How Did We Come to This?

Published June 4, 2013

By Carter Wrenn, Republican political consultant, In Talking about Politics, June 4, 2013

There’re some strange doings going on over in the General Assembly.

For decades, free markets have been an article of faith with Republicans. We don’t like government manipulating markets to pick ‘winners and losers.’

But when Tesla Motors sold eighty fancy electric cars over the Internet in North Carolina, the Automobile Dealers Association strolled over to the General Assembly and asked the Republicans in the State Senate to pass a bill that said Tesla could only sell cars in North Carolina through a dealer.

It was like temptation: The Automobile Dealers have supported Republicans. There’re prominent car dealers in every legislator’s district. The Republican Majority Leader of the House is an Automobile Dealer himself (and probably didn’t relish telling his peers no). Caught between their ideals on one side and their friends on the other – the Republicans passed the bill.

Another long-standing article of Republican faith is less government beats more government – that state government beats federal government and that local government beats them both.

Here the winds are changing too.

A lot of big-city mayors and city councils are made up of Democrats who don’t agree with Republicans and who oppose Republican legislators where they run for office – which naturally leads to ill-will. Which has led to another kind of temptation – Republicans in state government telling Democrats in local governments how to run airports, water systems, draw local school board districts, and set housing standards.

Just so nobody misunderstands, I’m no admirer of the Democratic School Board here in Wake County which the Republicans in the legislature are giving the boot by redrawing the School Board’s districts. It’s not the goal that’s wrong – it’s the means. It’s throwing a principle out the window to satisfy a political temptation.

By Carter Wrenn, Republican Consultant, in Talking About Politics, June 4, 2013

Another longstanding pillar of the Republican creed is personal responsibility. Republicans believe when folks work they should reap the fruits of their labor and when they make a mistake they have a responsibility to fix it. But legislators also get regular visits from folks in their districts who don’t want to face up to their own particular burden of personal responsibility – and who have a specific solution to their problems in mind: Legal immunity. So, again, legislators find themselves with their ideals (personal responsibility) on one side and their constituents and friends on the other – and again, temptation has been hard to resist. Republican legislators sponsored bills to give fruit growers (in their districts) and government employees (in their districts) legal immunity – to relieve them of the burden of personal responsibility.

Finally, for years, Republicans have said the idea that ‘the ends justify the means’ is wrong – that it breeds a shoddy, disreputable, mean kind of politics. But, in a way, that’s the trap we’ve fallen into: We’ve said, If it helps our fruit-grower friends, our car dealer friends, or gives our Democratic foes heartburn, a bit of politics is fine.

Abandoning that principle may be the biggest wind change of all.