Rejecting party and principle alike

The "Override Six" have been alternately flogged and fawned over as "traitors" to the GOP and "courageous" legislators who put "principle over party." As you'll recall, the six — Reps. Neil Peterson, Jim Abler, Kathy Tingelstad, Bud Heidgerken, Ron Erhardt and Rod Hamilton — voted with Democrats to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto of a $6.6 billion tax increase included in the transportation bill.

Fiscally conservative Republicans took up torches and pitchforks and denied party endorsement to Abler, Erhardt and Peterson; GOP endorsement doesn't seem likely for Tingelstad, Heidgerken and Hamilton. Meanwhile, Democrats, business groups that reversed their previous opposition to tax increases, and pro-transit groups have been filling the breach with bipartisan praise and pledges of support for the beleaguered six.

Even Senate pit bull Steve Murphy, DFL-Redwing, has been licking the faces of the wayward Republicans. In a letter to the Star Tribune, Murphy went so far as to say he personally will support each of the six for re-election in their primaries and in the general election. Say what you will, Murphy knows a win-win situation when he sniffs it.

We may never really know why each of the Override Six voted as he or she did, but to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, "they are men and woman of great common sense with their fingers on the pulse of their constituents — meaning thereby men and woman without principle or moral courage."

In many ways, voting for the transportation bill was common sense: Consensus and a Legislative Auditor's report hold that Minnesota has neglected maintenance of its infrastructure. People are frustrated. Leaders of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce were under pressure from influential members to make something happen. Transit supporters were pressuring for a pot of money like the highway kids have. Transit lobby support and campaign support from chamber members can fill a lot of GOP endorsement potholes.

Certainly Peterson and Hamilton had their fingers on the pulse of their constituencies; each received earmark projects in the transportation bill outside the legitimate funding process. For any of the six, new roads make nice backdrops for campaign photos.

I am a strong believer in voting principle over party. But one joins a political party because of common principles. When one opposes his party, it had better be because the party has wandered away from those principles, not because common sense and popular opinion make it expedient for the legislator to waver.

The GOP stuck to its principles on the transportation bill. It offered an alternative transportation proposal (albeit half-heartedly) that spent as much as the Democrats' bill but identified funding through means other than increasing taxes. The GOP proposal recognized state resources are state resources and state highways ought to compete with other capital projects in the general obligation bonding bill. It was a bill that one would expect from the Republican Party.

One might have voted against the GOP bill as bad policy, but bad policy from Republicans doesn't justify voting for worse policy from the Democrats. Desire to "do something" is not a principle, nor does it justify voting for a proposition one has consistently opposed. It takes moral courage to hold out for the right thing in the face of public pressure; capitulation and surrender, however popular, are not particularly admirable.

Overriding the governor's veto of the transportation bill was much like the passage of the Twins stadium bill (a case where Republicans did wander away from their principles and too few party members opposed the governor and special interests). The transportation bill was a siege on the taxpayer, not a cavalry charge. It was a victory in a war of attrition.

No waterboarding went on, but Democrats strapped the GOP to a chair under bright lights and slapped them about the head with the Orwellian proposition that 2 + 2 = 5, and that raising taxes in a recession is good economic policy if it is for a good cause. Peterson, Abler, Tingelstad, Heidgerken, Erhardt and Hamilton cracked. They denied their professed allegiance to Republican principles. We ought to give our praise to those GOPers who honored both principle and party.

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Transit Subsidies

In response to my Pioneer Press column bringing to light comments by transportation bill architect Rep. Bernie Lieder, Steve Dornfeld of the Metropolitan Council noted that little of the $6.6 billion transportation bill goes to transit operating subsidies; that spin is true. But I wrote that the metro area sales tax, which was sold as a way to build new transit and reduce congestion, is first being used to pay operating costs for transit we already have. Dornfeld says the $30.8 million subsidy is a one-time appropriation, but he doesn't discount the need for future light-rail subsides.

Per Dornfeld, future transit subsidies cannot come out of the metro area sales tax for transit (unless they subsidize new transit). Per Lieder, operating subsidies won't come out of state general funds, and they should come from county property taxes. I don't recall higher property taxes and subsidized transit operating costs being part of the DFL sell on the transportation bill.

Craig Westover is a contributing columnist to the Pioneer Press Opinion page and a senior policy fellow at the Minnesota Free Market Institute.

This commentary originally appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Friday March 14.