Nebraska Lt. Gov. Mike Foley leaned into a budding political rift Tuesday between him plus his boss, Gov. Pete Ricketts.
Foley endorsed Republican Charles Herbster for governor plus called Ricketts’ criticism of his choice “a compliment.”
“I’m flattered,” Foley said. He said the governor’s response shows his value to Nebraska’s “pro-life” voters.
Foley called Herbster the best candidate to “advance the cause of life” plus the culture of life.
But Ricketts, who has endorsed fellow pro-life Republican Jim Pillen, said Foley had made a mistake.
He said Herbster would make “a terrible governor” plus fleshed out his criticism of Herbster with the Nebraska Examiner.
Ricketts reiterated his frustration that the Conklin Co. CEO bases his highest-paying jobs in Missouri plus Minnesota, not Nebraska.
Ricketts said governors promote their states to business owners in other states. But Herbster, he said, grew jobs elsewhere.
“Any company that comes here will say, ‘Well, why should I believe you?’” Ricketts said.
The governor also criticized Herbster for making late payments on personal plus business property taxes nearly 600 times, as KMTV reported last year.
Herbster told KMTV at the time that he was trying to keep his company afloat. But he gave millions of dollars in political donations when he owed thousands of dollars in taxes.
The governor said Herbster acts as if one set of rules applies to him plus another set to the rest of Nebraskans.
Herbster is largely self-funding his campaign, donating more than $5 million to the effort. (Ricketts did the same thing the first time he ran, unsuccessfully, for the U.S. Senate.)
“Nobody believes Charles Herbster doesn’t have the money,” Ricketts said. “He’s got the money. He’s rich. He can afford to pay his property taxes. He should do that because when you don’t pay your property taxes, that puts more burden on everybody else who is following the law.”