House Republicans look ahead

Last week was a busy one. It was out with the old and in with the new.

In mid-week the General Assembly officially closed out – finally – its 2004 session and then less than 48 hours later some unofficially opened discussions on initiatives that may be pushed when the ’05 legislature convenes in January.

It was on Wednesday that the Republican-led House of Delegates and Senate rolled into Richmond to consider – that is, approve or reject – more than 40 amendments by Democratic Gov. Mark Warner to the state’s new two-year, $60 billion budget. The one-day work session was quite business-like. Absent was the rancor that defined the 115 days it took during the winter and spring for bickering lawmakers to do 60 days’ worth of work.

Then on Friday and Saturday House Republicans gathered in Northern Virginia for their first-ever “Ideas & Issues Retreat.” It was two days with a dual purpose. Yes, there were the back-to-back, breakfast-to-dinner seminars on innovative ways to address policy challenges facing state government. But equally important in the eyes of many was the opportunity the get-away gave many Republican delegates to begin coming together after spending months plotting unmercifully against each other because of tax and budget differences.

The retreat was House Speaker Bill Howell’s idea. And a good one it was. Looking back, he must be pleased with the policy discussions had and the back slaps gently delivered. Looking forward, however, he must work deftly to keep the momentum going.

Howell had arranged for quite a number of reform-minded speakers and panelists to push his delegates toward out-of-the-box thinking. First up was Nigel Morris, co-founder and former vice-chairman of Capital One Financial Corporation. Morris used his technology and banking smarts to help create one of the financial industry’s most successful credit card companies. A few years ago, he also was tapped by Gov. Mark Warner to work with former Gov. Doug Wilder on a commission to develop strategies to improve state government’s efficiencies and effectiveness. Morris spent much of his time with the GOP delegates going over private-sector principles that should be a part of any long-term government reforms. And, interestingly, Morris praised Democrat Warner a number of times before the Republican crowd for the governor’s work the past few years to put into practice the business principles Morris was preaching.

Morris was followed by Maurice McTigue, a former New Zealand parliament member, cabinet minister, and ambassador who built a public career pushing private-sector solutions to some of government’s most vexing problems. Privatization and accountability are big with him. McTigue is now teaching and writing about these things as a visiting scholar at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.

The Morris and McTigue kick-off sessions laid the groundwork for a series of panel discussions on government reforms generally as well as specific kinds of public-private partnerships in technology, human services, healthcare, and transportation. For the GOP House, the two days were a good mix of both theory and nitty-gritty application.

The next step, obviously, is for Howell and his cohorts to continue building camaraderie and meeting more often over the next few months to put meat on the bones that were kicked around at their retreat. And this is where it gets tricky.

You see, not all that was suggested in theory by speakers and panelists is easily implemented in the real worlds of the state’s legislature and bureaucracy. Oh, sure, the principles are good, but they don’t necessarily produce snap-of-the-fingers changes in a state workforce whose ways of doing business are decades old and whose careerists outlast governors and lawmakers who come and go. And as much as folks like to say government should be run like a business, the fact of the matter is, well, government is not a business, and the influence of politics is never far away.

Repeatedly, Morris suggested that delegates and senators need to work with governors – in a bipartisan manner – to develop a unified vision for Virginia and then retool the machine to see it through. Heck, even Wilder, a Democrat who also addressed the all-Republican crowd, said that. Such sounds great, and many will agree with it. But how often does it happen? And where’s the incentive (that’s a private-sector word, you know) for bipartisan coalitions to be formed when there’s likely to be partisan hell to pay for forming them?

It also was suggested during the policy discussions that there must be a separation of politics from both policy and government operations. And another suggestion that legislators should simply ignore those constituencies who don’t agree with them.

Huh? Are you kidding? Talk about naiveté.

In every elected, law-making body around the world, politics is inherently a part of the policies it produces and the bureaucrats who implement them. Politics and policy will never be separated – nor, quite honestly, should they be – and politics will always affect workers’ decisions, especially the critical ones. And you’ll never find legislators simply ignoring influential voting blocs of people who disagree with them. The bigger the issue at hand – it’s only the big issues that draw the big voting blocs – the more pols will work for some level of appeasement, whether or not they admit it.

All of this is not to say that the ideas and issues batted around we not good ones. On the contrary, they were quite good and are worthy of a summer and fall worth of follow up. It is to say, however, that central to the next round of discussions must be recognition of what’s practical and politically possible. A failure to factor in the push-and-pull influences that define Richmond’s legislative and bureaucratic processes will hamper the policy goals to be pursued.

It’s predicted that the House GOP in 2005 will lay out specific government reform initiatives. You’ll likely see legislation pushed that’ll make collaborations with the private sector more easily formed, all in hopes of capitalizing on innovations, technologies, and efficiencies honed by competitive market forces that don’t exist in the government world.

It’s also probable that Virginians will see House Republicans more united than in the past. A common agenda whose roots are in this weekend’s retreat will strengthen their bonds as well as their resolve.

The only thing that could undermine that agenda, weaken those bonds, and diminish that resolve is if the ’04 tax and budget battles are reenacted for election year purposes. Howell is working now to see that doesn’t happen. And his troops seem to be responding.