Republicans in state Senate united again

Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: February 24, 2008

Defeats in November have pulled Republicans together in the state Senate this year, unifying a once-divided party into a solid minority block.

Bipartisanship has left the Senate chamber.

One of the architects of the Republican unity has been Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, serving as the party’s Senate caucus chairman.

“We have far exceeded our wildest ambitions in putting our caucus back together,” Newman said last week.

The next step, Newman said, will be to announce a renewal of the joint Republican caucus between the House and Senate, a coalition that disappeared about five years ago when some Republicans took a moderate stance on fiscal issues.

Other GOP members credit Newman, along with Senate minority leader Tommy Norment, R-Williamsburg, for the unity movement.

If any doubts about GOP solidarity had lingered, they disappeared Thursday when the Senate passed its budget bill 21-19.

Republicans never wav-ered on the budget vote or on a series of amendments to the bill, holding their 19-vote minority together every time. In other years those amendments could have led some GOP moderates to side with Democrats on ideological issues.

As they left the Senate chamber Thursday, Republican and Democrat leaders congratulated their fellow party members for sticking together on party lines.

“There aren’t any moderates left,” said Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Springfield. “It was partisan on every single vote.”

Newman said Republicans were united in opposing the budget bill because they had agreed not to support “over-borrowing” by selling bonds. They took a stand that any bonds issued would require voter approval, and that the state should not begin new programs such as Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s plan to expand the pre-Kindergarten program for 4-year-olds.

Republicans lost four Senate seats to Democrats in November, two of them in Northern Virginia and two in the Tidewater area. They had been a 23-17 majority, at least in party label, for the previous four years.

The GOP didn’t always vote as a 23-member unit. Some Republican senators sided with former Gov. Mark Warner on a tax increase, and others voted last year for a transportation revenue package that Kaine backed.

The election results led Newman and about seven other conservative senators to tell former majority leader Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, they wanted to consider a new leadership arrangement for Senate Republicans.

They replaced Stosch with Norment as majority leader, and Norment said last week that he tried to share the caucus leadership positions evenly between conservative and moderate factions and give all members a voice in reaching a consensus on issues.

“Steve was elected our caucus chairman, which I think was important to some of the more conservative members,” Norment said. The role makes Newman responsible for fundraising and recruiting candidates to run for Senate seats, and it also gives him a voice in policy decisions.

Newman said Stosch, who was a moderate - at least on tax issues - has “become an absolute team player. He could have gone either way, honestly,” Newman said.

Another key to the caucus unity has been Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, Newman said. “We were able to pull in a guy who was truly in the middle and make him part of our group,” Newman said.

Norment said Wagner played a key role in the party’s December caucus gatherings. “I think Frank Wagner was a catalyst in encouraging the two groups to come together and talk,” Norment said.

The Republican unity in the Senate has been noticed on the other side of the Capitol Building, where the House of Delegates meets.

“It’s great to be united once again with our brethren in the Senate,” said House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem.

Griffith said that while he credits Newman and Norment for their leadership, “I think it has been a collective thing” with some newer members of the Senate also contributing to the unity, including freshman Sen. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham.

That unity will make Newman’s task easier when it comes to recruiting candidates to run against Democrats in the 2009 elections, Griffith said.

Prospective Republican candidates for the House or Senate “will see a united message coming out of Richmond,” Griffith said.

Those prospects will know that if they run for a House seat, the Republican senator from that district will stand beside them with a similar message in campaign speeches in front of local civic groups and other gatherings, Griffith said.

If General Assembly candidates from a locality don’t share similar positions on the issues, each stands alone at public appearances. “It’s hard to explain, particularly for a new candidate coming in, why there is such a big disagreement between you and a fellow Republican,” Griffith said.

“Now, we won’t have that problem.”

Newman said he’s amazed that the party’s philosophical differences have been put aside in only three months.

“Moving from one of the worst situations in modern history for the Republican caucus to one of the most cohesive caucuses I have ever seen in my 17 years, all within about three months, that has been a remarkable improvement,” Newman said.