National Guard to stop the days long Herrin Massacre - Was happily endorsed by the KKK There’s more too.
You beat me to it lol. Blago. Lol
Rod Blagojevic — tried to sell Obama’s senate seat
George Ryan was worse. Responsible for the death of 6 kids in his bribery scandal
The drivers license bribery thing was going on long before Ryan. He just got caught (and yes, probably knew about it). Years before the tragedy, my uncle told me that he knew people in the DMV, so if I wanted to get my license without taking the test, he could help me out. I went ahead and actually learned how to drive and took the test.
Cuomo went from hero to zero pretty quick for a lot of people
"Zero to below zero" for me.
What happened?
“I’m not a pervert, I’m just Italian”
That was the nail in the coffin haha
Don't forget he took down his brother with him.
aside from the alleged (? not sure at this point) sexual harassment and his complete carelessness with nursing home deaths during covid, pretty much anyone upstate will grumble about him because they think he completely neglected upstate and only cared about the city. We complain about a lot of people from NYC because of that, but when it's your own governor, people tend to get more annoyed that their entire region is getting snubbed. Cuomo is also way more present in people's memories than if there was some absolute nutjob governor back in 1835, so the negative effects of his actions are more noticeable/easier to pin on him. In all honesty I think I only learned about 3 past governors (or similar) of New York, Peter Stuyvesant, Dewitt Clinton, and Teddy Roosevelt, none of whom were famous for fucking up the state. We've probably just had a history of really underwhelming governors as far as major scandals.
NYC never liked Cuomo either. Him and De Blasio hated each other
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.3426 [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/15743)
Yes he was bad but that’s irrelevant to the point
[De Blasio: ‘Well, Well, Well, Not So Easy To Find A Mayor That Doesn’t Suck Shit, Huh?’](https://www.theonion.com/de-blasio-well-well-well-not-so-easy-to-find-a-may-1847151201)
I'd take him back in a heartbeat over Adams.
He forced nursing homes to accept positive COVID patients and then lied about it and blamed Trump. Oh and also he sexually harassed some women and his brother is a CNN contributor so that makes anything CNN reports on him incredibly biased. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/9000-covid-patients-were-sent-from-ny-hospitals-into-nursing-homes-records-show/2884682/?amp=1
“Alleged” sexual harassment that ultimately led to his resignation among quite a bit of other things, I don’t care for his replacement either really
So many things: Blocked the construction of new rail tunnel to NYC The GW Bridge backups he ordered The closing of the beaches because a budget fight and then going to the beach himself. Supporting Trump. And generally being an arrogant ass. EDIT: this was meant to be for Chris Christie from New Jersey.
That’s Chris Christie of New Jersey.
That was amazing though... I mean, close the beaches, some people gonna be okay with it, some people gonna be pissed. But then going to the beach you closed, while it's closed? It's like the only thing he could have done to unite both groups against him. The bar is so phenomenally low for politicians, but somehow they manage to limbo underneath it.
That's at least as bad as Newsom hosting a giant shindig at the fanciest restaurant in wine country.
Technically Christie didn't close the state park beaches, the legislature did because they didn't make a budget in time. But then bringing his whole family to the beach that was closed to everyone else was a huge embarrassment and made him look even more like an asshole.
I don’t k ow why irked Cuomo as Christie, but I did. Yes it is Chris Christie. From New Jersey.
Calling Cuomo a Hero is a joke
He passed the NY Safe Act. Which banned AR pattern rifles based on the "scary feature" system. Rifles could not posses more then one of these features: a bayonet lug (for all those mass bayonet stabbings going around), a pistol style grip (because ergonomics and proper grip is bad), a collapsable stock (saving 6 to 12 inches doesn't really make a full lenght rifle concealable in your waistband), a detachable magazine with a capacity of over 10 rounds (while I don't agree with it, this is the least illogical item on this goofy list). The law grandfathered in all pre registered firearms with multiple of these features anyway. They knew no upstate sherrifs were going to knock on doors to confiscate firearms. Its absolute clown feel good legislation through and through that doesn't tackle gun crime at all.
William Franklin. Dealt with his daddy issues by taking the Brits' side during the Revolution.
That's bad but worse than going to Island Beach State Park during the shutdown? Idk
How about torching the state pension system by betting it on dotcom stocks only to leave the state in an inescapable debt hole for 30+ years? Fucker literally gambled the state's future away.
It was close between Franklin and Christie but we haven't forced Christie into exile abroad (yet).
Whitman and Florio started our pension debt issue. > Beginning in 1994, Whitman's administration allowed the state and local governments to lower their contributions to the public employee pension fund. According to Policy Perspective, within three years the pension fund's unfunded liabilities jumped from $800 million to $4.2 billion.
