Bob Guzzardi, an anti-Perzel, anti-legislature, pro-Santorum political maverick who occasionally funds Democrats whose elections he believes strategically advance his political goals, has given me a rare accolade: I understand what motivates him and many of his cohorts.
Writing on the conservative grassrootspa website on December 31, 2006, in the midst of furious politicking over the House speakership in which he participated to some degree as a critic and an opponent of ultimately defeated House Speaker John Perzel, Guzzardi wrote:
"Mark Cohen has understood, correctly, that it is the pro growth limited government, economic freedom and every expanding intrusion of government into private business decisions that is infuriating to many of us, and the unconstitutional nature of slots and payjacking and the constant dealmaking undercutting economic freedom....
A Perzel defeat, he said, would remove "a major obstacle not only to open records and real Lobbyist Disclosure with effective implementation, but also an obstacle to individual initiative, individual empowerment--personal freedom."
Guzzardi's quote in the Grassrootspa archives is apparently unlinkable--or at least beyond my capacity to link--but it is comment number 5 recorded at 7:13 a.m. December 31,2006 to the Grassrootspa posting "Capitolwire:Other House Members May Not Vote for DeWeese, Perzel" posted at 10:09 p.m. on December 30, 2006.
Guzzardi is a self-proclaimed Reform Conservative. He hopes to defeat many members of the legislature in the 2008 Republican primaries and take control of the House in 2008 with an anti-governmental spending Republican majority. He was a key player in the defeats of 13 legislative Republicans in the 2006 primaries, including Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer and Senate Majority Leader Chip Brightbill.
Currently, Pennsylvania legislative Republicans often oppose Democratic spending plans for the low-income, but counter them by proposing other spending--often greater than the spending that they oppose--to benefit middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy Pennsylvanians.
Expanding the clientele for governmental spending--Guzzardi and I both agree--is hardly the way to curb governmental spending. I have argued on the House floor that, since Biblical times, helping the poor has been a core factor in maintaining the legitimacy of governments.
One challenge we Democrats face in the Pennsylvania legislature is the bait and switch tactics so widely employed by the right, and sometimes by others in the political system. It is now a commonplace saying in Washington that the Republicans promise to end abortion and deliver tax cuts for the rich. Similarly they promise democracy in the Middle East, and deliver a potentially endless war in Iraq that will soon have added over $1 trillion to the federal deficit.
In Pennsylvania, we are treated to endless discussion about the legislature's procedural flaws, some of which, indeed, raise valid points.
But for a good number of people like Guzzardi, the real issue is the overall direction of the public policy that the legislature makes, and not sideshows like the legislature's habit of meeting in the wee hours of the morning, or not immediately posting the text of floor speeches on the Internet.
This session will be a session of reforms--perhaps the most concentrated session of reforms ever. But we have to keep in mind what our public policy goals are, and whether or not the reforms advance or hinder them.
We also have to keep in mind that for many people like Guzzardi, reforms are not the real point. It's great when we Democrats can find solid reasons to make common cause with people of opposing ideology, but we have to recognize the differences in underlying goals at the start, and study the actual issues motivating right-wing attention to the legislature in the first place, and not assume that the internal workings of the legislature are the fundamental grievance.