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In budget battles, compromise has become taboo

HARRISBURG - The email landed at 10:36 a.m. one Saturday this month, as Republicans were gathering in Hershey for their annual winter meeting.

Republican state Sen. Scott Wagner, left, had boasted to colleagues that during the budget fight, the GOP had Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, right, "down on the floor, with our foot on his throat."
Republican state Sen. Scott Wagner, left, had boasted to colleagues that during the budget fight, the GOP had Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, right, "down on the floor, with our foot on his throat."Read more(AP Photos)

HARRISBURG - The email landed at 10:36 a.m. one Saturday this month, as Republicans were gathering in Hershey for their annual winter meeting.

Its one-sentence subject line was ominous: "This is what we are dealing with."

It was a message from an aide to Gov. Wolf, drawing attention to a remark at the party conclave by Sen. Scott Wagner, a Republican from York and self-described champion of smaller government and fiscal conservatism.

Wagner had boasted to colleagues that during the budget fight, the GOP had the Democratic governor "down on the floor, with our foot on his throat."

Beyond his blustery rhetoric, Wagner is something of an archetype for a growing breed of Republicans in Harrisburg: hard-line conservative, guided unapologetically by ideology, and unwilling to bend on issues where more moderate colleagues might seek middle ground.

They see the Capitol as a longtime cesspool of self-serving deal-making and impulsive spending that has left the state awash in fiscal problems. And Wolf, dubbed in one survey as America's "most liberal governor," is the political personification of all they stand against: more taxes and more spending.

As they have sought to weaken him, the first-term governor has blocked numerous GOP proposals, leading to claims that he's the intransigent one.

"I am into compromise," Wagner said in an interview last week, "but I don't think it's unfair or unrealistic for me to challenge the system."

Compromise has become somewhat of a taboo word in the Capitol.

In nearly a dozen interviews, elected officials and political observers cited several reasons for the change in climate. Among them: voter dissatisfaction with old-school, deal-making politics and a redistricting process that critics say has created gerrymandered legislative districts favoring the party that controls the process.

Wolf handily won office in 2014, but the legislature - the House, in particular - has steadily tilted more conservative.

The result is gridlock.

Moderates say they feel powerless to break the logjam, as getting anything would require support from fiscal conservatives. They also worry that if they vote for compromise - in the case of the budget, a tax increase - they might face a challenge within their own party.

"It doesn't seem like a team atmosphere," said Rep. Frank Farry, a Bucks County Republican.

Rep. Mike Vereb, a Republican from Montgomery County, cited the climate as a big factor in his decision not to run again this year. "It's not that it's become more conservative, as much as it's become more extremist," he said.

One result, according to Vereb: a growing distaste in his caucus for doing anything to benefit Philadelphia and its suburban counties.

Nowhere has the gridlock been clearer than the seven-month budget fight, which is still unresolved.

Wolf thought he had a deal with Republicans just before Christmas, but it fell apart as rank-and-file conservatives in the House railed against what their own leaders had negotiated. The agreement would have raised taxes to support hundreds of millions in new money for public schools.

House Democrats didn't help. They refused to lend support to a key piece of pension-related legislation that could have helped Wolf save the overall deal.

Rep. Gene DiGirolamo (R., Bucks), one of the House's most moderate members, said the sheer number of Republicans in the House means moderate proposals face an uphill battle from the start.

According to Farry, a growing number of House Republicans seem to believe they were elected to implement a conservative "philosophical mandate," an argument he rejects.

"We were elected to govern. We weren't elected to be your own little dictator for your legislative district," he said.

Leo Knepper, who leads a conservative group aimed at defeating so-called RINOs - Republicans in Name Only - said the political shift in Harrisburg over the last three years is both historic and necessary. Knepper sees it less as the death of the moderate Republican than the abrupt end of what he calls "transactional politics" - the give-and-take of compromise, often involving sweeteners for legislators who play along.

"What was happening for last 50 or 60 years is politicians were using taxpayer money to bribe each other in order to advance bad policy," he said.

Government, said Knepper, is supposed to be dysfunctional. He called it "a design feature" that "protects the people from an overly aggressive government."

Some Republicans also believe that meeting halfway on taxes every year isn't compromise - it's acquiescence. And that Democrats push for tax hikes but don't monitor how the money is spent.

"They have not shown one ounce of accountability for the money that's coming out of here," Wagner said.

Conservatives now have the numbers to topple what they consider bad policy. Nearly a third of the 118-member House Republican caucus is staunchly conservative, up significantly from just three years ago, political observers estimate. The number of conservative senators has also jumped.

That trend could intensify after the upcoming elections.

"I am fearful that some of the more moderate Republicans are leaving all at the same time," said Rep. Leanne Krueger-Braneky (D., Delaware), who has been in office for just six months. "And I fear some of the candidates running for those seats are going to pull us more toward the ultra-conservative."

For lawmakers such as Wagner, ushering in fresh blood is a positive.

The York County Republican, a self-made millionaire who made his money in the trash-hauling business, made history in 2014 by winning a Senate seat as a write-in candidate.

His sway is considerable. Republican leaders last year put him in charge of the Senate GOP's fund-raising. Last week, Wagner said he had not donated money to any GOP primary challengers, and did not plan to do so.

Yet he still makes known his presence and expectations that core Republican ideals remain unpolluted. In one 2014 radio interview, he warned that he'd be the one "sitting in the back room with a baseball bat" during legislative sessions to make sure something gets accomplished.

For Wagner, it's about being accountable. "This place," he said, "doesn't live in reality."

acouloumbis@phillynews.com

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