Julian Walker does a fine job of stirring the Republican pot on the current Medicaid/state budget impasse. He does so by linking all that’s happening now to last year’s fight over transportation, and a stillborn coup against Bill Howell:
Holding the line on Medicaid allows the GOP’s House of Delegates and Senate leaders to atone for, or distract from, conservative anger caused last year when taxes were raised to pay for new roads.
“A good number feel that way – to reassure the folks that last year was a necessity, we’re going to stop Medicaid this year,” said one Republican legislator, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
That’s obvious from the meetings and discussions I’ve had. The spectacle of senior Republican legislators pleading for support in the Medicaid fight from those who, just a year ago, they told to pound sand over roads is both amusing and infuriating.
It’s also politics, a shallow land where irony and introspection are unwelcome.
But then we get this:
The enmity over the transportation vote wasn’t apparent until June 11, when veteran Republican Dels. Joe May and Beverly Sherwood lost primary elections from challengers on the right.
While both voted for new transportation taxes, Sherwood’s defeat by Mark Berg in a Winchester-area district was the one that sent shockwaves through the GOP. Sherwood had a conservative voting record. She was a budget negotiator.
Her loss invigorated a conservative insurgency, one whose members nearly attempted a coup of House Speaker William Howell, who sponsored 2013’s transportation bill, a few months back.
Howell, R-Stafford County, has never faced a formal challenge for leadership since becoming speaker in 2003. But Republican sources say he came within an hour of one in November when the House GOP caucus met.
Rockbridge County Del. Ben Cline was the purported challenger, with support from Berg and Del Bob Marshall, R-Prince William County.
Berg did not return a message seeking comment, and Marshall would say only: “One thing about me is I don’t mind getting in fights, and it doesn’t matter with whom.”
And the powers that be were displeased to see their incumbents were being challenged. I still have the emails venting that frustration…
As for the close but not quite “coup” against Bill Howell…it would have failed. Miserably. Howell may be many things, but he is no fool when it comes to exercising control over the bulk of his caucus. It’s an open secret that many members follow his guidance (few will call it orders) to the letter. That’s hardly unique. But it is also a power that the disgruntled and disaffected have yet to crack — and likely won’t.
There were other moves in the past, from outside the caucus, to foment a rebellion against Howell. They failed because, in talking with individual members, none of them were willing to take their complaints public. But mostly, no one wanted the Speaker’s job.
But here’s something Julian may not know, and puts all this Republican angst in perspective…
Inside the Democratic camp, there is unease over the Medicaid/budget fight that could easily become despair.
The Governor’s troops are beginning to realize they have gone about the Medicaid issue the wrong way. Forcing a showdown played directly into the broader GOP need to placate the conservative base. Framing Medicaid expansion with extensive talk of hospitals, jobs and such blunted the most potent argument the Democrats have: providing coverage to the poor.
Instead of presenting a clear choice to voters, they have generated noise.
For the moment, that benefits the GOP.