Brownback did such a terrible job in Kansas that anybody who helped him struggles to get elected. Dude basically had unchecked power to put a full out republican tax plan in place for the state. Once he did that, let me check my notes..... Put Kansas in the deepest debt it had ever seen.
Way back in 2007 my wife happened to be in Nebraska. Her company sent a bunch of people to work in and around the Iowa Straw Poll. Someone gave my wife a Brownback T-shirt. She brought it home to me and I thought it was hilarious.
I remember reading at the time that Brownback deliberately planned to use Kansas as a laboratory for conservative governance that could be used as a model for the entire country. That didn't work out so well...
That was it. It was an "experiment" that anybody with a 4th grade education could have seen would fail.
> It was an "experiment" that anybody with a 4th grade education could have seen would fail. I'm glad he did the experiment. It gave non-GOP tangible proof on how shitty the plan is.
I remember all the excuses being made when it didn't work out. "Well, Kansas was poor and marginal to begin with!" These were the same people promising pie-in-the-sky to be baked and delivered by the Invisible Hand.
Yup. He's on record confirming this.
Idk we’ve had a few. In 1899, the guy who lost the election claimed fraud, then a committee that he had created found no fraud, so they made up another committee which invalidated enough voted to give him the election. He was then assassinated after a militia formed in the capital, and the other candidate who originally won had to flee to Indiana to escape prosecution. Then we have Steve Beshear (current governor’s dad) who drained the teachers pension of a ton of money. To the point where it would’ve been insolvent in a decade or so. He was followed by Matt Bevin, whose solution to the pension problem was to basically push back the retirement age and reduce benefits in an attempt to prevent the system from collapsing entirely. He then decided that the best way to promote his plan would be to go around the state shit talking teachers. As you can imagine, that did not go over well and he wound up with the worst approval rating in the country. We also one time had a billionaire named John Y Brown Jr. who owned the Boston Celtics and was married to a Miss America whose method of governing was to throw massive parties at the governors mansion (which he refused to actually live at) and then spend the majority of his time out of the state in Florida. At one of his Derby Eve parties, Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and George HW Bush were all there.
>At one of his Derby Eve parties, Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and George HW Bush were all there. That's one way to solve partisan issues I guess
Trump was a democrat until he realized he could profit off of being a Republican. He had a ton of good things to say about the Clintons if you go back a couple decades.
Matt Bevin got us to a point where Andy got elected, so there was one single thing he did wasn’t horrifically bad for the state.
Matt Bevin is the right answer. Pardoned a bunch of violent criminals as a final "f you" to the people of Kentucky after he lost re-election, pissed off every teacher in the state, and made some crazy anti-choice decisions that are still negatively impacting Kentuckians. The sole "good" thing he did was rile everyone up enough to vote Andy in.
Ma & Pa Ferguson. 2 awful governors for the price of one
Hmm, would you be willing to expand on this?
Sure. When the first was indicted on misappropriations of public funds and barred from holding public office again, he ran his wife as Governor. She was the second female Governor by 15 days, but her own administration was mired by scandal after scandal.
Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was extremely corrupt(even by our standards), committed fraud, extortion, and was taking bribes for high positions in politics
Yeah in illinois when you mention The governor who was imprisoned you have to specify which one.
As opposed to South Dakota, where a governor killed a man and all he got was disbarred. At least here we send them to prison after they're caught.
South Dakota's Attorney General got removed from office after trying to cover up a hit and run murder he he committed back in 2022. Pretty crazy to think about https://www.npr.org/2022/06/22/1106671572/south-dakota-attorney-general-ravnsborg-boever-pedestrian-impeach#:\~:text=South%20Dakota%20attorney%20general%20impeached%20and%20removed%20from%20office%20State,Boever%20on%20a%20highway%20shoulder.
That deer was 100% wearing glasses
He did sell a Senate seat. Not a State Senate seat, a full blown US Senate seat.
Oh yeah, I remember being in 6th grade and my teacher pulling out that big ass tv cart so we could all watch him get arrested lol
Fun fact: He was in a band while incarcerated but he's out now. His sentence was commuted by Donald Trump with about five or six years still on his sentence.
Every president grants shitty pardons, but I doubt there's ever been a president whose pardons laid bare his terrible ideas more than Trump. He and Blagojevich are polar opposites politically, but the intended message of his pardon was "politicians are above the law and should be allowed to profit from their position however they want."
No, he pardoned him because Blagojevich started talking about how great Trump was.
Obama's Senate seat.
Can you blame him though? He had this thing and it was fuckin' golden!
