On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 in favor of HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Only eight Republicans – we'll call them the “Enlightened Eight” – voted “aye.” These Republicans were Mary Bono-Mack (CA-45), Mike Castle (DE-AL), John McHugh (NY-23), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2), Leonard Lance (NJ-7), Mark Kirk (IL-10), Dave Reichert (WA-8), and Christopher Smith (NJ-4).
Republicans voting for cap and trade in the year of the Tea Party? You'd think that they'd be dumped in the harbor by now. Instead, they're all doing fine. In fact, to date, not a single one of these Republicans has been successfully primaried by the “tea party” (or otherwise). Instead, we have two – Castle and Kirk – running for U.S. Senate, one (McHugh) who was appointed Secretary of the Army by President Obama, and five others – Bono-Mack, LoBiondo, Lance, Reichert, Smith – running for reelection.
Rep. Lance actually was challenged by not one, not two, but three “Tea Party” candidates. One of Lance's opponents, David Larsen, even produced this nifty video, helpfully explaining that “Leonard Lance Loves Cap & Trade Taxes.” So, did this work? Did the Tea Partiers overthrow the tyrannical, crypto-liberal Lance? Uh, no. Instead, in the end, Lance received 56% of the vote, easily moving on to November.
Meanwhile, 100 miles or so south on the Jersey Turnpike, Rep. LoBiondo faced two “Tea Party” candidates – Donna Ward and Linda Biamonte – who also attacked on the cap-and-trade issue. According to Biamonte, cap and trade “is insidious and another tax policy… a funneling of money to Goldman Sachs and Al Gore through derivatives creating a carbon bubble like the housing bubble.” You'd think that Republican primary voters in the year of the Tea Party would agree with this line of attack. Yet LoBiondo won with 75% of the vote.
Last but not least in New Jersey, Christopher Smith easily turned back a Tea Party challenger – Alan Bateman – by a more than 2:1 margin. Bateman had argued that “Obama knows he can count on Smith to support the United Nations' agenda to redistribute American wealth to foreign countries through international Cap & Trade agreements and other programs that threaten our sovereignty.” Apparently, Republican voters in NJ-4 didn't buy that argument.
Across the country in California's 45th District, Mary Bono-Mack won 71% of the vote over Tea Party candidate Clayton Thibodeau on June 8. This, despite Thibodeau attacking Bono-Mack as “the only Republican west of the Mississippi to vote for Cap and Trade.” Thibodeau also called cap and trade “frightening,” claiming that government could force you to renovate your home or meet requirements before you purchase a home. Thibodeau's scare tactics on cap-and-trade clearly didn't play in CA-45.
Finally, in Washington's 8th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert has drawn a Tea Party challenger named Ernest Huber, who writes that Cap and Trade “is widely viewed as an attempt at Soviet-style dictatorship using the environmental scam of global warming/climate change… written by the communist Apollo Alliance, which was led by the communist Van Jones, Obama's green jobs czar.” We'll see how this argument plays with voters in Washington's 8th Congressional District, but something tells us it's not going to go over any better than in the New Jersey or California primaries.
In sum, it appears that it's quite possible for Republicans to vote for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation and live (politically) to tell about it. The proof is in the primaries.
First off I am quite happy the NRDC is willing to work across the spectrum to defend the environment. There are a lot of moderate and even conservative Republicans (Roscoe Bartlett and Mary Bono-Mack do spring to mind) that care about the environment and are willing to protect it. Secondly it is good news to hear that the environment, particularly defending it from climate change, has become a bipartisan value. That said I do find this quote telling:
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p>But they only live to tell about it when they come from moderate districts to begin with. It is fitting that these are all blue state Republicans, even the more right wing among them. The Tea Party is politically savvy in that it has recognized it has failed to turn blue state Republicans into more right wing fanatics (look at the NY-23 special election), but they have successfully targeted red state Republicans and made them more conservative (Bennet for example), so one hopes that your organization can find innovative ways to reach out to more traditional conservatives in more traditionally conservative areas to ensure that the message truly becomes bipartisan across the political spectrum. It was a conservative, Edmund Burke, who argued that the point of government was “to keep its constitutional promise to pass on the building to future generations”, and we cannot pass on this very government and society to future generations if they very planet it occupies is in mortal danger.
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p>This has been the Republican strategy since 2008. Demand that Dems chase them with giveaways on the proposals in the name of bi-partisanship, and then maybe (but often not) vote for it anyway.
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p>I say don’t waste your time. Get the easiest votes necessary to get the bill passed; don’t waste your time with people who use Al Gore as a pejorative. Legislating doesn’t require unanimity, bi-partisanship, or feel good. Just get the damn votes from whomever you can and move on.
While I agree in the short term this is a good strategy in the long run it is not. The Democrats will not always be in power, despite our best efforts, and it does make sense to make the environmentalist movement a much broader coalition that can survive administration changes. This means targeting the Republican grassroots-particularly the religious right. While we might disagree with them fundamentally on a host of issues a new generation of evangelical leaders are as passionate about conservation and saving the environment as any tree hugger. In fact since they feel the environment is a sanctified manifestation of the Lord’s good graces they might be even more committed to the cause. It is they that can change their party and force it from the grip of big business into the loving embraces of sound policy. No it won’t happen overnight, but the NRDC has to be willing to find these allies and target them now, so when they run the GOP in the next generation they might be more willing to vote on the environment. Roscoe Bartlett is as regressive as they come on national security, women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights, the economy, healthcare, etc. but he is a passionate environmentalist mostly due to his religious beliefs. There will be many others like him in the years to come. Hopefully the next Republican administration will not leave the EPA in the dark for 8 years.
To what extent do those Republicans who refuse to back cuts in greenhouse gas emissions take this stance because they believe there is not problem, and to what extent do they refuse to take a stance because of political fears?
I think the Republicans see the writing on the wall come the November elections and will position “cap and trade” as more “tax and spend.” And they will play off widely-publicized concerns about the pseudo science of global warming. The VP’s recent massage foray doesn’t help the public perception either despite attempts to minimize the fallout. You can also forget about any Republican and quite a few Dems in coal and other energy dependent states.
And on the other side of the aisle we have this from the Boston Globe…
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p>NRA PAC contributions to Federal candidates…
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p>Democrats – $148,450
Republicans – $344,350
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p>So we have a little ying and then a little yang!
started counting broader liberal/conservative votes in their scoring system to turn the screws on Democrats. They did it with one SCOTUS pick, and they’ve suggested they’ll do it with another, despite there being virtually no evidence of a threat to the 2nd amendment.
Possibly by the environmentalist movement.