Article by Richard Davis | Washington Research Council | May 19, 2010. Published on Thursday, May 20, 2010 EST.
by Richard S. Davis
Washington Research Council
May 20.–Democrats secured their legislative majorities in Olympia by winning the suburbs in the metropolitan Puget Sound region. Party leaders backed candidates who fit the districts, often fielded from city councils and school boards. The successful strategy frustrated Republicans, who had historically owned the suburban vote.
These predominantly center-left Democrats stood to the right of many of their caucus mates and of the union chiefs who take a proprietary interest in party politics. But with a strong economy, few visible intraparty rifts emerged.
Robust revenue growth allowed lawmakers to boost funding for the schools, expand entitlements and launch environmental protection programs without raising taxes. While the centrists may have worried about sustainability and cost consequences, conflicts stayed within the caucus. There was plenty of elbowroom under the big tent and life was good.
Then money got tight, conflicts got real, and the unions got mad. All of a sudden, the tent was not big enough to accommodate the centrists.
Quick history. In 2009, Democrats rejected several labor priorities and closed the budget gap without a tax increase. In response, the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) adopted a new long-term political strategy. Rather than channeling money through caucus leadership, they set up DIME PAC (for Don’t Invest in More Excuses). They also made sure their scorecards and endorsement processes clearly called out friends and foes.
Although the 2010 session turned out a bit better for them, union lobbyists didn’t get everything they wanted. Some wish lists are too big to fill. So labor stayed cranky. Last week, delegates to the labor council’s Committee on Political Education convention made their endorsements. Only 26 incumbent Democratic legislators, reliable liberals and litmus-test labor votes, got the nod. Labor leaders leveled particular opprobrium at the members of the Roadkill Caucus, self-described moderate Democrats who informally organized to promote pragmatic legislation. Most were from those suburban districts that gave the party the majority.
In his column, WSLC president Rick Bender writes that the “Roadkillers” advocate the same “pro-corporate, anti-government” agenda as the Republicans. He blasts them for “attempting to move their party’s already-centrist agenda to the right, in open opposition to their party’s base constituencies.” So now Democrats are supposed to be in lock step with labor’s definition of base constituencies? What he means by the party’s “already-centrist agenda” is anyone’s guess.
While I like watching a schoolyard brawl as much as the next guy, this is a little over the top. Bender, whose membership includes a lot of public employees, itemizes the centrists’ sins: supporting liquor privatization (common across the country), opposing expanding unemployment insurance benefits (we currently rank among the nation’s most generous states), and wanting state workers to pay a higher share of their health insurance costs (like most of us).
For this apostasy they must be punished. Never mind that, on these issues, the apostates represent their districts.
The unions would undo the strategy that gave Democrats the majority: Win the center, win the election. Roadkill caucus members won’t be replaced by more liberal Democrats.
The political center isn’t a fixed point. The mercurial middle rides the dominant political wave. Two years ago, it was “hope and change” — a referendum on the recession, the war and the rancor of the Bush years, elevated by a charismatic unknown into a transcendent journey into post-partisan politics.
Now we’re looking for something more grounded. There’s no magic, no blank check for government spending, no return to the heady days of the bubbles that showered Olympia with cash and ballooned budgets. It’s a time for prudence. Prudence favors conservatives.
Even the most provincial of us apprehensively watch Europe choke on debt owed to a Grecian yearn for a soft socialism on other peoples’ euros. We look at our mounting federal deficit and fear for our future.
Closer to home, we see the California collapse. Last week, to plug a $19 billion budget hole, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a budget that would turn the spending clock back to 1998 levels, adjusted for population and inflation. Assembly Democrats howl their opposition.
It’s not that bad here, not yet. But voters know that we’re on the same reckless glide path. They will reject labor’s crash course and reward responsibility.
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