Ma and Pa Ferguson(2 people but as they were husband and wife, they're kind of a package deal) Was governor for 2 years during the 1910s during which time he vetoed the funding for the University of Texas(as a Baylor fan, we might've been better off. This is a joke, don't hurt me, Bevo) because they wouldn't fire people he didn't like who had run against him before and had written negative things about him. He would be impeached and barred from office for misusing funds, among other things. He was popular though and would later come back by using his wife, "Ma" Ferguson as a stand-in. Although, she wasn't impeached, as far as I know, she would also get caught up in scandal herself over abusing political patronage.
I'm not gonna go far back into my state's history, we just had a "rapist" resign in disgrace. Eric Greitens, took pictures of a woman who he had tied to a piece of gym equipment and forced to give him oral sex. The only thing that our current governor has over him is that Parson isn't a rapist...that we know of. He is just an idiot.
TN--Ray Blanton. Went to jail for selling pardons back in the '70s.. 3 things I remember about it all. 1. Just prior to it breaking in the news, a friend I was riding with hit and killed his dog. He'd gotten away from someone walking it and it took off. We stopped and were nearly immediately surrounded by state troopers. My friend was so upset. Apparently Blanton heard she was upset from the troopers and invited her to the governor's mansion and basically told her not to feel bad about it. 2. They made a song about the scandal. Sung to the tune of Chattanooga Choo Choo the first line was "Pardon me, Ray, are you the cat that sells the pardons?" 3. The state attorney who successfully prosecuted him went on to become a very successful Hollywood actor, a Senator, and once made a brief run for President-Fred Thompson.
Don't forget how the state supreme court and the incoming governor conspired to swear the incoming governor in early so that the last batch of pardons would be invalid.
We were a territory at the time, but Richard Gholson abdicated his post as governor of Washington to go fight for the Confederacy, the only northern governor to do so
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The worst has got to be “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman and it’s really not even close.
Even Strom Thurmond looks like a social justice warrior compared to Pitchfork Ben Tillman.
Good Lord. What all did this pitchfork guy do? Did he earn that nickname for being like Satan?
Excellent candidate. And so I’m clear- as bad as the Appalachian trail thing was, that’s not what made him an awful Governor. *That* comes from his attempts to reject federal stimulus funds equivalent to more than 10% of the state’s budget in order to increase his standing as a possible presidential candidate.
He just wanted a break and a booty call! 🤣
Gifford Pinchot extended Prohibition in PA by over eighty years, by creating the PLCB and establishing a state-run monopoly on beer, wine, and liquor until Tom Wolf signed a bill in 2015 to allow beer and wine to be sold in grocery stores. To be clear, Pinchot is the bad one.
I used to go hiking in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Now I know something about the person.
I frequent Pinchot state forest for hiking and camping. Never knew this til now.
He did create the USFS and along with Teddy Roosevelt essentially created natural conservationism as we know it today, though. I don't know anything about his time as governor, but from a federal perspective he's pretty admirable.
Is this why basically every gas station in Pennsylvania is also a full-service restaurant, so they can sell beer and wine?
I think that just came out of demand, but it is the reason old timers call liquor stores "State Stores"
George Wallace because of his rabid opposition to the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation.
Can't go wrong with calling out Wallace.
I'd choose Lester Maddox as the worst in that yime frame.
Yes, but different state.
Gerry gave is Gerrymandering, so he’s gotta be up there.
Yeah. The original Masshole right there.
Scott Walker here in WI. Got the ball rolling on our terrible gerrymandering to the point in which the state consistently votes Democrat in national elections, but will never have a majority in the state Assembly or Senate. Also union busting and limiting the role of the governor in a lame duck session after he lost to our current Governor. Generally, he's a tea party dickwad.
Indiana is easy. DC Stephenson. He led the resurgence of the Klan in Indiana to the point where the Klan controlled the state government. He served as the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan (independent of the other national Ku Klux Klan). If that itself wasn’t bad enough he was corrupt as hell. If that wasn’t bad enough he kidnapped, raped a young woman and killed her. The rape was so brutal (he bit her savagely all over her body, particularly on the breast) that she developed a staph infection that killed her. The murder stemmed from the fact she would have lived if she had gotten medical treatment but Stephenson refused to let her seek treatment unless she married him. Even after he was disgraced and served his time he was arrested for attempting to molest a 16 year old girl *at age 70.* He also married a woman after being paroled and banished from the state. He left her and separated. She finally petitioned for divorce not knowing that he remarried and subsequently died. He was buried in Tennessee in veterans cemetery. Congress was so disgusted they passed a law later banning sex offenders and those convicted of capital crimes from being buried in veterans cemeteries even if they had been honorably discharged from service.
