I just spoke with James Bopp Jr., the Republican National Committee member from Indiana who is sponsoring two key resolutions to prevent RNC funding from going to insufficiently conservative candidates. He says he is still reviewing his options headed into today’s meeting of the resolutions committee, and tomorrow’s full session of the RNC’s winter meeting in Hawaii.
Bopp’s main resolution, to forbid RNC funding for candidates who do not show that they hold conservative positions on at least eight out of ten key issues, suffered two setbacks yesterday. A committee of state party chairmen voted against it, and RNC Chairman Michael Steele came out against it. Bopp is simultaneously pursuing that resolution as well as a simpler one, which would expressly empower the RNC chairman to consider ideology as a factor in sending money to candidates.
“Well, I’m glad to know what his [Steele’s] position is,” Bopp told me, “And I still look forward to coming up with some approach that ensures accountability. I mean, we have two resolutions that deal with that issue, and hopefully one of them will win. I expect one of them will win.”
Bopp said he was not sure yet whether the second resolution, which he has called the “accountability” resolution, would have a better chance than his 80-percent test. He declined to discuss whether or not he has been involved in any discussions for a compromise, citing the need for confidentiality.
The process from here is that Bopp and his co-sponsors will have to decide whether to bring one or both proposal to the Resolutions Committee, which is meeting later today. The committee is made up of two members from each of four regions, elected by their fellow RNCers, and a chairman appointed by Steele. If a resolution loses in the committee today, Bopp and his co-sponsors would still have the right to bring them up on the floor of the convention’s main session tomorrow.
“It’s a dynamic situation, and we’re just trying to reach a consensus if we can,” Bopp said of his ongoing work on the resolutions, “and some approach, that’s what I’ve been interested in all along, some approach that would put our money where our mouth is.”
I asked Bopp about Steele’s statement on the 80-percent test, “Ronald Reagan would be ashamed if the party moved in that direction.” This appeared to be a reference to the name that Bopp gave the resolution, the “Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates.”
The inferred “Reagan’s Unity Principle” here comes from a line from Reagan about the need for Republicans to stop fighting each other, saying that someone who agrees with him 80% of the time was his friend and not his 20% enemy — which is taken literally here, as a solid floor for support.
Bopp offered us this rebuttal of Steele’s invocation of Reagan: “Ronald Reagan was a big advocate that the Republican Party should stand for and advocate conservative principles, and that is exactly what the resolution does. So I think that he misstates Reagan’s position.”
