March 16, 2011 10:41AM # The Tea Party, Real and Imagined By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE In the *Washington Post*, Dana Milbank [rounds up a lot of bills](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gunning-down-immigrants--and-other-democratic-experiments/2011/03/14/ABQVXzZ_story.html?hpid=z6) introduced into state legislatures by conservatives, some of them a bit odd, and blames them all on “the Tea Party.” “Tea Party” has sort of replaced “neoconservative” as an all-purpose pejorative for liberals. Meanwhile, a tiny AP story down in the small type among the nail fungus ads reported some real Tea Party-style news. The [*Miami Herald*](http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/15/2117129/9-of-10-say-yes-to-ousting-alvarez.html) covered it in more detail: > Voters swept Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez out of office by a stunning margin Tuesday \[88 percent\], capping a dramatic collapse for a politician who was given increased authority by voters four years ago to clean up much-maligned county government but was ushered out in the largest recall of a local politician in U.S. history. > > > The spectacular fall from power comes after two years of missteps, ranging from granting top staffers big pay hikes to construction of a publicly funded stadium for the Florida Marlins to implementation of a property-tax rate increase that outraged an electorate struggling through an ugly recession.… > > > Tuesday’s vote served notice that the public is thirsting for widespread reform at County Hall, long dominated by entrenched politicians and insiders. County Commissioner Natacha Seijas was similarly recalled Tuesday in a resounding defeat. For 18 years she represented a district that includes Miami Lakes and Hialeah and was widely regarded as the most powerful politician on the commission. > > > The two ousters come on the heels of Dorrin Rolle’s defeat in November, which marked the first time a sitting county commissioner has been defeated in 16 years. > > > More than 200,000 people cast votes in the election. Miami is no right-wing hotbed. Obama got 58 percent of the vote there. This should worry tax-hikers everywhere. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).