The New Republican Revolution: “Fundamentally” Transforming The GOP
Should former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) win the Republican nomination for president, the fiery revolutionary seeking to “fundamentally” transform almost everything will have upended the political system anew. Unlike Gingrich’s successful revolution of 1994, his battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party in 2012 might not lead to the White House. But his nomination would overhaul the Grand Old Party, altering it in unexpected and unprecedented ways, and Gingrich would make history once again.
Here’s how:
1. Republicans will no longer belong to the party of order: The long-held tradition of nominating next-in-lines will be broken. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, running for six years, will have been turned out for the unlikeliest candidate — a former congressional leader already rejected and retired by the party with no experience running a presidential campaign. Conservatives, who prize caution, will gamble on a political lightning rod.
2. Town halls and good ground games will be so yesterday: Debates rule, and they helped bring Gingrich back from the political dead. He rocketed to the top of the polls without building a campaign in Iowa or any early states. As he toured the country doing book signings and his documentary screenings he didn’t log the traditional hours on the ground in these places that successful presidential candidates and previous nominees have. Iowans may have insisted on face-time in the past, but Gingrich might well prove that media buzz, social networking sites and stellar performances in nationally televised debates are the new ingredients for winning over voters. 3. Republicans have turned a critical corner on immigration policy: Gingrich’s immigration proposal, to provide longtime, law-abiding illegals with a path to legalization but not citizenship, was expected to sink him. Yet the same Republican voters who scorned Texas Gov. Rick Perry for his willingness to aid illegals seeking a college education in Texas have largely sat quiet over Gingrich’s plan to provide what many hardliners would define as amnesty. If Gingrich becomes the leader of the GOP, the tide will turn on its immigration policy, which could be a huge political problem for Democrats.
4. The revolving door can keep swinging: According to Esquire magazine, in the first half of 2010, before he entered the race, Gingrich’s American Solutions raised more than double the money raised by the Service Employees International Union, making it “the biggest political-advocacy group in America.” His Center for Health Transformation is a for-profit outfit charging fees from healthcare giants, including the largest insurers, of up to $200,000 per year to connect to Gingrich. His $30,000 per month retainer with Freddie Mac proves that highly paid “strategic” advice fattens the wallets of former politicians, whether they call themselves lobbyists or not.
5. Evangelicals will embrace an adulterer: Gingrich polls well with evangelical voters — adultery, divorces and all. Should he win Iowa, and the nomination too, it will be because he won enough of these voters to secure the largest coalition. These voters hate the sin but love the sinner and have moved off of social issues to focus on the economy. And they love Gingrich’s steadfast defense of Israel and tough talk on Iran.
6. Flip-flops are fine for credentialed conservatives: Be it a mandate for healthcare, ethanol subsidies, man’s role in climate change, Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) Medicare reform plan or the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Gingrich has changed his mind on conservative bedrocks. But he is the architect of a conservative victory that brought Republicans back to power after 40 years. Romney is a former governor of Massachusetts.
By: A. B. Stoddard, Associate Editor, The Hill, December 14, 2011
Is Newt Gingrich Just A More Bombastic Mitt Romney?
The Republican primary voters who continue to cast about for a presidential nominee not named Mitt Romney have lately alit on Newt Gingrich as their newest infatuation. Gingrich has plenty of appealing qualities, chief among them that he’s entertaining. But why, exactly, should conservatives prefer him to Romney?
Going down the list of conservative objections to Romney, every one applies equally, if not more so, to Gingrich.
* Support for health-care mandates:
Romney’s embrace in his Massachusetts health-care reform of a requirement that individuals buy health insurance, which he’s refused to repudiate, is his scarlet letter for many on the right; he says he opposes mandates at the federal level but that the provision was right for Massachusetts and promotes personal responsibility.
