Tea Partisanship in the New Hampshire State Legislature
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'Better Angels': Tea Partisanship in the New Hampshire State Legislature Author: Brendan C. Benedict Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/2639 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2012 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. ‘Better Angels’: Tea Partisanship in the New Hampshire State Legislature Brendan C. Benedict A Scholar of the College Project Submitted To The College of Arts and Sciences And the Honors Program of the Political Science Department Boston College April 2012 Page 1 of 139 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 1: New Hampshire’s Legislators ............................................................................... 28 Chapter 2: The Tea Party’s View of History and Philosophy ................................................ 55 Chapter 3: Economic and Fiscal Views .................................................................................. 73 Chapter 4: The Tea Party and Social Issues............................................................................ 98 Chapter 5: The Tea Party, Race, and Immigration ............................................................... 114 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 131 Appendix 1: Interview Request Form ................................................................................... 135 Appendix 2: Interview Protocol ............................................................................................ 136 Appendix 3: A Portrait of the Tea Party .................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Selected Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 137 Page 2 of 139 Acknowledgements It is with immense gratitude that I thank professor R. Shep Melnick, my thesis adviser, for all of his efforts over the past year with this project. He wrote countless letters of recommendation, drove me to lectures, set up meetings, and emailed professors on my behalf. He offered the New Hampshire legislature as the area of focus. He was patient through my last-minute race to the finish line, offering thoughtful comments and attentive reading to make this a strong project. I cannot thank him enough. Thanks to Tim McCarthy who gave an outstanding lecture on the Tea Party and made time to chat with me later. Thanks to Kay Schlozman, who gave extremely practical advice on how to go about interviewing legislators. Theda Skocpol signed off on New Hampshire’s importance and emailed me some papers, and for that, I am grateful, though less so for her fantastic book which came about a few months before this project’s completion (and pre-empted many of my arguments!). Thanks to Dante Scala, who gave me invaluable insight into New Hampshire politics (and lunch). A huge note of gratitude to professor Ken Kersch and the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy for funding my research this summer when others had not. Professor Kersch’s friendship and simple wisdom on the tiresome joy of writing are invaluable things. Special thanks to Shirley Gee for making this Scholar of the College Project run smoothly through all the bureaucratic red tape – she made all our lives easier. Thanks to David Hopkins for volunteering to be the second reader. I also extend my best wishes to philosophy professor David Rasmussen for the amazing classes and encouragement to keep writing. Thanks to my debate coaches, John Katsulas and Patrick Waldinger, for honing my research skills. Thanks to Peter Skerry, for reminding me that people with disagreeable grievances are still well-meaning. Appreciation goes to my friends and roommates, who put up with me during these stressful nights. Many thanks to Reps. Boehm, Bowers, Burt, Christensen, Manuse, and Winter, and Secretary of State Bill Gardner, for giving up so much time for me and for New Hampshire, and without whom this project would not be possible. Page 3 of 139 To my mother, father, sister, and grandmother, for their faith and love. Page 4 of 139 Introduction The Tea Party is not so much about policy as it is about feelings. From the Party’s first breath, Rick Santelli’s famous rant decrying mortgage assistance for “losers,”1 its attraction has been a shared sense of social anxiety, reaction to rapidly changing norms, and fear that an idealized past America will no longer be there for children and grandchildren. Critics call into question its status as an authentic social movement, but its effect on energizing an electorate toward a Republican landslide in the 2010 midterm elections is undeniable. While recent scholarship focuses on documenting the demographic composition of the Tea Party and noting the Republican Party’s rightward shift, there is scant attention to what Tea Party people believe and how that interacts with their obvious anger. Philosophy professor J.M. Bernstein states this problem in his piece, “The Very Angry Tea Party,”: “It would be comforting if a clear political diagnosis of the Tea Party movement were available — if we knew precisely what political events had inspired the fierce anger that pervades its meetings and rallies, what policy proposals its backers advocate, and, most obviously, what political ideals and values are orienting its members.”2 This paper explores how anger informs Tea Party politics, using public opinion polls to locate Tea Partiers politically and to draw a distinction between attitudes and ideologies. I argue that Tea Partiers are neither the Independents the right casts them as, nor are they hard- nosed conservatives as scholarship portrays them – it is more complex than that. Those who identify with the Tea Party take conservative stances on favorability questions and abstract political goals such as smaller government or lower taxes, a result of the unique sense of frustration at the country’s direction. By contrast, they do agree with most Americans when 1 Kate Zernike, Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America (New York: Times Books, 2010) 13. She writes, “The legend goes that it all started on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Thursday, February 19, 2009” but she explains how the first Tea Party event actually took place three days earlier under the guidance of Seattle resident Keli Carender. For the Carender story and early Tea Party meetings, see pp 13-19. 2 J.M. Bernstein, “The Very Angry Tea Party,” The New York Times June 13, 2010. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/the-very-angry-tea-party/ Page 5 of 139 posed with specific policy options: support for same-sex civil unions, respect for Social Security and Medicare, desire for stable immigration flows.3 There are real differences between Tea Party people as well, with libertarians and social conservatives both competing for influence under an umbrella coalition. This analysis of Tea Party beliefs is the groundwork for the paper’s second level of study, an ideological comparison between the broad group of Tea Party supporters and a narrow set of New Hampshire state legislators. Interviews with the legislators revealed a varied extent of Tea Party affiliation, with some receiving endorsements from Tea Party groups, others expressing support without participation, and one eschewing the label. The differences between socially conservative legislators, with fears over the country’s direction, and libertarian legislators, who have ideological opposition to a number of longstanding government institutions, parallel to some extent the same gulf of Tea Party voters. Overall, the legislators are more libertarian and more extreme in their policy positions than those opinion poll respondents who loosely associate with the Tea Party. This mirrors traditional political science research: political elites are more partisan and extreme in their views than the majority of Americans who do not actively participate in politics.4 While Tea Partiers want smaller government in the abstract, they reject cuts to Social Security, for example. Legislators are much more willing to make dramatic cuts to these programs – one representative, for example, went so far as to advocate a regressive flat tax (not a flat percentage rate, but a fixed annual payment for all taxpayers). Others support 3 Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril, The Political Beliefs of Americans (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1967). Americans are famously ideologically conservative and operationally liberal. This paper argues that Tea Partiers are as well, but slightly less operationally liberal and much, much more ideologically conservative. 4 Morris Fiorina et. al .Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (3rd Edition Pearson, 2011) Page 6 of 139 decriminalizing drugs, positions that would very well alienate a plurality of Tea Partiers, who are moderates on these specific policy proposals. This clarifies one of Bernstein’s major dilemmas: “When it comes to the Tea Party’s concrete policy proposals, things get fuzzier and more contradictory: keep the government out of health care, but leave Medicare alone; balance the budget, but don’t raise taxes; let individuals