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When people of like minds believe certain issues aren’t getting enough attention in the Legislature, they band together in a special group in an effort to push for them.
They form what’s known as a caucus, and give it a name to signal who’s in it or what they care about, like the LGBTQ Caucus or the Persons of Color Caucus.
Last week, the Senate got a new group, calling itself the Freedom Caucus, with four members (none from Clark County) who said they want to stand up for responsible budgets, no new taxes, gun rights and “the value of life,” which is to say, they’re opposed to abortion. They’re also opposed to Gov. Jay Inslee’s continuation of emergency orders for the COVID-19 pandemic, want the entire state to go to Phase 2 and want schools to reopen.
Wait a minute, you might be saying. Isn’t there already a caucus that supports all those things, called the Senate Republican Caucus?
Well, yes. The four members of the Freedom Caucus are all Republicans, and would probably be described as four of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate.
It includes Sen. Mike Padden, of Spokane Valley, who summed up the caucus’s concerns as “life, liberty and prosperity” — values on which hardly anyone would take an opposing stance.
The caucus was formed last May, when Republican legislative leaders didn’t push hard enough for a special session to have a say in the state’s emergency orders, said Sen. Phil Fortunato, of Auburn. He described Inslee’s approach to the pandemic as “heavy-handed.”
“People should be able to make their own decisions,” he said.
There may be a disconnect there, considering that some people could make personal decisions to ignore COVID precautions that could affect another person’s life, liberty or prosperity. That’s not to suggest that Inslee has been right in all his decisions. But just as the freedom of one person to swing his fist stops at the end of another person’s nose, there are problems in managing competing personal interests in a pandemic.
Sen. Doug Ericksen, of Ferndale, said the caucus is open to Republicans, moderate conservatives, fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, Libertarians (of which, for the record, there are none in the Legislature) and even Democrats — presumably if they are sufficiently conservative on an issue like $30 car tabs or gun rights.
The difference between the Freedom Caucus and the rest of the Senate Republican Caucus is that they can take stronger stances on their key issues than the GOP leadership, which might have to take the views of members from more moderate districts into effect, Fortunato said.
They could, as Ericksen said, provide a voice for people around the state who share their views. The problem is the strength in a specialized caucus lies in the ability of its members to swing a close vote on an issue of concern.
With Republicans at a seven-vote minority in the Senate and no Democrats currently flocking to the Freedom Caucus, it’s hard to see where they can affect legislation and debate any more than before.
Padden, Fortunato and Ericksen are all sponsors of past legislation addressing the caucus’s stated concerns, and some of the most enthusiastic debaters against Democratic legislation they view as opposing those principles.
A few years ago, the House had a small group of Republicans that called themselves the Liberty Caucus, which had as one of its main proponents Republican Rep. Matt Shea, also of Spokane Valley. That caucus had what it called the Freedom Agenda, which included a wide range of issues.
It had some successes, like expanding the access for ATVs to public roads. But on most of its big issues, such as splitting the state in half to create the 51st state of Liberty, it struck out.
The Freedom Caucus has an agenda that could generate support from more voters, but faces a similar problem with the math in passing or blocking legislation.
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