Are Republicans ready to lead in the state Legislature?
If not, they should be preparing.
Predictions of a GOP resurgence nationwide this fall have Democratic lawmakers expecting voters will slim their numbers in Olympia in November — maybe end their majority.
This election may not wind up a political temblor like 1994, when Democrats lost two dozen House seats. Still, if Democrats lose a dozen seats in the chamber, power would be split between the two parties as it was nearly a decade ago.
From the 1994 rubble stepped Seattle’s Frank Chopp, who over time cleared a path for rebuilding the party’s might that’s led him into the ranks of the most powerful House speakers and political figures in state history.
Chopp alone is not the reason Democrats run things in the Legislature. The manner in which he guided the turnaround is instructive for House and Senate Republicans seeking a political reanimation of their own in the next few months.
Outside the Capitol, Chopp went about recruiting candidates and helping get them elected. Once under the dome, he’s advanced a progressive agenda in a pragmatic fashion that’s kept the membership growing and loyal.
Following that cue, Republican Party leaders are out combing communities for candidates capable of capitalizing on a mood and willingness of voters to change some of the guard they’ve installed in office.
Snohomish County, with its open seats and far-from- entrenched incumbents, is ripe for making some gains.
Republican candidates won’t be embraced simply because they are not ‘them’ — ‘them’ being Democrats. They are going to need ideas of their own and a party strategy laying out the different course they would steer the state.
That’s what House and Senate Republicans should be trying to figure out right now. The clearer they can be on what they want to do in the majority, the more it will help GOP hopefuls on the campaign trail.
For example, Republicans have spent darn near the entire session chiseling a hard line against raising taxes. They haven’t been very blunt about whether they will repeal any or all of what Democrats wind up doing. It’s a question voters will want answered.
In education, Republican legislators have embraced merit pay for teachers, charter schools for students and a greater reliance on funding public schools with statewide property tax collections rather than local levies. Should voters feel confident these ideas will get pushed forward?
Republicans have called for eliminating mandates on local government, privatizing state liquor stores, curbing public employee benefits and making state-subsidized assistance programs less generous or disappear completely. Are these to become planks in a Contract with Washington for 2011?
This is all on the minds of lawmakers and fills many conversations.
Rep. Bill Hinkle, R-Cle Elum, a comfortably seated conservative, said the clearest message can be read in their actions in the final days of the session.
“We have to vote the way we would lead,” he said.
Political reporter Jerry Cornfield’s blog, The Petri Dish, is at www.heraldnet.com. Contact him at 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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