RALEIGH – An end to bipartisanship? That’s the forecast of some legislators, lobbyists, and commentators I’ve talked to since last week’s primary elections. They are saying that Joe Boylan’s defeat of Rep. Richard Morgan, Marilyn Avila’s defeat of Rep. Rick Eddins, and Willie Ray Starling’s apparent defeat of Rep. Steve LaRoque signified a Republican spanking of anyone who dared work with, even speak to, a Democratic colleague.
They are saying that state GOP officials, major donors such as former Rep. Art Pope of Raleigh, and conservative activists across the state are seeking a monopoly on political power, both within the party and in the General Assembly.
They are saying a lot of rather silly things.
Since Avila has been a longtime employee of mine, and Pope one of the co-founders of the John Locke Foundation, I’m not going to provide an extensive defense of their actions and motivations here. Plus, they don’t need me to do that. It should be obvious that the prevailing take on Tuesday’s balloting among capital city political circles makes no sense. It does not comport, for example, with Avila’s personal demeanor or history. It does not comport with Pope’s history of participating in bipartisan coalitions in the General Assembly and helping to form and fund cross-ideological coalitions in the public policy community. And it does not explain why Republicans with differing views on a variety of hot-button issues – abortion, immigration, school choice, and economic incentives, just to name a few – were in agreement that Richard Morgan and his faction had sabotaged their party’s prospects and the integrity of the legislative process in alliance with ethically challenged House Speaker Jim Black.
Part of the problem here is a chronic bias of the political class in favor of government action. They tend to describe a governmental body as successfully run when it passes things, and as unsuccessfully run when bills get stymied. Thus, the Black-Morgan coalition in the House was judged “successful” because it gave Black a supermajority of votes, a margin that allowed bills to pass more easily. But action is better than inaction only when the legislation is good for the state. Were new corporate-welfare grants good for the state? Was the state lottery? Tax increases? Budgets that stiffed legitimate priorities in favor of pork-barrel programs and economic-development schemes?
In reality, folks tend to praise bipartisanship when they are getting the outcomes they want, and blast it when they aren’t. You can see this among liberal activists, who furiously rip Democrats who voted for the resolution supporting the use of force in Iraq and a bill to reauthorize the Patriot Act. Both measures were enacted by large, bipartisan majorities. Some of the same people who criticize Republicans for straightening out their Richard Morgan mess have been insisting that Democrats resist the Bush administration and the GOP Congress at every turn – on the war, on judges, on many issues.
When bipartisanship truly has the potential to advance causes that people of good faith on all sides espouse, it usually involves process questions. Liberals, moderates, and conservatives should all want more openness, honesty, and fairness in the legislative process – be it in Raleigh, where Democrats have long run the place, or in Washington, where Republicans lately have been. There are, indeed, similarities in what’s wrong in each case. Enacting far-reaching lobbying reforms, ending special provisions in budget bills, and abolishing pork-barrel “earmark” projects would be excellent agenda items for bipartisanship cooperation. The results of last week’s primaries in North Carolina just made this a little more likely, not less so.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.