Role models are missing in today’s GOP. It used to have people like Gov. Dan Evans | Opinion
When it comes to the difference between a statesman and your run-of-the-mill politician, the political philosopher Harry Truman said a “statesman is a politician who’s been dead 10 or 15 years.” I thought of that bit of Truman humor last week when I heard that former Republican Governor of Washington Dan Evans passed away at age 98. I might quibble with Harry a bit and suggest that if a politician waits too long to pass from this earth, there won’t be many folks around to remember him and speak to his statesman-like qualities.
In Evans’ case, that’s where the Seattle Times comes in. For anyone who wants to know the measure of the man, the Times did an excellent job recently of summing up a storied life and career in the service of his fellow citizens that now appears more like a memory from yesteryear rather than a reflection of Republicans in politics today. Of course, there are some good ones out there at every level of government, but over the course of my lifetime I have seen the overall quality of Republicans elected to state and national office decline.
And just to be clear. My take on things comes from personal experience, not polls, not research, not biographies of those who have served. No science here, just a gut feeling from my experience working for a Republican United States senator in the second half of the 20th century and watching the U.S. Senate legislate in those days. The qualities of intellect, integrity and a willingness to craft public policy in a spirit of bipartisanship seem to have declined on the Republican side of the aisle.
Who’s missing in today’s lineup of Republican officeholders? It is the likes of Sen. Jacob Javits of New York, Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island, Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, Sens. Lamar Alexander and James Baker of Tennessee, Sen. John C. Danforth of Missouri, who seem to be missing. A list longer than my arm could fill the rest of this column and if this list looks top heavy with men, as the years passed, more women would be elected to the Senate from both sides of the aisle.
These Republican senators were not known just for their intellect and integrity. They were exemplars of bipartisanship who knew how to cross the aisle and compromise with Democrats in their lawmaking. Michigan Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, may have summed it up best when in support of Truman’s foreign policy initiatives of NATO and the Marshall Plan, he urged his Republican colleagues to stop “partisan politics at the water’s edge.” It’s hard to fathom how some of today’s Republicans have strayed so far from their Party’s commitment to freedom and democracy across the globe as they bow to Putin and refuse to support Ukraine in its fight for peace and security. Vandenberg must be spinning in his grave.
So many of the strategies employed by House and Senate Republicans are designed to obstruct, to delay, to kill any idea that is not in keeping with the tenets of its infamous Project 2025, produced by ultra conservatives at the Heritage Foundation. After praising it early in his campaign, Trump is making every effort to distance himself from it now that it has been revealed as a radical strategy to undermine the quality of life for millions of Americans.
Perhaps the best example of Republican obstruction recently is the legislation to address issues at our southern border, a rare concession by Republicans at bipartisan lawmaking. It was eventually held up for a vote on the specific instruction of Donald Trump and I have yet to hear any Republican call that what it is — a bald-faced effort by Trump to use the border as a campaign issue this election year.
Evans took a much different approach to welcoming folks to America. After the Vietnam War, Vietnam refugees arrived on California shores. Evans sent a staffer to California to let the refugees know they were welcome in the state of Washington.
On just how far bipartisanship traveled in those days, here’s a shocker from my days working as a U.S. Senate staffer. In today’s hyper-partisan world, I doubt you will hear many tales like I remember, hearing staff to Republican Sen. Charles H. Percy of Illinois talk about how they would load up his schedule with events he could not rearrange so he would have an excuse for declining a request to campaign for a fellow Republican who was running to unseat one of his Democratic friends in the Senate.
Percy was labeled a RINO for his moderate voting record — Republican In Name Only — a fault-finding label the Republican right-wing of today still uses to stigmatize any Republican who doesn’t’ buy into the entirety of the Trump agenda. I can only imagine how long Evans would have lasted in today’s political climate. He certainly would not have escaped the RINO appellation.
Evans signed a bill in 1967 creating Evergreen State College, a public liberal arts and sciences college with an interdisciplinarity emphasis. Evans would later serve as its president when Evergreen was faced with an enrollment decline that he would reverse during his tenure. And a Democratic governor whom Evans defeated in his Senate run ten years earlier would appoint Republican Evans to the Board of Trustees of the University of Washington. Now that’s Bipartisanship 101.
Evans’ commitment to public education is a far cry from the agenda of today’s Republicans in state legislatures who seem more focused on how to send taxpayer dollars to private schools as they threaten, and sometimes succeed, in defunding our public universities and colleges.
While Trump has captured the Republican Party with such disdain for civility and decorum, Republicans stand idly by as he devalues and demeans anyone who differs with them. Can there be any doubt that many students watching the violence and the mayhem in the public square, often incited by Trump’s uncouth and insolent behavior, will opt for a career far from the public sector?
If they do consider running for public office, who would be their role models in the Republican Party? The Seattle Times reminds its readers that a breed of “Dan Evans Republicans” in Washington were known to be those who combined a social commitment and environmental ethic with a strong sense of fiscal responsibility. Good luck finding any of those in the Republican ranks today, especially in Idaho. Neighboring Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney may qualify, but he is headed for retirement after occupying a lonely space in Senate caucus in recent years.
Trump’s ruinous impact on the Republican Party will not be reversed overnight. His dictatorial control over who can emerge from Republican primaries is life threatening to the party of Lincoln. In my next column, I will explore how Idaho voters can have more say in the selection process by voting for Idaho’s Open Primaries Initiative which gives voters the ability to choose the very best candidates for public office.