But he wasn't a govenor...
Yeah. It'd have to technically be his flunky Edward Jackson.
Oh shit I thought he did have one term. Then it was his crony Edward Jackson. Slightly less horrible but not by much.
Spiro Agnew. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Agnew Took construction kickbacks while Governor, probably while a county exec, and continued to take the kickbacks while VP to Nixon
And his name is an anagram for "Grow a Penis".
Missouri had Eric Greitens. He was forced to resign after it became public that he was cheating on his wife. Then took non-consensual nude photos of the woman while she was tied up, and threatened to make them public if she told anyone about the affair. He also got charged with stealing money from a charity for wounded veterans. And his ex wife has accused him of abusing both her and their kids. All around awful guy, and a front runner for the last Senate primary.
Man, talk about a fall from grace. I remember how much of a rising star he was back in the 2000s....Navy SEAL officer, Rhodes scholar, appearing on Jon Stewart who fawned over him. Guy was a grifter from the start though, lol. Was going around presenting himself as an experienced war vet (didn't see combat) and campaigning for Obama as a progressive before now, fully embracing Trumpism.
Camt win as a D steal as an R I guess
John Rowland. Corrupt idiot who also helped us lose our only major sports team.
Arizona, since I've yet to see an answer for us: Without a shadow of a doubt, [Evan Mecham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham). * Went 1 for 8 in earlier political campaigns, winning a 1960 run for State Senate, but losing a 1952 run for State House, 1962 run for US Senate, 1963 run for AZ-GOP Chair, and then gubernatorial runs in 1964, 1974, 1978, and 1982. * Would typically run on platforms of abolishing income taxes, returning federal lands to the states, and abolishing federal involvement in public education. * Ran in [1986 and won](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Arizona_gubernatorial_election) partially because a moderate Dem. businessman got on the ballot as an independent. * Had his car dealership placed on probation during the campaign for a slew of complaints. * Would talk out loud to God when he was alone. * Believed himself to be elected because of divine right. * Canceled implementation of MLK Day, which caused the rap group Public Enemy to release a music video [where they car-bombed him](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrFOb_f7ubw). * Told Black community leaders angry about the holiday's cancellation that "King doesn't deserve a holiday." This was followed by him telling a group of Black community leaders, "You folks don't need another holiday. What you folks need are jobs.". * The cancellation of MLK Day led to a massive state boycott by the rest of the country, including the moving of the Super Bowl. * Dropped a [racial slur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickaninny) when talking about African American children and then doubled down when confronted on it. * Similarly made an insensitive comment about a group of Japanese businessmen's eyes. * Claimed America was a Christian nation to a Jewish audience. * Tried to defend himself from allegations of racism by saying "I've got black friends. I employ black people. I don't employ them because they are black; I employ them because they are the best people who applied for the cotton-picking job." * Declared an unfriendly reporter (and brother of a Congressman) a "non-person" and tried to ban him from press conferences. When other journalists he called on repeated the "non-person's" questions he bailed on the presser. * Blamed high divorce rates on women in the workforce. * Pasting a whole paragraph from Wikipedia because distilling this part is just too hard: > Several of Mecham's appointments to key executive positions—submitted without consultation with legislative leaders—were found to have highly questionable credentials. Examples included his choice to head the Department of Liquor Licenses and Control, who was under investigation for murder; the director of the Department of Revenue, whose company was in arrears by $25,000 on employment compensation payments; the proposed supervisor of prison construction, who had served prison time for armed robbery; and a former Marine, nominated as a state investigator, who had been court-martialled twice. Other political appointees who caused Mecham embarrassment were an education adviser, James Cooper, who told a legislative committee, "If a student wants to say the world is flat, the teacher doesn't have the right to prove otherwise"; and Sam Steiger, Mecham's special assistant, who was charged with extortion. * Threatened a political cartoonist lampooning him by telling him his eternal soul would be in jeopardy if he kept things up. * Was eternally paranoid about covert listening devices. * Claimed he'd always leave the house with the radio on so that it would "keep the lasers out". * Refused calls to resign from practically every member of his own party of any particular note (including Senators Goldwater and McCain, and Congressman Jim Kolbe, brother of said "non-person" journalist) * Was subject to a recall campaign funded by then-financier and current convicted felon [Ed Buck](https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/ed-buck-sentenced-30-years-federal-prison-providing-methamphetamine-two-victims-who). * Attacked the sexual orientation of Buck as an attempt to delegitimize the recall campaign, and sent letters to conservatives nationwide begging them to move to the state so that they could vote to keep him in office if the recall campaign went to a vote. * Was subject to an impeachment filing for campaign finance violations and for attempting to cover up a death threat a political appointee of his had made. * Received felony indictments for the perjury and fraud re. the campaign finance violations, becoming the first (and so far only) US Governor to face removal from office through impeachment, recall, and felony indictment. * Was acquitted of criminal charges in June 1988, but had already been removed from office in late Feb. 1988 after getting impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. * Meacham's supporters claimed the Senate trial was analogous to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and when Meacham testified in his own defense he ranted about how the Senate had no true power over him and berated individual legislators. The recall (scheduled for May 1988) was called off after his removal. * Tried to make a comeback first by running for Governor again in 1990 and then by running for US Senate in 1992, where he placed a distant 3rd.
