From the WSJ Opinion Archives
CROSS COUNTRY
Virginia's Red State Blues
GOP "moderates" don't really want a big tent.
FALLS CHURCH, Va.--Starting July 1, residents and drivers in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads will be taxed by regional governments in which they have little say or influence. It's all part of a tax hike the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted earlier this year. And it's a sharp break from what the state has allowed in the past.
Previously, local governments had to first get permission from Richmond before imposing new sales taxes. But now, thanks to liberal GOPers in the Legislature, two regional transportation authorities have been given the power to impose, at their discretion, additional levies on consumers and tolls on drivers. Given the appetite for new revenue at all levels of government, this change is likely to be only the start of a new drive among counties and cities for the right to impose similar taxes and fees without permission from the Legislature. Virginia Republicans who supported this revenue grab argue that this is not a tax hike--but voters aren't buying it.
This is not the first tax increase Republicans in Richmond have gotten behind in recent years. Back in 2004 they pushed through a record-setting $1 billion tax increase, much to the delight of then Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat who is now high on the list of potential vice presidential candidates. That tax hike was all the more dismaying because it came not long before the state was found to have a similarly sized surplus--and not long after voters rejected a nearly identical tax hike on the ballot.
That's the backdrop to primary elections that took place earlier this month, when conservatives ousted two incumbent liberal Republican senators and came within 300 votes of unseating the powerful Senate Majority Leader Walter Stosch. Mr. Stosch survived only because he spent $1 million in ads portraying him (wrongly) as a Ronald Reagan conservative. Two other liberal Republicans--Russell Potts and John Chichester--knew they likely wouldn't survive the primaries and are retiring this year instead. All told, the ranks of spend-happy Senate Republicans could be cut in half come November. Who says voters don't have long memories?
"This [primary] election will have a chilling effect on all the content-free Republicans in the state Legislature," says conservative leader Morton Blackwell, a National Republican Committee delegate from Virginia.
If he's right, this will be a much-needed moment of clarity for the state GOP. Richmond Republicans are now in the midst of an identity crisis, not unlike the one suffered by their comrades in D.C. And unless conservative primary voters steer the GOP back to its principles, it's only a matter of time before voters in the general election do it for them. Voters have already elected successive Democratic governors and last November, sent U.S. Sen. George Allen, a Republican presidential hopeful, down to defeat. At some point, Republican losses in statewide elections will stop looking like anomalies and more like evidence of growing Democratic strength.
"No one can explain why [Republicans would do this] even though the budget has doubled in 10 years and the state has a budget surplus," complains Peter Ferrara of the Virginia Free Enterprise Fund. "The Legislature keeps raising taxes."
But the real political unknown is whether liberal Republicans will come to understand that in order to hold onto power it's time for them to start helping conservative Republicans win general election races. The ranks of the liberals are shrinking, but they still exert outsized power because big business, developers and government contractors--consumers of government largesse--prefer tax-hikers. Local business political-action committees actively work against Republican candidates who pledge "no new taxes."
One hero of theirs is state Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., who declared recently that "the sound bites of doing 'no tax' pledges in government is an echo from ill-informed candidates who have never had to sit down and look people in the eye who are requesting money for public education or health care." No wonder voters have trouble distinguishing Republicans from Democrats.
Democrats are giddy over the chance to face a divided GOP in November. They now believe they can win the three seats they need to control the state Senate and are being cheered on by the Washington Post with headlines like this: "GOP Moderates' Losses in Primary Might Aid Democrats." It all seems like a rerun from two years ago, when a conservative ousted a moderate House incumbent in a primary, only to watch moderates sit on the sidelines. When the conservative lost in November, moderates saw it as vindication, saying they were right all along that a conservative couldn't win the district.
Taxpayer advocate James Parmalee says, "We're going to find out in the months ahead just how committed moderates really are to preserving the Republican majority." But we already have an indication from Mr. Potts. He is considering backing the Democrat seeking his seat, because he thinks the conservative GOP nominee is "as close to the lunatic fringe as you can get."
The irony here is that Mr. Potts and his gang of liberals are the same people who have lectured the GOP for years about the need for a Republican "big tent." It seems everyone fits under that tent except for conservatives.
Given the bitterness of this intra-party feud, don't be surprised if Virginia elects a Democratic Legislature in November. If that happens, Republican presidential hopefuls better watch out. This is a must-win state if they are to have any chance of keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
Republicans in the Old Dominion now face this dilemma: They can't survive as a majority party with a pro-tax-and-spend message. But the business groups and moderates of the party won't do any heavy lifting to put conservatives in power.
Perhaps the party's power brokers should remember that the last time Republicans were winning elections was the late 1990s. Jim Gilmore won the governor's mansion in 1997 on the power of his "no car tax" message and two years later led the GOP to take control of the Legislature for the first time in more than 100 years. The reason the party is falling apart now is that that the anti-tax coalition has already fallen apart.
Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
