State Senator Dave Cox, of Sacramento, has passed away after a fight against cancer that lasted for over a decade.  Our sympathies and prayers go out to the Senator’s family, staff and friends.  You can read more about his passing on the Sacramento Bee website here.  The th Beee piece calls Cox a "moderate conservative" — but for our part, in a legislature dominated by ultra-liberals, we found ourselves in alignment with Cox all of the time.  At the end of the day, the most defining vote between whether one was a liberal or conservative Republican that came up in the legislature the last decade was the 2009 budget deal, and the passing of the largest tax increase in the history of any state (and the placement of even more taxes as Proposition 1A on the ballot).  Cox was a vote against that, for which he should be praised for standing tall for the taxpayers in his district, and around California.

Much will be written about shortly about the ensuing special election to fill his seat (presumably a big, gnarly showdown between conservative Ted Gaines and moderate Roger Niello, the latter of whom did vote for the aforementioned massive tax increase).

For now, we salute you, Senator Cox, for your years of public service.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.