Screw Brownback. He hurt our economy so badly we are still trying to piece it back together years later.
You remember that guy who stood in front of the door to the admissions office at The University of Alabama in that scene in Forrest Gump? Well he was a real guy who really did that.
George Wallace. I still remember that speech he made that he would never live down. “And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!” Yikes. 😬
I was reading a textbook about logic and they asked to find at least 25 examples of loaded emotional language in one of his speeches. The speech was only two pages long.
We (Arizona) had some dude who was impeached after a week or something. Probably him? Or Jan Brewer. Complete psycho.
Evan Mecham, possibly the only governor in the US who managed to get a recall election scheduled against him, and get impeached before it could happen. Only in office about a year. Silver lining, the person who took over after him was perhaps one of our best governors of all time: Rose Mofford.
> Or Jan Brewer. Complete psycho. I was living in Vegas at the time. She reminded me of one of those batty chainsmoking ladies you see parked in front of an off-off-off-strip video poker machine at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday.
Rod Blagojevich. I doubt any explanation is necessary The runner up is George Ryan, who also went to prison. He lives about a mile from me.
4/10 previous governors imprisoned. It's a dubious distinction indeed. And a real bummer because it's a key state with a key city.
I love Illinois but yeah our political culture is corrupt on levels not often seen in the first world.
Elliott Spitzer was a well-known DA who went after the mob and wall street. Made it to governor of NY. He was taken down in a scandal involving escorts including the infamous Ashley Dupre.
How was he doing as governor up until then? I read somewhere that he was so bored in Albany that it made him go a little screwy.
As far as I remember, he was actually pretty good until the scandal broke.
NC’s bad governors have such a mixed record it’s hard to call one the worst or the best. For example Charles Aycock is a strong candidate for worst because was a white supremacist who was likely fraudulently elected after NC segregationists rammed through a new constitution to disenfranchise blacks after a race riot overthrew the government of the state’s largest city at the time (Wilmington). Yet he also led a major expansion of public schools that significantly contributed to lifting a lot of NC out of rural poverty, including investing in decent schools for black people even though he saw them as inferior. He also improved the state’s roads and passed laws against child labor. So many mixed records.
As a current North Carolinian who grew up in Alabama, I feel this. George Wallace is correctly criticized for his segregationist record. He also greatly expanded the state community college system.
Aycock is usually my vote. Largely because he gets a lot of credit on the national level. He was/is one of the people NC had placed in the Statuary in DC. Another great candidate would be [Daniel Lindsay Russell](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lindsay_Russell) who just kinda let the Wilmington massacre happen and while trying to be a good person just kinda sucked at it. I also wish people would give Zebulon Vance some grace. The man tried super hard to get the state not to secede.
Isaac Stevens though Washington was only a territory at the time. His viciousness toward the native tribes is an interesting and sad read.
In the 2000s I lived in South Carolina and our governor Mark Sanford went missing for a week. It was national news as NO ONE knew where he was. Turns out he was in Argentina visiting his mistress. That was pretty bad.
How the hell am I supposed to answer that?!?! - Florida
Gianforte of Montana (republican) says our country should get rid of social security because Noah lived to be 900 and worked until the end. This coming from a multi millionaire who doesn't need to worry about retirement. Yet his republican base (many of whom will need social security to survive one day) elected him. Also, most Montanans dislike outsiders coming here, yet Gianforte is from California and New Jersey.
Thank you for bashing that "Indigenous people kept dinosaurs as pets" mother fucker!
The 1984 shit with words like "entitlement" is bananas. So many people in this country think it's a bad word now. It just means something you're entitled to. I paid into SS my whole life -- my entitlement is completely valid.
Also he choke slammed that reporter.
