Opinion: Cracks in the GOP coalition

Cracks in the GOP coalition

Along with the pay raise debacle, civil war is brewing in the ranks of the state Republican party.

September 25, 2005

Many GOP state legislators anticipate their biggest problem in the 2006 general election will be lingering voter outrage over the pay raise controversy. Maybe so ... but there's increasing evidence that by election time, Republican lawmakers may wish for such a problem.

Indeed, the pay raise contretemps of 2005 may seem a trivial distraction compared to the party-shaking schism of 2006 now being threatened within the state Republican Party.

True, the pay raise firestorm has been a bipartisan affair — directed at both parties and coming from both ends of the political spectrum. Certainly, Democratic leaders, including Gov. Ed Rendell and his party's legislative leaders, were part of the decision-making that led to the pay hike. But the reaction from Democrats and their coalition partners — though critical in part — has not led to the revolt now evident in the Republican Party.

And revolt seems not an immoderate term to use. The opposition to the pay hike from the right has been militant, portending a large and potentially damaging set of political consequences for Republicans. This fury from conservatives has uncovered major cleavages, gaping cracks in the GOP coalition that augur ominous political implications for Republicans far beyond the pay hike controversy and far beyond 2005.

First, some history: Since 1994, the state has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Except for the cyclical party turnover of the governor's office every eight years, Republicans have controlled the state Legislature, the federal House and U.S. Senate delegation, two of the three state appellate courts, and for most of the time, two of the three state row offices.

Republican prosperity has been underwritten by solid and dependable party organization, augmented with a reliable base vote that has more than overcome the nominal GOP voter registration deficit. Internally, the party's organizational structure, both county and statewide, has been mostly coherent and effective. Party squabbles, when they occurred, have been settled quietly, out of public view. Most of the time, ideological differences, power struggles, and petty personality differences have been subjugated to the overall goal of defeating Democrats.

But all could change decisively, because long simmering and sharply defined antagonisms within the party between conservatives and moderates threaten to erupt in what the President of Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Foundation has described as a ''civil war'' about to ''break out into the open.''

Like most civil wars, the causes are complex. Analysis suggests that the pay raise controversy itself is a convenient, but proxy cause of the conflict; deeper and older frictions explain the underlying ferocity that has emerged. In effect, a long-running modus vivendi between conservatives and moderates has broken down. Conservatives seem no longer satisfied to stay in the background, while moderates exercise power and determine policy. Three key Republican constituencies have assumed high profile roles in the emerging party battles:

Young conservatives: These young Republicans, among them many Internet bloggers who have gone well beyond Internet chatter to lead a full scale rebellion against those who voted for the pay hike, including the leaders of their own party. Many of these bloggers express anger and hostility at the Republican establishment, safely ensconced in the seat of power in the state capital. Earlier political battles motivate some of them. In particular, those active in the Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania still nurse anger at Sen. Rick Santorum's lead role in supporting Sen. Arlen Specter's re-election effort against conservative champion Pat Toomey.

Ideological groups: A second challenge has come from ideology-based groups that increasingly have become disenchanted with Republican legislative support for higher state government spending, including Growing Greener II, the state's environmental initiative, and a variety of education and economic development programs.

These organizations include the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference; the Commonwealth Foundation; the Allegheny Institute; the Lincoln Institute; and the Pennsylvania Club for Growth. Their collective argument is that Republicans in Harrisburg now act like big-spending Democrats. Many of them have expressed outrage and dismay over the deals made between Republican leaders in the Legislature and the Rendell administration. To some, the final indignity was delivered when Republican legislative leaders agreed that business taxes would not be reduced this year, prompting acrid criticism from a variety of traditional Republican-oriented business groups. The disaffection among the ideological groups has spawned the candidacy of one of their own, Jim Panyard, for the Republican nomination for governor.

Grassroots activists: The third disaffected group is best described as grassroots activists. Legislators pressured to repeal the pay hike have felt their impact. Grassroots insurgents were in abundance at the recent GOP state committee meeting, where some members lobbied furiously for a resolution condemning the pay raise, though they did not prevail. The grassroots efforts, however, have been effective. Although some Democrats have rejected the hike, more Republicans have done so. Altogether, more than 119 legislators have now announced they will not accept the un-vouchered expenses, a device offered as a way around the constitutional ban on salary increases taken in the term in which they are enacted. Talk radio, with its heavy concentration of conservative and Republican listeners, has been a leader in the repeal, promising to keep the heat on until next year as well, and priming the pump for challenges to legislators who voted for the pay hike.

The necessary question is, how much does any of this matter in the long run? Has the pay hike sprung open a Pandora's Box of mischief and division that will weaken the Republican coalition and allow the Democrats to reverse a decade of decline? Or, more sanguinely for Republicans, will this anger and angst slip away as the 2006 election nears, and contests with Democrat opponents become urgent?

State Republicans have dominated Pennsylvania electoral politics by always finding a way to come together, united against a numerically larger political foe. But this time, that unity does not seem assured. The divisions are real, sometimes bitter and increasingly personal. Moreover, neither Republican moderates nor conservatives seem poised to compromise. Continuing confrontation between rival wings of the party is all but certain.

Moreover, history teaches that aging party coalitions, such as the GOP's, begin to fray after a decade or so in power. Governing has its benefits, but also its costs.

None of this guarantees Republican decline or even erosion of power in Pennsylvania. Even a weakened GOP might still be more than a match for the enfeebled state Democrats. But almost certain is the prospect that state Republicans are entering new and uncharted political waters. They have achieved their daunting successes as a minority party united against a common foe. They are still a minority party, but they are no longer united.

G. Terry Madonna, Ph.D., is professor of public affairs at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster. Michael Young, Ph.D., is managing partner of Michael Young Strategic Research in Harrisburg.

Copyright © 2005, The Morning Call

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