Politics: Replaying the Last Election
Norquist, Grover G.
by Grover G. Norquist Replaying the Last Election Off-year bouts that set the stage for 2000's main event. T he last off-year elections of the millennium--particularly in Virginia,...
...But this time Gary Polland, chairman of the Harris County GOP, put his and his party's prestige on the line to oppose corporate welfare...
...Given the stakes, Democrats pulled out all the stops in Virginia...
...They field-tested the issues they will use in 2ooo- urban sprawl, education, pro-gun control...
...In the five months before the election, the voter-approval requirement polled between 7 o and 73 percent, while the car tax cut hovered between 61 and 64 percent...
...Pro-taxers who console themselves with the thought that support for the auto tax cut drove backing for the voterapproval requirement are wrong...
...T he last off-year elections of the millennium--particularly in Virginia, Washington state, and Houston last November 2--provide useful lessons for the national election coming up next November 7. The first lesson was that "taxes matter...
...The 1999 budget debate began with a confident Bill Clinton planning to ride roughshod over the new post-Gingrich Republican leadership...
...Actually, no predicting is necessary...
...While proponents spent only $zoo,ooo in fighting for the measure (the big auto companies declined to help), opponents spent more than $2 million trying to defeat it...
...Clinton would sign eight appropriations bills in all, and the final negotiation was only over education funding and foreign aid that was combined in one last bill...
...What will happen in New York if the Conservative Party declines to endorse Rudy Giuliani because of his pro-abortion views...
...This struggle was a microcosm of the coming zooo campaign, where the stakes are control of redistricting of state legislative and congressional seats for the next decade...
...Led by Governor Jim Gilmore, who personally raised $3 million, Republicans picked up a net three seats to gain control of both the State Senate (21Rq9D) and the State Assembly (52R - 47 D and one independent...
...In Houston, an establishment-backed referendum asked voters for $z5o million for a downtown basketball arena...
...The COP tax cut would then only be as large as the income tax surplus revenues...
...Thus Republicans united their "pay down the debt" and "cut taxes" wings while exposing Clinton's spending plans as the threat to Social Security...
...In 2ooo the same rules will apply...
...In 1996, the city had narrowly (5o.2 percent to 49.8 percent) approved taxpayer funding for a baseball stadium...
...Meanwhile, the Republicans passed their tax cut in August and campaigned for it throughout the recess so that the "base" knew that the Republican House and Senate had passed a bill to expand IRAs, abolish the death tax, cut tax rates across the board, and reduce the marriage tax penalty...
...There is a surplus in the Social Security account, the reasoning went, so this money should be "saved" for Social Security reform...
...Then in a press conference just before the election, Washington's Democratic Govemor Gary Locke begged voters not to support the initiative, promising that he had a plan to reduce the auto excise tax...
...Eyman is now organizing a "Son of 695" initiative to limit property tax assessments and roll back any tax hikes pushed through between the November election and January 1, when Initiative 695 took effect...
...If Republicans didn't capitulate to Clinton's demands he would then veto their budget, close the government, and The precedent is now set that final differences can be resolved by an acrossthe-board spending cut...
...This time around the Republican leadership worked hard to pass 13 appropriations bills, so that Clinton would have to veto or sign each bill on its merit...
...These lines have held...
...The ploy backfired...
...The final vote was 54-46 against...
...They ran a series of ads in 12 districts accusing Democrats of wanting to spend the Social Security surplus...
...Anti-tax activist Tim Eyman and an allvolunteer team had gathered a near record 514,14 a signatures to get the two-part initiative on the ballot, well over the a89,ooo signatures required...
...This included $358,000 from several public-employee unions, $95,ooo from Boeing, $55,ooo from Microsoft, $65,cxm from Wyerhaeuser, and $55,ooo from Fisher Companies (a major media conglomerate...
...The losing referendum received 74 percent support in black precincts...
...But then by 58-4 z the voters of Washington state approved Initiative 695, which cuts the state's 2.z percent automobile excise tax to a fiat $3 o fee and requires voter approval of any new state or local tax hikes...
...The Republican counter-strategy had three parts...
...Democrats backed down and even the Republican appropriators (who are also spendaholics) agreed to use all Social Security surpluses to pay down the debt...
...Or nationally, if Pat Buchanan is the Reform Party nominee...
...The first came when Dale Foreman, chairman of the state GOP and now the likely Republican nominee for governor, announced in August that Boeing had threatened to cut support to the Republican Party if it endorsed Initiative 695...
...Clinton's biggest concession was in accepting a 0. 4 percent across-the-board cut on discretionary spending...
...Eyman says there were two turning points...
...In Virginia the GOP already has complete control of redistricting for the decade to come...
...His centerpiece was to press for higher tobacco taxes and adding prescription drug benefits to Medicare...
...Clinton's greatest challenge was the trap he set for himself...
...Clinton vetoed the bill...
...The Democrats' pro-gun control agenda made no inroads, nor were they any more successful on education, where the Republican message of high standards and accountability neutralized the Democrats' normal advantage in the targeted races...