Gingrich, for his part, has long been a vigorous supporter of mandates — from the 1990s, when many conservatives championed the idea in opposition to Hillary Clinton’s health-reform proposal, to as recently as 2008, when he wrote in his book Real Change: “We should insist that everyone above a certain level buy coverage (or, if they are opposed to insurance, post a bond). Meanwhile, we should provide tax credits or subsidize private insurance for the poor.” In a 2007 Des Moines Register op-ed, Gingrich specifically used the dreaded words “individual mandate,” saying, “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance.”
It’s not clear when Gingrich’s position changed to his current vehement rejection of mandates. As recently as May he was speaking favorably about “some requirement you either have health insurance or you post a bond” — comments that were followed by a hasty retreat the next day: “I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and, I believe, unconstitutional.” In making that statement, Gingrich didn’t explain the dissonance with what he’d said the day before.
* Squishy on abortion:
Romney’s conversion (or flip-flop, depending on your point of view) from pro-choice as a Massachusetts politician to pro-life as a national one is well known. Gingrich has never been vociferously pro-choice, and, unlike Romney, he has now signed the pro-life pledge proffered by the Susan B. Anthony List, which asks candidates to promote anti-abortion legislation, make pro-life appointments and cut off federal funds for abortion providers.
But — as social-conservative purists like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann have lately been pointing out — in his days as the leader of a resurgent House GOP, Gingrich advocated a big tent. In 1990, for example, he said that rather than being strict abortion prohibitionists, the Republican Party ought to “be the party that on balance prefers the fewest abortions possible.” He supported some taxpayer funding of abortion, a stance that his campaign now says he has reversed.
* Squishy on immigration:
In the last debate, Gingrich made an emotional argument in favor of some sort of legalization process for some illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S., particularly those brought to the country as children. The resulting dust-up revealed that Romney’s stance, beneath his many evasions, isn’t materially different: He’d rather talk about securing the border, he doesn’t want lawbreakers to get special treatment, but he also is not in favor of mass deportation. In 2006, he told Bloomberg that he would not have illegal immigrants “rounded up and box-carred out.”
If immigration hawks are looking for a candidate who’ll take a tougher stance than Romney, though, Gingrich’s line in the debate showed he’s not their man. “I’m prepared to take the heat for saying, ‘Let’s be humane in enforcing the law, without giving them citizenship, but by finding a way to create legality so that they are not separated from their families,'” he said.
* Generally squishy — a flip-flopper:
This is the main knock on Romney, from left and right alike — that he changes his positions based on political expediency. While few politicians with long careers have been absolutely consistent, Gingrich has an especially rich history of reversing himself when something he said proved to be unpopular.
To take just a couple of recent examples, in 2008, when being “green” was fashionable, Gingrich recorded a television commercial for an Al Gore project in which he sat on a loveseat with Nancy Pelosi and declared, “We do agree our country must take action to address climate change.” Now that he’s running in a GOP primary that’s hostile to environmental regulation, he’s skeptical that anything needs to be done.
Earlier this year, when the Obama administration hadn’t taken action on the violence breaking out in Libya, Gingrich called for immediate imposition of a no-fly zone. When the administration took his advice, though, he was against it: “I would not have intervened,” he said. As one of his critics noted at the time, it was hard to see this swift reversal as anything other than blind partisanship — knee-jerk opposition to Obama’s stance, regardless of its policy merits.
Gingrich has basically admitted this was the reason for his reversal on health-care mandates: In the 1990s, he told the New Hampshire Union Leader, the individual mandate “was designed to block Hillarycare.” Yet Gingrich maintains that Romney’s flip-flops are objectionable because they were for political reasons, while his have been authentic changes of heart: “I wouldn’t switch my positions for political reasons,” he said recently. “It’s perfectly reasonable to change your position if … you see new things you didn’t see.”
