Speech by David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center for Public
Policy Research at the Wise Use Leadership Conference, May 3, 1997. Ridenour's
comments are his own views and do not necessarily reflect those of The National
Center for Public Policy Research.
Chuck asked me to speak to you today apparently believing every silver lining
needs its cloud.
I want to begin by reading to you excerpts of a letter written by Paul Weyrich,
President of the Free Congress Foundation and founder of NET-Political NewsTalk
Television to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on April 25, one day after
Senate ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention -- an international
treaty with enormous implications not only for private property rights and
national sovereignty, but our national security.
"Dear Trent: I write this letter more in sorrow than in anger. Words
cannot properly express the depth of feeling that I have concerning your
betrayal of your principles and all of us on the Chemical Weapons Convention
yesterday... It has given you great pleasure to have crossed your base and
you have made an issue out of doing so. You told one of your colleagues
that 'conservatives will get over it.' Think again. This will never be forgotten...
Trent, I have known you since the 1960s. But I no longer consider you a
friend. A friend is someone you can trust. I no longer trust you."
A friend is someone you can trust. Think about that for a moment. By that
standard those of us who support private property rights have very few friends
in the United States Congress. The Senate's ratification of the Chemical
Weapons Convention -- which will give foreign inspectors the power to in
seize private property -- is but the most recent evidence of this.
Perhaps its time that we admit that environmentalists were right all along
when they insisted that the Republican-led Senate was captive to powerful
corporate special interests. After all, this would go a long way toward
explaining why it is that business and industry managed to get two separate
votes on Senator Dole's regulatory reform bill in the 104th Congress and
several votes on the now infamous EPA riders -- neither of which enjoyed
broad public support -- but we couldn't get the Senate to vote even once
on the Omnibus Property Rights Act despite widespread public support for
taking compensation.
In the new 105th Congress, we'll be lucky if we can get a property rights
bill introduced much less have a vote scheduled.
How did we get to this sorry state of affairs?
The high-water mark for private property rights legislation would have to
be March 3, 1995, when the House approved H.R. 925, the Private Property
Protection Act, in a 277-148 vote. Unfortunately, it's been downhill ever
since: It was to be a full year before the Omnibus Property Rights Act,
a watered-down version of the Private Property Protection Act with a 33%
takings trigger, was even considered for Senate floor consideration: In
early March of last year, Majority Leader Dole told us that a massive grassroots
push was needed on behalf of S. 605 as it would be voted on March 27. March
27 came and went without a vote, despite the tremendous time and effort
spent -- or should I say wasted -- by many of the people in this room. Another
vote was to be held in April. That deadline also came and went. Yet another
vote was to be held on May 15. Again, the deadline came and went -- and
this time so did Senator Dole. He resigned from the Senate to devote full-time
to his presidential campaign and we were told we would have to wait for
a new Majority Leader to be selected before a vote on property rights could
be held. Well, at least Dole left for a triumphant cause.
By the end of July it was clear that the new Senate Majority Leader, Trent
Lott, would never schedule a vote on the Omnibus Property Rights Act. By
then the bill was only a shadow of its former self, watered down even further
to include a 50% trigger for takings compensation instead of a 33% trigger.
But still Lott would not schedule a vote. Even the delivery of boxes of
waffles to Lott's office -- many courtesy of Chuck Cushman -- sent to symbolize
the Majority Leader's waffling on property rights wasn't enough to get a
vote.
Why the reticence? According to the scuttlebutt, a number of Republican
Senators facing re-election -- Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire among
them -- asked that the vote be put off until after the elections because
they feared being tarred as anti-environment.
Funny, Republican Senators didn't seem concerned about being labeled "anti-environment"
when they voted to include in various stop-gap spending measures and in
debt ceiling extension bills the now infamous EPA riders -- the legislation
most responsible for precipitating the GOP's environmental image problem.
But then, industry and their political action committees wanted these riders.
Republican Senators didn't seem concerned about being labeled "anti-environment"
when they tried not once, but two times to obtain cloture for Senator Dole's
regulatory reform bill. But then that's because the American Petroleum Institute,
the National Manufacturers Association, the Chemical Manufacturers Association
and other industry giants backed the bill. Republican Senators didn't seem
concerned about being labeled "anti-environment" when they placed
Superfund reform as one of their top legislative priorities at the beginning
of this year, instead of property rights. But then Superfund is also a top
priority for a whole host of corporate special interests -- from insurance
companies to manufacturers.