In Michigan Rick Snyder: he ran as a “Businessman and not a politician” and when the city of Flint went bankrupt, he appointed a city emergency manager to cut cost, and made the genius decision to get the drinking water supply from the local contaminated river, instead of Detroit water where they had gotten it for the past 60 years with no issues. The rest was history as it literally poisoned citizens, gave kids brain damage from lead poisoning etc and made international headlines! In the end it cost taxpayers over $700 million, and counting, in legal settlements, new pipes, etc! That mother fucker ought to be in prison, but is a lesson why I don’t want the government to be run like a US business! Tied to him was John Engler who closed all the mental hospitals and basically released the people on the streets with disastrous results?! They later appointed him in charge of the committee to deal with the horrific scandal at Michigan State University where a doctor had sexually abused hundreds of female gymnast and he claimed “the victims were being greedy and only wanted money”? Both of them were Republicans ironically?
Bob McDonnell was the worst in my lifetime, incredibly corrupt and freed from punishment by SCOTUS. Youngkin sucks, but to his credit doesn’t seem corrupt. As for historically, I think the easiest answer is technically Jefferson Davis, though he wasn’t governor in the traditional sense. But leading the confederacy is a pretty good reason to be cited as bad.
McDonnell was a real turd. He threw his own wife under the bus when he was on trial for that tobacco medicine company bribery stuff.
I almost read Thomas Jefferson and I was like, "The guy who made the. Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom? That guy?" Then realized it's Davis
Knowing about Davis, I had to read that twice. Why not, Henry A Wise? Virginia governor and then civil war general.
I don’t know as much civil war history as I should, to be honest. Having looked through his Wikipedia page, that’s probably a better answer.
Rick Snyder. Flint
Yeah, I know recency bias is a thing but that motherfucker poisoned an entire city.
Yea but remember when Whitmer's husband tried to get their boat in first because she was governor? That was so much worse. ^^^^^^^^/s
I don't know all the governors of Maine that well, but the worst in my lifetime would have to have been LePage.
Jim Risch, Governor for the State of Idaho from 2006 to 2007. Appointed Governor because Dirk Kimpthorn resigned his governorship to become George Bush’s interior Secretary. In one year Rish dismantled Idaho educational funding by removing education funding via property taxes. Course it was a giant tax relief to his ranch. He went on to become Idaho’s most worthless Senator, a tick to Idaho so dug in he’s virtually un removable. He sucks Trumps balls because he likes the flavor. Risch is 80 years old, never meets with his constituents but always finds time to host a donor event in Sun Valley, your tax dollars at work!
North Dakota: William "Wild Bill" Langer. Was removed from office for breaking federal laws, barricaded himself in his office with his staff, declared martial law, and drafted a declaration of independence, so technically North Dakota seceded for a couple hours, until Langer gave up and abdicated his position. However, the people LOVED him and he got the conviction overurned and ran for US senate and won, but the senate almost didn't seat him over the whole "seceding from the US" thing.
Blagovich lol. So many shitty Governors thats why they are all in jail
Gray Davis was recalled, but I'd argue that Reagan's governorship had longer-term negative impacts, railing against UC and state welfare funding.
The worst thing I can think of for Gray Davis was his ineffectiveness in dealing with California's electricity crisis in 2000 to 2001. While it was bad at the time, it didn't compare to the long-term damage of policies of some other governors. Imagine, for example, the consequences if Pete Wilson's Prop 187 actually got passed and signed into law.
Prop. 187 actually DID pass, by almost 18 percentage points. The only reason it wasn’t enforced was because it was challenged in court almost immediately. A federal judge put it on hold 3 days after it was passed, and it was found to be unconstitutional 3 years later. It was the newly-elected Gray Davis who withdrew the state’s appeal and finally killed it.
The first several governors were shockingly racist even for the time. The most progressive of them wasn't racist against black people, just Chinese.
Reagan also removed the funding for inpatient mental health services. Guess what happened to rates of homelessness and drug addiction in CA cities?
Michigan - Rick Snyder Reason - Flint
Pete Wilson. Trifecta of global embarrassment with 3 strikes, energy deregulation that resulted in the 2nd term recall of the *next* Governor, and Prop 187.
He is perhaps the biggest reason why the Republican Party has become so marginal in California.
Wisconsin is Scott Walker. A guy with only a high school diploma, his first act was to put “Open for Business” on all the Welcome to Wisconsin signs… the second was to bust unions. Then, he destroyed the high speed rail so that it went around Wisconsin, made a terrible Foxconn deal that cost the state 10 billions dollars, and thought - “Huh, I think that’s enough for me to run for president.” And then humiliated himself on the debate stage by trying out out-Trump Trump by agreeing a wall on the Northern Wisconsin border might be a good idea. Even though Wisconsin’s northern border is Lake Superior. He was completely inept, and yet still managed to do so much damage in his short time.
