The Tea Party Patriots plans to use the $1 million it has raised to work on the state and local level, co-founder and CEO Jenny Beth Martin tells Newsmax TV.
“We’re working more at a state and local level with grassroots lobbying,” Martin tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview. “People are used to hearing us talk about the debt and the overspending and the healthcare law in Washington.
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“Now, we’re looking at ways that we can effect change and use state legislatures to create leverage on those same issues, but doing it even more from the ground up,” Martin says.
One way of doing that is continuing to pressure GOP governors to not accept federal government money to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are among at least eight Republican governors who have agreed to expand Medicaid in their states.
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“We want them not to do that,” Martin tells Newsmax. “The tea party groups, especially in Ohio, are putting pressure on Gov. Kasich not to do this — and they’re still reaching out and doing what they can to influence his decision.”
Tea party leaders throughout Ohio had petitioned Kasich to not expand Medicaid, she says.
“We have a real problem where the government is so tightly entangled with what state governments are doing — and they take so much money out of the state that it makes it difficult for states to do what they are supposed to be doing,” Martin says.
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