From the Right Corner: Will the Republicans in Olympia get a clue on the Transportation Budget?

In Olympia, EVERY vote needs to be a STRATEGIC vote for Republicans. Right now offers one of those rare opportunities that the Minority must seize to salvage any relevance in this session while preparing for upcoming elections.

As a general philosophy, there are two jobs for a caucus: first is to govern and second is to put/keep themselves in a position to govern.

The mantra must be that Republicans will not return to control by “out-democrating” the democrats.

Going along with their demands for massive gas tax increases has no strategic political or governmental value of any kind. In fact, lying down and rolling on this issue does nothing to provide any alternative to the democrats, disheartening the base and discrediting our message of fiscal accountability. If we give, it must be grudgingly, with substantial reforms to show for it.

There are at least two factors that impact this issue. First, Republicans in both houses are in the minority. Second, King County Republicans frequently engage in liberalism not unlike their democrat counterparts. After all, King County, 1 of 39 counties, will gain about 1/2 of all revenue this tax generates. So, the fact is that King County Republicans will be typically shortsighted while they roll over and act like democrats.

So…. You say, you’ve framed the problem… how do we solve it?

First of all, we keep in mind that as the minority, Republicans must offer an alternative that will carry over at the polls. The question here is, what alternative do we have to offer?

Republicans can hang together on the subject of a referendum clause. Hanging together, the democrats would have no choice but to allow the referendum clause to hang.

Republicans, then, can control the argument as to which party is a true party of the people, unafraid of the will of the people as expressed at the polls.

Media, particularly the leftist media of Puget Sound and Vancouver, will lose their collective minds over the idea that our legislature, trusting the will of the people, will ask their consent to impose the largest single gas tax increase not only in our state’s history, but in the entire history of the United States. As always, when a legislator does what the media wants, they call it “courage,” and if they don’t, the media will call it something else, much less flattering.

Some legislators, I’m told, have been threatened with the removal of their project packages if they vote “no.” Well, we’re early into this process, and, at the committee level, that threat isn’t good enough under any guise to force a vote, one way or the other.

Republicans reading this MUST understand that without a substantial number of Republicans voting for this package, it goes nowhere. The democrats are not about to risk another “slaughter of ‘94” scenario. If Republicans hold this package hostage to a referendum clause, it serves the strategic needs of the caucuses while enabling the people to determine our fate… an idea that I personally have much more faith in than the alternative of leaving it in the hands of Puget Sound legislators, convinced that the southern border of this state is the southern border of Thurston County.