To call the decline of the California Republican Party “precipitous” is an understatement. The state GOP is basically dead now. And here is why:
For the first time in 50 years, the Democrats have achieved a supramajority in the State Senate, and it looks like they will also claim that status in the State Assembly with the sad, unexpected loss of Assemblyman Chris Norby, a conservative hero, in an Orange County-based district that should have been held by the GOP.
The policy implications of the Democrats legislative victories Tuesday night are stunning but hardly unpredicted. Sacramento insider and former State Senator Jim Brulte had been urgently warning candidates, consultants and GOP officials that this result would occur – he had been doing so for two years. Brulte called on GOP leaders and consultants for months to do something about the looming disaster. But the state Republican party was not listening. Now, for the first time since Proposition 13 passed in 1978, the Democratic Party, with its control of the Governor’s position and every single statewide constitutional office, can raise taxes regardless of GOP opposition. The legislative Republican party has been rendered meaningless. And that is not an exaggeration – just ask one of the remaining GOP legislators.
Added to this terrible result of last Tuesday’s election are the unfortunate results of the battle over Propositions 30 and 32. $100 million of union spending completely engulfed and overtook efforts to stop the Governor’s own tax increase measure “for the schools” and limit union power through compulsory political dues collections. While the Governor had to put up a good fight to win his tax hike battle, that new tax burden coupled with local sales and parcel tax increases across the state, on top of Obama’s expected “fiscal cliff” Federal tax increases, will put a significant pinch on California taxpayers pocket books at just the wrong time, as California and the nation teeter on the possibility of a “double-dip” recession and increasing unemployment statistics. Elections DO have consequences, and in this regard the old-saw hyperbole of the Democrats to “do it for the kids” as an excuse to grow government is going to lead to even more spending and higher taxes at just the wrong time for our economy, which Republicans will be completely powerless to blunt in the Legislature.
Earlier this month the Secretary of State’s office announced that Republican registration in the state had hit an all time low at just 29%. Campaign finance reports indicated that the state GOP was broke for most of this year – an important campaign year that, as stated above, Jim Brulte had been warning about for years. In August the state GOP even took steps itself to turn around its feeble leadership by stripping the state chairman, Tom Del Becarro, of some spending powers. The state GOP never seemed to get its fundraising act together and focus independently of the state GOP legislative leaders and a handful of business community donors to have its own positive impact. It essentially served as a shell in the 2012 election through which other people and interests did its work. The state party’s failure to understand the depth of its own problems; all predicted, speak volumes for why wholesale changes are needed in the state GOP leadership now.
The state Republican party needs new leadership that understands the reality of California’s electorate. Our electorate is obviously and increasingly diverse, while at the same time the policies and composition of the California GOP remain remote. If the point of the California Republican Party is to win elections, it has to change. More of the same means more defeat.
Fifteen or so years ago the California Republican Party realized it was suffering from a gender-gap. Strong efforts were taken – and I will call them “affirmative action”- to encourage and support women in leadership positions in the party. Today those efforts have proved successful. Connie Conway has served well as the Republican Leader in the California Assembly. GOP Women have increasingly populated elected offices in the State Senate, Assembly, and Congress, and the Party has embraced women candidates for statewide offices as well.
What the California Republican Party must do now to resurrect itself from the dead is realize that demographics have changed in this state and begin embracing Latino, Asian and other minorities in leadership positions in the party and as officeholders in the same manner that the party opened its leadership doors to women some years ago. The Party needs an “affirmative action” program to reinvent itself, if it is ever going to start winning elections again. Enlisting new potential leaders that reflect the diversity of this state will help the party get to a majority by attracting the additional votes needed to match the party’s advantage with white voters. Californians who have not voted for the Republican party in the past need to be given good, rational reasons for why they should register GOP as well. Outreach programs to important new voter groups to explain our fundamental conservative political philosophy as stated in the standard Republican platform, which transcends race and gender politics, but that does not get caught up in the extremes of contentious social issues, is an important first step. The current California Republican Party leadership is “tone-deaf” to the reality of California’s diverse voting population. It needs to try harder to understand the truth of the state voting population and then tailor its message in a manner to build a majority rather than rest on its own, tired, insular messages of an era gone by, that have lost so many recent elections and turned so many Californians away from registering in the GOP.
And “affirmative action” alone is not going to be enough to win elections in future. The San Diego County Republican party saw all their year-long goals evaporate last Tuesday night when Carl DeMaio, its candidate for Mayor of San Diego, a gay hispanic originally from Iowa, lost to Democrat Bob Filner along with the added loses of Brian Bilbray’s Congressional seat and Steve Danon for supervisor. One observer said the wipe-out for the Party in Republican-rich San Diego county had more to do with the rough “litmus test” treatment its consultants rendered to moderate former GOP Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher in the primary, causing him to leave the party, and a “cloak-and-dagger” campaign in the Fall that failed to appeal to the better side of voter attitudes. Diversity alone isn’t the key to winning elections for the GOP in the future, a key is also to project a party that is capable of readily appealing to a majority of voters, which means accepting that fiscal issues and immigration reform are not the only issues on many voters’ minds. Public safety and education are important issues on voters minds, especially those with school age children, and offering these voters little more than a commitment to “charter schools” while changing the subject to the problems of illegal immigration are not likely to win a majority, ever, for the California GOP, in most districts.
If the Republican Party does not change, it will not have a successful statewide candidate for a generation or more. The most serious future opponent of Governor Brown’s re-election will likely not be a Republican, rather, it will more likely be a white candidate who declares “No Party Preference”, a self-funded former Republican, perhaps conservative on fiscal issues and liberal on social issues, perhaps a celebrity, who will count on Republican votes but will deny affiliation to the Party. We have almost been there before…..
This is not time for inaction among Republicans who care about this state, its policies, and the future. Nicodemus said to Jesus, “how can a man be reborn?” Our question today is not whether the California Republican Party can be reborn; to counter one-party tyranny in California, it MUST be reborn.
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