* Not all that conservative, deep down:
Many conservatives suspect that no matter how many conservative positions Romney espouses, deep in his heart he’s just not one of them. It’s a sense based on his record, his current policy proposals (such as an economic plan that gives suspicious emphasis to relief for the middle class), and his general tone and temperament. But Gingrich’s record is hardly that of a right-wing crusader.
The 1994 takeover of the House Gingrich engineered was an enormous victory for the Republican Party, one for which Gingrich is still justly revered in GOP ranks. But he didn’t do it by enforcing conservatism — he couldn’t have. Much of the “Contract With America” — which was, after all, designed to appeal to swing voters — was technocratic. For the landmark achievements he still touts, welfare reform and balancing the budget, Gingrich worked arm in arm — and compromised — with Bill Clinton.
This year, shortly after launching his candidacy, Gingrich didn’t win many Republican friends when he blasted the House Republican budget proposal drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as “right-wing social engineering.” As Ryan said at the time, “With allies like that, who needs the left?” Gingrich quickly repented and now says, “Paul Ryan came up with some very good ideas.” But there’s ample reason to question the true colors of a politician who, early in his career, was a state chairman for the presidential campaign of Nelson Rockefeller — the emblem of liberal Republicanism that sought to halt the rise of conservatives like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. In a 1989 interview, Gingrich called this “the classic moderate wing of the party,” and said it was where he had “spent most of my life.”
So why are the anti-Romney conservatives flocking to Gingrich?
In conversations with Republicans — some Gingrich backers, some not — about why he’s more appealing than Romney, most acknowledge it basically comes down to style. Gingrich’s tone is that of an angry crusader, unlike Romney’s placid assurance. And because Gingrich has such a penchant to say whatever comes into his head, his inconsistencies tend to get chalked up to a lack of discipline rather than cold calculation.
As the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis put it:
Gingrich and Romney couldn’t be more different. Gingrich questions authority, challenges conventional wisdom, and disputes premises. He also has fun. He is winsome. He can be undisciplined. He enjoys politics, and seems to gain energy from engaging in the battles. Romney, on the other hand, is a consummate “adult.” He is highly disciplined. He plays by the rules, accepts reality as it is, and then — within those confines — sets about fixing things as best he can.
It’s also true that if Gingrich and Romney really are so similar on paper, voters might as well pick Gingrich. Perhaps that’s why Romney’s camp sees Gingrich as a threat and will seek to highlight the former speaker’s personal baggage.
But as Gingrich’s current surge enters the closer-inspection phase, many conservatives may discover their infatuation with him is based on equal parts bluster and mythology. In the words of conservative guru Erick Erickson, the RedState.com founder: “The conservative warrior people tend to think Gingrich is, often is not.”
By: Molly Ball, The Atlantic, December 1, 2011
Clearly Constitutional: A Primer on the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act
Nearly three dozen judges have now considered challenges to the landmark Affordable Care Act and the overwhelming majority of these cases have been dismissed. Nevertheless, a single outlier judge in Virginia has embraced the meritless arguments against the new health care law and another judge in Florida also appears poised to break with the overwhelming consensus of his colleagues.
With only a few exceptions, these lawsuits principally challenge the Affordable Care Act’s minimum coverage provision—the provision requiring most Americans to either carry health insurance or pay slightly more income taxes—falsely arguing that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to enact such a provision. It is true that Congress’s authority is limited to an itemized list of powers contained in the text of the Constitution itself, but while Congress’s powers are not unlimited, they are still quite sweeping. There is no doubt that the Affordable Care Act fits within these enumerated powers in three ways, as this issue brief will demonstrate.
Congress has broad power to regulate the national economy
A provision of the Constitution known as the “commerce clause” gives Congress power to “regulate commerce … among the several states.” And there is a long line of Supreme Court decisions holding that Congress has broad power to enact laws that substantially affect prices, marketplaces, or other economic transactions. Because health care comprises approximately 17 percent of the national economy, it is impossible to argue that a bill regulating the national health care market does not fit within Congress’s power to regulate commerce.
Nevertheless, opponents of the Affordable Care Act claim that a person who does not buy health insurance is not engaged in any economic “activity” and therefore cannot be compelled to perform an undesired act. Even if these opponents were correct that the uninsured are not active participants in the health care market— and they are active, of course, every time they become ill and seek medical care—nothing in the Constitution supports this novel theory. Indeed, this theory appears to have been invented solely for the purpose of this litigation. Congress has enacted countless laws which would be forbidden under this extra-constitutional theory:
- Guns: President George Washington signed a law that required much of the country to purchase a firearm, ammunition, and other equipment in case they needed to be called up for militia service. Many of the members of Congress who voted for this mandate were members of the Philadelphia Convention that wrote the Constitution.
- Civil rights: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 compelled business owners to engage in transactions they considered undesirable—hiring and otherwise doing business with African Americans.
- Insurance mandates: The Affordable Care Act is not even the only federal law requiring someone to carry insurance. The Price-Anderson Act of 1957 requires nuclear power plants to purchase liability insurance and the Flood Disaster Protection Act requires many homeowners to carry flood insurance.
- Other mandates: Other laws require individuals to perform jury service, file tax returns, and register for selective service.
The minimum coverage provision is the keystone that holds the Affordable Care Act together
The Constitution also gives Congress the power “[t]o make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” its power to regulate interstate commerce. As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia explains, this means that “where Congress has the authority to enact a regulation of interstate commerce, it possesses every power needed to make that regulation effective.”
The act eliminates one of the insurance industry’s most abusive practices—denying coverage to patients with pre-existing conditions. This ban cannot function if patients are free to enter and exit the insurance market at will. If patients can wait until they get sick to buy insurance, they will drain all the money out of an insurance plan that they have not previously paid into, leaving nothing left for the rest of the plan’s consumers.
Seven states enacted a pre-existing conditions law without also passing an insurance coverage requirement, and all seven states saw health insurance premiums spiral out of control. In some of these states, the individual insurance market collapsed.There is a way out of this trap, however. Massachusetts enacted a minimum coverage provision in 2006 to go along with its pre-existing conditions provision and the results were both striking and immediate. Massachusetts’ premiums rapidly dropped by 40 percent.
In other words, because the only way to make the pre-existing conditions law effective is to also require individuals to carry insurance, that requirement easily passes Scalia’s test.
The link between the minimum coverage provision and the Affordable Care Act’s insurance regulations also sets this law aside from other hypothetical laws requiring individuals to purchase other goods or services. The national market for vegetables will not collapse if Congress does not require people to purchase broccoli, nor will Americans cease to be able to obtain automobiles absent a law requiring the purchase of cars from General Motors. Accordingly, a court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act would not provide a precedent enabling Congress to compel all Americans to purchase broccoli or cars, despite the law’s opponents’ claims to the contrary.
Congress has broad leeway in how it raises money
Congress also has the authority to “lay and collect taxes” under the Constitution. This power to tax also supports the minimum coverage provision, which works by requiring individuals who do not carry health insurance to pay slightly more income taxes. Taxpayers who refuse insurance must pay more in taxes while those who do carry insurance are exempt from this new tax. For this reason, the law is no different than dozens of longstanding tax exemptions, including the mortgage interest tax deduction, which allows people who take out home mortgages to pay lower taxes than people who do not.
Opponents of the Affordable Care Act respond that the minimum coverage provision somehow ceases to be a tax because the new law does not use the word “tax” to describe it, but this distinction is utterly meaningless. Nothing in the Constitution requires Congress to use certain magic words to invoke its enumerated powers. And no precedent exists suggesting that a fully valid law somehow ceases to be constitutional because Congress gave it the wrong name.
By Ian Millhiser, Policy Analyst and Blogger for the Center for American Progress where his work focuses on the Constitution and the Judiciary-January 18, 2011
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