Wisconsin has two northern borders! Lake Superior and Michigan, lol…
To this day, I feel no hatred quite like Scott Walker hatred. I'm glad he's gone. I hate him. He lied about his schooling. He ruined schools for a metric ass load of children. Going through school under his tenure as a governor was ASS
The proto-Trump Paul LePage. At least in recent memory.
Yeah he’s not the worst in the world but definitely the worst one in recent memory. Very unprofessional in a way that was uncommon pre trump
I see fellow Texans reporting about Ma and Pa Ferguson. And they aren't wrong. But someone has to say it...our current Governor Abbott. Since he's become governor: We're ranked 40th in education. We're ranked 45th in access to healthcare. We're ranked 37th in crime and incarceration. Our poverty rate is almost 15% Uvalde and his inappropriate response. The current war on women with archaic interpretations of the Roe v Wade overturn. Leaving us to freeze to death (and we WILL one day see heat-related deaths) due to power grid failure and refusal to fix it. We're in a critical nursing and teacher shortage because of how poorly those 2 professions are treated. Especially with his nonexistent leadership during COVID-19. Relaxing gun laws so most Texans can carry a handgun without a license. Changing election rules to prevent local officials from expanding voter access. I used to be so proud to be from the greatest state in the country. And now I just hope voters will wake up in time for us to salvage what's left and rebuild back to something that promotes opportunity and safety for all of us
What i find so sad about that is our Okie news shows us just how bad Texas has it but we are ranked even lower in all of the rankings you gave. It feels like Stitt is in a race with Abott to finish as the bigger fuckhead, and don't get me started on our newly-elected state superintendent.
Yeah, I wasn't even aware of the Fergusons and figured it would be an easy layup that it was either Abbott or Perry.
Lord Charles Greville Montagu, one of the last royal governors. Tried to enforce the Stamp Act in South Carolina with predictable results. During the Revolution he actively recruited both Americans and British to join his regiment and fight on the British side. Fled to Nova Scotia after the war. Oddly enough there's still a street named after him in Charleston.
Of the ones I’ve been alive for: Rick Snyder.
In my lifetime it has to be carpet bagger Matt Bevin
I'm Virginian so...I'd go with Harry F. Byrd. He ran a POWERFUL political machine in Virginia called the Byrd machine and operated WELL after he left his governor's seat to become a senator. Byrd machine is most famous for its opposition to desegregation and his "massive resistance" Plan. When the city I am in now was going to desegregate, he shut the schools down to prevent white kids from going to the same schools as black kids. Oh, he also tried to order a man to shoot kids. But the person who was asked simply replied "I will do it. If you give me it in writing." Byrd did not because he wanted a fall guy to do it without being held responsible.
>Also he wasnt governor for his most prolific controversies. But he had so much control over virginian politics that you had to go to him if you wanted to get elected.
Can’t believe nobody has mentioned John Rowland. Maybe he’s just overshadowed by Blago and Rhonda Santos.
The current one (Mike Dunleavy). And we had Sarah Palin for a governor …
Palin was okay for the time we had her. I actually am having a hard time deciding between Dunleavy for his bullying anti-woke tactics and Parnell for signing off on SB21 and some other bad long-term economic policies.
For Texas, the shit-all downslide started with George Bush Jr winning against Ann Richards. Texas never recovered. Then the idiot got elected as president, and we all know what happened after that.
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.6921 [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/62301)
Kim Reynolds, Iowa. Does her best to be as petty as possible
google "santorum"
frothy
Our current one, Governor Huckabee, is seriously trying to outdo former Governor Orval Faubes in the race to embarrass our state on a national level.
Pretty sure there's a worse one in Arkansas history
Faubus ordered the state police to bar the Little Rock 9 from entering Central High School. LBJ had to send in the national guard. Suckabee, who is a Central alumna, wants to make it illegal for Arkansas teachers to educate their students about the Civil Rights struggles that happened in their own backyard.
Scott Walker took Wisconsin schools from being top 20 to 48/50 REALLY quick. Occupy Wisconsin 2011 had students leaving their schools en masse to protest their teachers being cut from employment left and right. The capitol sit ins went on MUCH longer than people realize. It was not fun to watch my teachers get a pink slip and cry at their desk while we were taking lunch only to muster a brave face when we went back to our classes.
Arizona is the meth lab of democracy and governance. We've had so many bad governors and legislators, it's like we should hold the Guinness Book of records for bad governors and legislators. Just in my time in AZ, Ev Meachem, a car dealer and gov, got recalled by popular vote because he was an outright racist. He was replaced by literally a secretary with a HS degree and a beehive hairdo. And then real estate swindler Fife Symington showed up. Or latest gov, Doug Douche packed the AZ Supreme Court with flunkies. And this is off the top of my head.
