The many flavors of Republicans
Appeal to Heaven: Members of this group of Christian lawmakers wear a lapel pen that re-creates a Revolution-era flag featuring a white pine tree and the phrase "Appeal to Heaven." Gen. George Washington flew the flags on colonial ships. Pine Tree lawmakers, as they're also known, try to use their faith as a guide to legislating.
Liberty caucus: Not an official caucus, but rather a group of lawmakers who try to consider legislation through the prism of individual liberties. Very anti-tax, anti-regulation. Much of this group overlaps with Appeal to Heaven.
Nonconformists: These lawmakers keep a toe in several factions but don't necessarily identify with any single one.
Tea party: These champions of the tea party movement can be counted on to oppose taxes and anything that hints at supporting President Barack Obama's policies.
Chamber Republicans: Also known as Establishment Republicans and often labeled RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) by members of the more conservative factions. This group is key for the transportation bill.
OTHERS:
Backbenchers: Those members who don't ever seem to get involved in big issues or sponsor important legislation. Can likely be swayed to join one side or the other.
Rural: Lawmakers, primarily from Middle and South Georgia who look askance at Atlanta-centric bills, including efforts to fund MARTA.
Statewide ambition: Legislators who see themselves one day occupying statewide or federal office, they will be extremely careful to gauge the way the wind is blowing before casting a vote on any tax increase.
Comprehensive coverage
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There are 157 Republicans in the 236-member Georgia General Assembly. They have the clout to pass almost anything.
But there’s one big problem. Policywise, Georgia Republicans increasingly don’t get along.
It will make compromise and negotiation crucial as lawmakers embark on one of the most important legislative sessions in years, with almost everyone in the Capitol agreeing that Georgia needs more money for transportation, but little agreement on how to find it. While some have suggested a tax increase is necessary, divisions have already appeared on the issue, illustrating that Republican dominance no longer tells the whole story of GOP rule in Georgia.
Much like Democrats at the end of their reign late last century, the modern Republican majority is fractious. There are tea party Republicans, liberty Republicans, social conservative Republicans, old-school Republicans and, well, Republicans who are Republicans because they have to get re-elected.
The differences within the GOP caucuses have become inflamed before. Religious liberty bills introduced last year flared hot and quick and threaten to do so again this session. Tea party advocates, angry with Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, launched a scorched-earth campaign against him in last year’s primaries.
Intraparty fights are inevitable, said Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell.
“Parties are more polarized,” he said. “You have conservative, ultraconservative, down to moderately conservative” Republicans in the Legislature, he said, adding that “we have one or two closeted liberals.”
Powell, the chairman of the Public Safety Committee, was first elected in 1990 as a Democrat, when then-Speaker Tom Murphy, D-Bremen, commanded a House that featured 144 Democrats and 36 Republicans. The GOP today has 117 members in the House (soon to be 119 after two Feb. 3 runoffs) and a 38-member supermajority in the Senate.
This varied group may often vote together, but typically only because of compromises hammered out behind closed doors before bills come to a vote. If legislative leaders are serious about passing true, substantive measures this year that include any tax increase — hint: a $1.5 billion fix for the state’s ailing transportation system — it will require leaders in the House and Senate to cobble together a coalition made up of bits and pieces of all those myriad factions.
And, likely, even Democrats.
“You’re going to have people on the far left and the far right and, at the end of the day, the issue gets developed in a way that ultimately makes for good public policy,” said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who presides over the state Senate and is the first Republican ever elected to Georgia’s second-highest office.
Today's Republicans are not all alike, just as all Democrats were not alike in their heyday. And it's not just the GOP that is trying to get its act together. Democratic leaders, eager to play spoiler, have been working to bridge a strategic divide that has hampered past efforts to influence policy.
The stakes are high. A recent report from a special study committee said Georgia needs up to $1.5 billion in new revenue every year just to maintain current infrastructure and more than $5 billion to meet all transportation needs. Cagle, Ralston and Gov. Nathan Deal have all said they support increased revenue for transportation, yet none have committed to a particular plan to generate it.
The study committee report offered a series of options, including raising the gas tax and increasing the state sales tax.
Outside advocates, including the Metro Atlanta Chamber, are leaving the details to lawmakers but say government needs to act now.
“It’s a responsible thing that we as regional and state leaders ought to be doing,” said Dave Williams, the vice president of infrastructure and governmental affairs at the chamber.
“It,” in this case, is raising $1.5 billion in new funding ever year. That would help fix existing roads and, the chamber hopes, allow for maintenance and expansion of transit. Williams said the chamber stands ready to help support lawmakers who get it done.
“The chamber wants to support legislators and leaders who are looking to the future and helping make decisions in a forward-looking, responsible way,” Williams said.
Kelly McCutchen, president of the conservative-leaning Georgia Public Policy Foundation, urged lawmakers to act, but act carefully.
“Pass what you can agree on first,” McCutchen said, “and then we can debate the more controversial things.”
While McCutchen’s group agrees more revenue is needed for transportation, it says options exist other than direct tax increases.
While legislation that has leadership's blessing is expected to be introduced in the House this week, a counterproposal has already been launched. Rep. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, has filed House Bill 60, which would move existing gas tax revenue from the state general fund to the Department of Transportation, gradually raise motor fuel exicse taxes and lower the income tax.
And therein lies the rub: getting Republicans to vote for a tax increase will be difficult, to say the least.
"We need to take care of some of these big-ticket items that everybody's talking about, transportation certainly chiefly among those," said state Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, who has shown an independent streak in his chamber. "But, again, I think it's the way you go about it. We need to take a hard look at where we can save money, whether that's through restructuring some tax breaks that are out there, looking at how we manage state Medicaid — there's some awfully big dollars out there that I think we need to look at before we start talking about raising anyone's taxes."
But before any bill increasing taxes — or swapping them — gets to the Senate, it would have to pass the House, where some members are already raising concerns.
"I'd be hard-pressed to support any tax increase without any associated tax cut," said state Rep. Kevin Cooke, R-Carrollton, a member of the unofficial "Pine Tree caucus" in the House. Members of this group of Christian lawmakers wear a lapel pin that re-creates a Revolution-era flag featuring a white pine tree and the phrase "Appeal to Heaven." Gen. George Washington flew the flags on colonial ships.
“I’ve made promises to my constituents,” Cooke said.
A number of House and Senate Republicans have also made promises to Grover Norquist, the powerful head of the Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform. That group urges lawmakers to sign a pledge vowing not to raise taxes. In 2014, 31 Georgia House members signed it, as well as eight state senators.
The pledge is "a defining factor for a significant set of members," said state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs.
Still, he said, Ralston “has got such a handle and knowledge of how to piece together a coalition by understanding those disparate elements.”
The speaker needs 91 votes to pass a bill in the House. Cagle and Senate President Pro Tem David Shafer, R-Duluth, need 29.
Ralston is confident he will find them.
“I anticipate whatever moves will have the support of the majority of the Republicans in the caucus,” he told reporters recently.
But, he noted, unlike in the U.S. House, Republicans in Georgia have no rule that any bill must have support of a majority of the caucus.
And Cagle, ever the optimist, can’t wait for the start of opening arguments.
“One of the most beautiful things, and one of the things I always cherished as a state senator, was the ability to go to the floor and argue my position for my constituency,” Cagle said. “My job as the presiding officer is to ensure that voice truly is heard and, at the end of the day, gets fleshed out and the right thing happens.”
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