The group (minus the “Legislative”
in the name”) early in the year filed paperwork
under the Internal Revenue Code section 527 to organize in order to “provide
continuity in the adoption of conservative legislation in the State of
Louisiana and to promote the economic and cultural advancement of Louisiana
through the bipartisan, conservative principles of limited government, free
enterprise, individual liberties, and strong traditional families, at all times
consistent with the progress of our State and with the well being of the people
of Louisiana.” Thirteen Republicans have acknowledged affiliation with the
group, with state Rep. Alan Seabaugh
being its president.
In remarks
about the group, Seabaugh indicated its formation came as a result of ideological
confusion among Republicans. A lazy mythology has developed that because majorities
in both legislative chambers are from the GOP, that conservative ideas always triumph
in legislative action.
This decidedly is not the case,
and last year’s dealing with both tax
reform and the budget
exemplified a struggle between principled and populist conservatism. Principled
conservatives largely adhere to the laundry list in the group’s IRS filing.
Populist conservatives, drawing upon the state’s extensive history in embracing
populism, concern themselves less with principle and more with distributive
decisions paralleling group identifications.
Within the confines of liberalism,
populism has an extensive history in the state, starting in the
post-Reconstruction period but coming into its own in the 1920s with the emergence
of former Gov. Huey
Long. That kind of populism emphasized in- and out-groups, making
assumptions that the two were inimical (if not one’s group being the more
legitimate and tolerant and the out-group members being greedy, selfish, and oppressive,
if not evil) and incompatible, and that government was the instrument by which
out-groups would be brought to heel for what they had done to in-groups.
That required powerful
government, and given the extant political culture it was natural that opposition
to that would coalesce around the same populist dimension. In the beginning, it
took the form of reform defined as honesty in government, but as government
continued to grow (at all levels), the backlash transferred onto big government
defined as the problem itself, the argument now being that government that was
too big inherently acted, if not dishonestly because of the temptations of
power, with an illegitimate favoritism towards the groups that controlled it.
This fueled the rise of the Republican Party in the state beginning in the
1960s, the primary causal agent that largely is ignored in reviews of this
period by writing off that ascension imply
as a reaction dependent upon social issues.
Rather, this rise was dependent
upon not principled, but populist impulses. Populist conservatives built their
ideology around the idea that big government was controlled and used by liberal
interests to threaten their liberties, where the solution was to boot these contrary
elites out of office and to replace them with theirs. Its fullest expression
came in the 1991 gubernatorial candidacy of former state Rep. David Duke, and the
failure of it as a means to inject into policy-making principled conservatism
divorced from populism is evidenced by the fact that after his defeat neither
the House nor Senate sworn in subsequently had more than 15 percent of their
memberships from the Republican Party.
Lazily, Louisiana has been
considered a “conservative” state only because of general conservatism on
social issues while the inherent liberalism of populism that, as recently as
the 1991 election, overwhelmingly drove general policy considerations. In
contrast, regarding genuine conservatism,
which rejects the zero-sum, group identification model of populism and
government role in it for one where government is to impose itself as lightly
as possible onto individual choices and in ways to facilitate voluntary
interactions among people that maximize persons’ abilities to contribute
maximally to society through those interactions without government creating
winners or losers, little existed in Louisiana policy-making until the 21st
century.
The watershed moment came as a
result of the 2007 elections, the first shaped by term limitation that provided
inroads for principled conservatives, and with the election of Gov. Bobby
Jindal who was the first principled conservative not just to win election
to the state’s highest office, but also to govern more often than not in that
mode. Not always have his policies consistently followed conservative
principles, but his record is that government has not grown in dollars spent, government
has grown significantly smaller in employment because of privatization initiatives,
which also have made it work better, other efficiency measures such as
education reforms additionally will make it work better, taxes in the aggregate
have been cut, and is promoting policies that respect life and understand
government’s role in reinforcing behavior that benefits the whole. It’s
unquestionably a principled conservative agenda enacted with some consistency.
Which jarred some who call
themselves Republicans because their route to adopting the label came through
the populist prism that still drives their worldviews. It’s why Jindal had to
abandon his tax reform agenda of last year, because too many Republicans became
fixated on protecting certain groups that under the current crazed patchwork system
of exemptions might have paid more. It explains why Jindal ended up accepting a
budget, and with a small tax increase, larger than he wanted (even accounting
for a surplus not forecast), because Republicans calling themselves “fiscal
hawks” were too cowardly to address the root cause of “one-time money,” allowing
hundreds of dedications benefitting special interests large and small that subvert
the idea that spending needs to be prioritized, and instead protected these
funds from use for general purposes while engaging in the gimmickry of a tax
amnesty.
This speaks precisely as to why
this group would form. Until the last few years, there never has been a
critical mass of principled conservatives in state government to create a clash
with populists who call themselves conservative. Instructively, all but one of
the group’s officers were elected after 2007, only one was elected prior to
2007, and Seabaugh himself initially aligned himself with the “hawks” only to
quickly dissociate when after the collapse of the tax reform plan their
initial plan featured hundreds of millions of dollars in tax increases.
And it comes a moment not too
soon. The state’s mainstream media (as exemplified by its descriptions of
policy-makers here),
through lack of realizing the dynamics involved and/or as a method of caricaturing
in order to delegitimize, rarely presents principled conservatism in its true form
in public policy debates. Populist conservatives have neither the inclination
nor understanding to do likewise. Combined with the populist tradition that
insulates what passes as conservatism in Louisiana from achieving more
principled status, this retards the growth of the influence of principled conservatism.
It’s hoped that organizing this group will lead to more conservative policy
more robustly explained successfully enacted into law, and in all issue areas
(Seabaugh described the group as initially hesitant to engage in actions
specific to budgeting). The question is whether the group has the temperament and
commitment to help continue the introduction of this novel political philosophy
into Louisiana’s political culture.
2 comments:
Bobby Jindal "... was the first principled conservative ..." to be elected in our state?????
HUH??????
What an insult to Dave Treen! He had more "principle" in his little finger than Jindal could ever even comprehend.
Let's look at just one example. Jindal criticized Blanco for using nonrecurring funds for operating expenses. It was a liberal, Democratic totally incorrect thing to do. Then, he made a campaign promise and tenet that he would oppose such financial shenanigans and never be guilty of them.
Guess what? Five consecutive years (and probably a sixth) of such shenanigans in spades from the "principled" Bobby Jindal. Yup!
And, I could offer you dozens more of this "principled" governor.
You should apologize, you cockalorum!
Jeff writes that “for the first time,” Louisiana conservatives can “articulate” a “genuine, principled conservatism in the formation of public policy, which until the 21st Century was all but absent among Louisiana policy-makers.” It is hard for professional blow-hard like Jeff Sadow to continually outdo himself, but we should all congratulate his valiant effort here. News Flash to Jeff: Louisiana has been deeply conservative since the days the first slaves were dragged off the ship. That’s why your state consistently ranks at the bottom in nearly all measures of human well-being and freedom. Your conservative “leadership,” along with your fellow antiquated conservative states, is a recipe for misery. And you aren’t even honest with yourself enough to admit it. So instead you write that finally Louisiana conservatives get to fix this mess. You are a walking parody of the most impressionable conservative. I love stopping by this awful blog to marvel at your self-delusion.
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