Ideological litmus tests have always been a big feature of Wingnut World, with Americans for Tax Reform chief Grover Norquist’s “pledge” against support for tax increases being the most famous example. Grover’s pledge has been in the news lately, as Senate Republicans grappled with the question of whether a vote to kill tax incentives for ethanol development would run afoul of Norquist, who has always demanded that any revenue-enhancing action to close off a tax loophole be paired with a tax cut to make the action revenue-neutral.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has been trying to secure Republican support for revenue measures (but not tax rate increases) as part of a deficit deal. In a ploy that was almost certainly a direct challenge to Norquist’s authority in the GOP, Sen. Coburn organized a vote to end ethanol subsidies. With some Democratic support, Coburn prevailed in the Senate. But now House Republicans are dragging their feet on any parallel action on ethanol or other corporate tax subsidies, and Norquist is predicting that Coburn is leading the GOP down the road to out-and-out tax increases.
There’s no question that any Grand Bargain on the deficit will involve provisions opposed by Norquist, whether or not they go beyond “tax reform” proposals that offset revenue measures at least in part by rate cuts. What’s unclear is whether violations of Grover’s pledge will form the basis for primary challenges to violators in the future. The last high-profile backslider on the ATR pledge was George H.W. Bush, who in turn had won the 1988 presidential nomination in no small part because Bob Dole refused to sign it.
A different pledge has also made a splash in Republican politics during the last week: a four-plank oath administered to presidential candidates by the hard-core anti-abortion group, the Susan B. Anthony List. Candidates pledge:
FIRST, to nominate to the U.S. federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, not legislating from the bench;
SECOND, to select only pro-life appointees for relevant Cabinet and Executive Branch positions, in particular the head of National Institutes of Health, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Health & Human Services;
THIRD, to advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs, and defund Planned Parenthood and all other contractors and recipients of federal funds with affiliates that perform or fund abortions;
FOURTH, advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion.
The third and fourth planks reflect the current national anti-choice strategy – the fourth promotes a federal version of the laws recently enacted in several states banning abortions after 20 weeks on “fetal pain” grounds.
Five GOP presidential candidates—Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum—immediately signed the SBA pledge. Four—Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson—pointedly did not. Romney refused to sign on grounds that the planks on funding cutoffs and appointments are too broad. Cain rather strangely argued that no president should be pledged to interfere with congressional prerogatives by “advancing” legislation, while Huntsman seems to object to the whole idea of pledges. Bachmann and Santorum quickly attacked Romney’s failure to sign the pledge as another sign of his lack of commitment to the anti-choice cause, and Santorum has also gone after Huntsman.
Keep in mind that with the exception of minor candidate Gary Johnson, all of the Republican presidential candidates embrace a categorical anti-choice position that favors a total ban on abortions regardless of the stage of pregnancy and removal of the constitutionally-established limit on abortion restrictions involving the health of the pregnant woman. The SBA pledge is interesting in that it requires support for specific strategies to reach the agreed-upon goal of a return to the days when virtually all abortions were illegal, along with restrictions on contraceptive measures that right-to-lifers now consider equivalent to abortion.
Because these distinctions aren’t that well-known outside the ranks of anti-choice activism, it’s unclear what if any impact the SBA Pledge controversy will have on actual voters. But it could matter in those early states, such as Iowa and South Carolina, where social conservatives are especially strong. And the flap will certainly become another talking point in the effort to convince conservatives that Mitt Romney cannot be trusted.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore