Wolkins, Norquist & ATR

Various Indiana newspapers have been reporting on state representative David Wolkins and his efforts to get off Americans for Tax Reform’s list of state lawmakers who have “vowed to vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.” For those who may not know, Americans for Tax Reform is the group headed by Republican power broker Grover Norquist who famously said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” and “Bipartisanship is another name for date rape.”

Wolkins has realized that government has to pay for stuff and that stuff costs money. Therefore, if the stuff is necessary and there is not enough money, taxes must occasionally be raised. Sometimes the nature of wealth shifts in society so that taxes from one source dry up while money floods to another source and is untaxed. Raising taxes on the new source may not necessarily increase society’s overall tax burden. In any case, Wolkins recognizes the need for flexibility and has sought to get himself off ATR’s “list”. They won’t let him. The whole story has something of a “Movie of the Week” quality to it. Poor legislator haunted by his past. He tries to make good but a shadowy organization won’t let him out.

continued below as an extended entry

I first read about the issue on Feb 8, 2005, where the Indy Star initially reports:

The Washington-based anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform won’t send a representative to a Thursday news conference that Rep. David Wolkins has called to renounce a no-new-taxes pledge he took 14 years ago.

Wolkins says he wants off of the group’s national list of state lawmakers who’ve vowed to “vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.” Last week on the House floor, Wolkins said he would stage a news conference to let voters know.

Monday, Americans for Tax Reform declared Wolkins, R-Winona Lake, had lied to his northeast Indiana constituents. If Wolkins seeks re-election, the nonprofit lobbying group says it will fly a representative to Indiana to criticize him.

“The infamous Wolkins,” said Damon Ansell, chief of staff for the conservative group founded by Republican political operative Grover Norquist. “In 10 years of doing this, I’ve never run into a guy as unique as this gentleman. For him to suggest we drop everything and show up at his news conference is ludicrous.”

No state lawmaker in the country has ever been removed from the Americans for Tax Reform list of anti-tax legislators.

Only a half-dozen or so have ever expressed interest, Ansell said. The group says it will remove legislators who renounce their pledge in public with a representative of Americans for Tax Reform present and then campaign as no longer opposing higher taxes.

Wolkins said he has tried to get off the Americans for Tax Reform list for years, without success. During the 2000 campaign, Wolkins publicly renounced his pledge, but no representative of the group was present.

“I didn’t do it in a campaign to get elected,” Wolkins said, “and I’ve changed my mind.”

Mr. Ansell seems to have some credibility problems. First, the Feb. 10 news conference wasn’t exactly last minute. ATR knew about it at least as early as Feb. 3, 2005. An Indy Star article reports their unseccessful efforts to get ATR’s comment on the subject. That article also reports that House Ways and Means Chairman Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, and Rep. Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne, say they have tried repeatedly to get off the list too. There is also a January 23, 2005 Indy Star article that mentions Wolkins and Espich’s efforts to get off the list, as well as a 4th, Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Meeks, R-LaGrange. So, we are to believe that of the half-dozen who have tried to get off the list, half of them are from Indiana? Indiana is not exactly the bluest state in the Union. Permit me to be skeptical.

There was also a report in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette:

Let the buyer beware.

Well, state Rep. Dave Wolkins, R-Winona Lake, didn’t exactly buy anything but he sure is regretting once signing a pledge against raising taxes.

That’s why he’s been trying to get his name off the Americans for Tax Reform list for four years.

And with a possible tax increase looming this session, Wolkins is really getting serious.

Many candidates – including other area representatives Win Moses Jr., D-Fort Wayne, and Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale – signed the pledge for what they thought was a two-year election cycle.

But they later found out the pledge is a lifetime commitment.

The story goes on to say that Rep. Wolkins campaigned in 2000 and 2002, saying that he couldn’t guarantee no tax increases and describes his efforts to send press clippings of such to ATR. Then ATR tells him that he needs a public press conference with an ATR member. He tried to do that, but they wouldn’t commit to sending an organization. The story concludes, “Wolkins is committed, though; he plans to sue if his name remains on the list after the news conference.”

The trouble seems to be getting a member of the group to show up at the press conference renouncing the pledge. Though, one suspects that ATR would simply make up a new condition rather than actually taking the person off the list. And, if one were to make any especially concerted effort to get off the list, like Rep. Wolkins has done, one suspects that ATR would put that person on the blackest of their black lists and flood the Republican primary in an effort to unseat that candidate.

There was another report on Feb. 11, 2005 from the Indy Star

Rep. David Wolkins called on Americans for Tax Reform on Thursday to stop holding him “hostage” to a no-new-taxes pledge he no longer believes in.

Wolkins, a Winona Lake Republican, was joined during a Statehouse news conference by Rep. Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne, who also wants off the national anti-tax lobbying group’s list of state lawmakers who oppose all new taxes.

“This is an organization that’s out of control,” said Moses, who has written five letters asking to be removed since signing up in 1998.

. . .

Damon Ansell, [ATR’s] chief of staff, accused Wolkins on Thursday of staging “a publicity stunt.”

“I don’t like being called dishonest by a dishonest politician,” he said. “He knows very well how to get out of the pledge, and he hasn’t done it.”

The group says Wolkins failed to have a representative present at the news conference when he declared the pledge void. No one from the group showed up Thursday.

“I don’t know how many times I asked them to set me a date, and they wouldn’t do it, so I just arbitrarily picked today,” Wolkins said

No state lawmaker in the country has ever been removed from the list, except through leaving office.

This prompted the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette to give its ‘jeers’ to Americans for Tax Reform

JEERS to Americans for Tax Reform for setting up high roadblocks for political candidates to renounce the no-tax-increase pledge some candidates sign in accordance with the organization. CHEERS to State Rep. David Wolkins, R-Winona Lake, for seeking to take his name off the list of pledge-signers. Face it, no elected official wants to raise taxes; but Wolkins, like Gov. Mitch Daniels in his 2004 campaign, says he should reserve it as an option. Some candidates apparently signed the pledge believing it applied to the upcoming term in office, while Americans for Tax Reform says it lasts forever.

More JEERS to Americans for Tax Reform for its insistence on criticizing virtually any tax increase, including those that may benefit constituents. For example, the group recently criticized the Mississippi House for voting to raise the state’s cigarette tax – third lowest in the nation – from 18 cents to 68 cents, still below the national average of 84 cents. Higher cigarette taxes have been linked to declines in smoking.

Further research shows that some Kentucky legislators are having the same problem. Only in Kentucky’s case, Grover Norquist himself needs to attend. (See, the requirements to get off the list keep rising.) The Lexington Herald-Leader reports:

Some Kentucky lawmakers who long ago pledged to never raise taxes are starting to wonder if they’ve registered in the Hotel California.

You know — it’s that mystic place memorialized in the 1976 Eagles hit. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Several Democrats and Republicans have declared recently that they’re feeling boxed in by the so-called “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” aggressively urged upon politicians nationwide by a conservative group, Americans for Tax Reform, and its feisty founder, Grover Norquist.

Signing up seemed like a good idea at the time, they say, but times have changed.

Kentucky needs money for education, health programs and salaries, and it might need new taxes to get it. They want out.

But to their amazement, they’re finding that nearly impossible to do.

Last Friday, Sen. Walter Blevins, D-West Liberty, and Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence, proudly announced at a press conference that they were rescinding their promises.

. . .

No dice, Norquist told him.

The pledge is a promise to constituents, not to the tax reform group, Norquist explained. So only voters can “release” him from his promise.

In an interview, he went further: Not even voting for a tax increase is grounds for removal.

“That doesn’t get you out of the pledge, just like committing adultery doesn’t get you out of a marriage,” Norquist said. “It just makes you a bad person.”

Lawmakers have just two ways to get off the list, Nor-quist said, voice rising: Either lose an election, or announce an intention to “break the promise” at a press conference with Nor-quist and manage to get re-elected anyway.

Norquist explained that he must be present “to make sure it gets enough attention.”

The article goes on to say that the Kentucky legislators have essentially told Norquist and ATR to go to hell. Amen brothers.

Update: I found another article out of Kentucky on the subject from January 31, 2005. The Kentucky Post reports on Rep. Steve Nunn’s difficulty getting ATR to drop him from their list. The Post reports further:

Only one Northern Kentucky legislator has renounced the pledge: Rep. Royce Adams, D-Dry Ridge, who did so five years ago.

Adams, who signed the pledge in 1996, said he wrote a letter in 2000 to Americans For Tax Reform reneging, but he remains among the list of signers. He said it was a “sore spot” with him.

“I requested my name be removed from their list. I signed it for that period,” Adams said.

Adams said he thought the pledge was a political ploy.

“They don’t have any idea about the well-being of the people of Kentucky. They’re just forwarding their agenda,” he said. “I wished I hadn’t signed it in the first place.”
. . .
Norquist said the only way a lawmaker could be removed from the groups’ list is to have a press conference, which he would attend before a primary election. He said it was disingenuous to run for office on the pledge and renounce it after being elected. Norquist said the pledge is not to him or American Tax Reform, but to a signer’s constituents.

“He should go and apologize to the people of his district,” Norquist said of Nunn’s recent announcement.

Nunn countered: “My pledge has been rescinded as far as I’m concerned. I don’t have to play by his rules. I’ll answer to my constituents as I have done in the past.”