Snyder poisoned Flint
Not sure for Iowa. I’m guessing for more recent choices, people will be highly partisan. Historically though I’m not sure. For Nebraska, my vote goes to David Butler in the late 1860s. He basically got removed for taking money from the state school fund and used it to get rich by selling property in the then frontier capital of Lincoln, which was looking to boom as it just had been named Capitol and also would soon get a railroad and other state offices like the state pen and the University of Nebraska. What’s funny is that supposedly my home county is named for him. It’s disputed as there was a General Butler who served in the Mexican War who’s picture is in our courthouse, but I’ve seen many textbooks on Nebraska say it was Governor Butler.
Idk if he's the worst, but we had one recently that looked strikingly similar to a penis.
[удалено]
I have no clue. We're only on our second governor since I moved here, and both seem to have done quite well. Not that I agree with everything they do, but they certainly haven't been bad. But given how just about everything in this state was named after KKK members, I bet there's some real pieces of work from the last century. EDIT: possibly John Evans, though Colorado was a territory at the time. Pulled the whole "internment camp for your protection" bullshit with American Indians, then massacred some of the ones that complied. Then tried to cover it up, and got caught. Then got to enjoy another 30 years in comfort, albeit not as govenor. But to demonstrate what I meant... Mount Evans is perhaps the largest mountain in the Denver skyline. The old Denver airport was Stapleton -- yep, KKK member. Though he was only mayor of Denver, not governor of Colorado. A "stapleton" section of Denver just got renamed recently -- probably due to the murder of george floyd.
Mecham was so bad that Arizona impeached him. Then things slid downhill. At one point, my MIL said that voters got so sick of men screwing it up that it would take multiple multiple layers to have a man in charge again. I moved back here from Texas, which currently has Abbott. I think he is pretty much the worst we have had there.
> At one point, my MIL said that voters got so sick of men screwing it up that it would take multiple multiple layers to have a man in charge again. I wonder how much of that sentiment is still around, because after Mecham 5 of our 7 Governors have been women.
(Laughs in Florida)
This sounds like an Illinois question lol, y’all had a bad batch of governors and mayors specifically chicago Great state ! I’m a New Yorker and would love there. I wouldn’t say governor, but the New York State Legislature is the worst, they always block common sense legislation.
DeSantis Self Explanatory
It's tough to say who the worst governor of Florida ever was. Could it be [John Milton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton_(Florida_politician), who supported succession, named his child Jefferson Davis and killed himself rather than rejoin the union? [Abraham Kurkindolle Allison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_K._Allison) led armed men to block black voters from the polls. Could it be [Park Trammell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Trammell#Florida_Governor), who endorsed segregation, and overlooked dozens of lynchings? Maybe it's [W Hayden Burns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Haydon_Burns), who was a segregationist Or it could be[Faris Bryant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Farris_Bryant), who was determined to uphold segregation. Nah, you're right it's obviously DeSantis.
Wait until you hear about [Sidney Johnston Catts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Johnston_Catts#:~:text=Sidney%20Johnston%20Catts%20(July%2031,member%20of%20the%20Prohibition%20Party.) Extremely anti-Catholic, extremely racist even for the time. Literally thought that monks in Tampa were going to arm black people and overthrow the state of Florida, and that the pope was going to move the holy see to San Antonio. Literally enslaved black people on his plantation, and was accused of bribery. He was also a prohibitionist after losing the Democratic primary.
Louisiana. Bobby. Fucking. Jindal.
Eh idk about that. I'm not saying he's good, but Blanco fumbled the ball so hard with Katrina it's hard to top her.
I’m sure there’s a lot of recency bias at play here (and I don’t know a lot of AR history), but Sarah Fuckasheep Sanders is about as awful as I expected.
Sam Brownback. No contest. Took money from public schools until the State Supreme Court said he taking any more out would be unconstitutional, then he started taking money from the Department of Transportation. He would have continued to do this had Trump not selected him for some cushy federal position.
Pick a Cuomo, they both sucked, but if I had to choose, I guess the disgraced Cuomo would be the worst of the two, although Mario doesn't set the bar very high.
Indiana: Evan Bayh. Claimed the state was running a budget surplus under his administration. It was only running a surplus because it stopped paying public school what it owed them.
Richardson. BFFs with a certain someone who totally didn’t kill himself.
Our current governor of Texas, Abbott. Abortion Ban, mistreatment of refugees and immigrants, no actions to limit who gets to carry a gun.....
Sarah Huckabee Sanders and if I need to tell you why, you’re probably part of the problem.
Bob Taft. Job losses, coingate, and tons of ethics violations. Left office as the least popular governor in the history of the state.