...As it turns out, the auto tax cut was less popular with voters than the prohibition against nonvoter-approved tax hikes...
...DNC spokesman Jenny Backas belittled the GOP's Virginia victory, saying one couldn't read a trend from the loss of three state legislative seats...
...5 percent...
...They cheerfully endorsed the idea of putting Social Security surpluses in a "lock box"- and using the money to pay down the national debt...
...The local black-owned A~can American, which calls itself"the largest circulation black newspaper in the South-central USA," editorialized against Mayor Brown's abuse of the race card...
...A tightly contested state Senate race saw moderate Republican incumbent Jane Woods lose narrowly (13,718 to 13,68o ) to liberal Democrat Leslie Byrne--largely because a conservative pro-lifer ran and received 2,726 votes...
...African-American voting districts were strewn with flyers attacking Polland as anti-black...
...In a variation on 1996 , when he called GOP tax cuts an attack on Medicare, he tried to depict Republican tax-cut proposals as an attack on Social Security...
...But when the press asked to see it, Locke couldn't produce it...
...Second, the campaign Mayor Brown & Co...
...blackmailed is always a winner...
...Republicans constructed two lines of defense: no tax hikes, and no spending of Social Security surpluses...
...5 percent to 19...
...Although Republicans had wanted a one-percent across-the-board cut, the precedent is now set that final differences between the president and Congress can be met not with tax hikes or accounting gimmicks but with an across-the-board spending cut...
...in the state assembly its 5>47 margin will likely grow to 604 o. (Back in 199o Democrats re-drew lines to put 15 Republicans and one conservative independent into 8 seats...
...Then Republicans did not put it back on the table...
...In Virginia, Republicans also learned that third party challengers can kill GOP candidates...
...First, Trent Lott decided he would enter into final negotiations with Clinton with nothing on the table that the Republicans wanted...
...House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt tried desperately but unsuccessfully to get his forces to support a veto...
...Clinton's budget would have increased taxes and fees by $1o8 billion to create 12o new programs for $2o0 billion in increased spending...
...It is now official: Republicans can expect to face this tawdry charge every time they oppose the liberal establishment...
...Since 1994, when Republicans took control of Congress, federal spending as a percentage of the GDP has fallen from 21...
...The American Spectator _9 February 20 o o 61...
...In 1999 they limited non-surplus domestic discretionary spending to only $17 billion...
...Gilmore, who has delivered on his promise to phase out the auto excise tax, countered with the tax issue--in such a way as to address the issue of urban sprawl and long commutes without sacrificing the GOP's advantage on taxes...
...By holding domestic spending down, the Republican Party is the champion of Social Security, the opponent of tax hikes, and the prudent steward reducing the national debt...
...count on the establishment press to explain-as it did in 1995--that the Republicans had actually shut down the government...
...With new districts its narrow z1-19 senate majority will likely grow to 25-15 or more...
...Refusing to be GROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...by Grover G. Norquist Replaying the Last Election Off-year bouts that set the stage for 2000's main event...
...Glinton's real goal, of course, was to avoid a tax cut and put the money aside to be spent later...
...But the campaign was not without effect...
...In 1997, Republicans had paid dearly in higher federal spending to win Clinton's signature on the modest tax cut of that year...
...Republicans had their opening...
...Speaker Denny Hastert, a former wrestling coach, would recognize this shift in position between the Congress and the White House since 1995 as a "reversal...
...The defense bill was passed with Republican priorities overriding Clinton's...
...fVirginia was a dry run for 2000, the budget battle that ended two weeks later was a dress rehearsal for this year's budget fight, which could determine the November 2ooo election...
...Houston Mayor Lee Brown raised $3 million to advertise for the arena...
...As for congressional redistricting, the GOP confidently predicts that new lines will move Virginia from six Democratic 60 Fe b r uary 2 o o o " The American Spectator congressmen and five Republicans to a delegation of seven or eight Republicans and two or three Democrats...
...This year the whip hand was held by Congress...
...Polland raised $400,000 in opposition...
...Refusing to raise taxes, Gilmore has paid for new roads out of existing tax revenue...
...In Houston, opposition to taxpayer-funding of the arena was labeled "racist...
...Glinton's and the Democrats' spending wishes are now pitted against Social Security...
...The biggest prize November 2 was control of Virginia...
...launched against Polland and the Republicans foreshadows the Democratic game plan for 2ooo...
...Enough Democrats were willing to support the bill, which raised military pay 4.5 percent, that a Clinton veto would have made no sense...
...Republicans would be stuck defending Big Tobacco and opposing a popular benefit for senior citizens with a high propensity to vote...
...Clinton's spending priorities were granted only when he found offsetting budget cuts...
...All summer long the Al Hunt wing of the establishment media chanted that the American people no longer desire tax reduction, that Ronald Reagan's silver bullet was now a dud...
...Two lessons here for Republicans: It is wise for the GOP to involve itself in important community issues and not merely get roused during elections for specific candidates...
Vol. 33 • February 2000 • No. 1