As most of you know, property rights was never the political liability for
the GOP that some insisted it was. Indeed, it was an asset. You've all heard
the evidence: A poll conducted by The Polling Company for the Competitive
Enterprise Institute found that 64% of the American people supported compensation
to property owners when environmental regulations prevent them from using
their land. Even Celinda Lake, the Democrat pollster has said, "If
one ever lets the Republicans convince voters that either Democrats or the
environmental groups are anti-private property, then I think it could be
a very dangerous issue. I think it's one of the most serious issues the
environmentalists should worry about because it is such a core value to
the people." It seems everyone -- but Republicans -- recognized the
importance of property rights.
You know, we even fared worse with the Republican Senate than the GOP's
most staunch opponents. We couldn't get a vote on property rights, but the
AFL-CIO -- which threw an extra $32 million into the kitty against Republican
candidates in the elections -- managed to get their top legislative priority:
A vote on the minimum wage hike.
What all this teaches us is that Congress is motivated largely by two emotions:
greed and fear. Forget about compassion, loyalty, or a strong sense of what
is right and wrong -- these are all less powerful. Corporate America gets
what it wants from Congress through the lure of campaign contributions while
others -- like the AFL-CIO and the environmental movement -- get what they
want by making Congressmen fear their wrath.
Unfortunately, in the short term at least, I don't see any way the property
rights movement can appeal to congressional avarice. This means that the
only real weapon that we have is fear in its various forms: Fear of rejection,
fear of negative publicity, fear of loss of valued allies.
I have a number of ideas on how to do this that I want to share with you:
1.) We must let all those in Congress who call themselves our friends know
that our friendship comes with a price. From time to time, we've all been
called upon to generate support for an initiative of marginal interest to
our members or supporters, but of great interest to a particular Member
of Congress -- and we've readily agreed to help. In the future, our help
should not come so easily. Congressmen should be asked what they are prepared
to do to advance the property rights agenda in return for our help. We'll
find one of two responses: Some will begin to do more to advance the property
rights agenda. Others will stop calling to ask for favors. Either response
is a net plus for our movement.
2.) We must let all those in Congress who call themselves our friends know
that no friendship at all comes with an even higher price. If Republicans
continue to stall on property rights legislation, if they continue to demonstrate
that they are not our friends, we must be prepared to hit them where it
hurts the most -- the pocket book. This may mean organizing targeted protests
of GOP fundraising events, acting as the skunk at the garden party. Or it
could mean organizing donor strikes. The bottom line is that forces much
more powerful than U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators -- campaign committees
-- may weigh in on property rights if they believe that stalling the legislation
is costing them money.
3.) We must let those who call themselves our friends know that we will
not go away, we will not forget. When Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Orrin Hatch or Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott speak in our communities,
we must remind them -- through organization of protests, if necessary --
that we will settle for nothing less than a straight up or down vote on
a property rights bill on the floor of the Senate. We want a vote -- regardless
of the outcome -- to determine who precisely is for us and who is against
us in the Senate.
4.) We must let those who call themselves our friends know that we'll monitor
not just their words but their deeds. There are a number of groups, like
ALRA, that have developed scorecards to hold politicians accountable for
their votes. But these scorecards don't hold politicians accountable for
the votes that were never scheduled. I suggest that a special leadership
section to these scorecards be added -- giving a pass or fail score -- for
legislation that was proposed but bottled up by the Senate leadership and
committee chairman. A second way to hold them accountable is to get them
on record committing themselves to a property rights vote. Myron has suggested
a "Earn Our Trust" coalition letter -- a coalition letter that
would review the history of the property rights legislation and the many
ways Republicans have let the property rights movement and challenge Republicans
to "Earn Our Trust" by specifying a date certain by which a property
rights bill will be voted on on the Senate floor. A more long-term accountability
measure may be to develop a "property rights pledge" for candidates
-- similar to the Tax Pledge created by Americans for Tax Reform -- which
would commit politicians to fighting for property rights. Such a pledge
could be used to make a campaign issue out of candidates' property rights
transgressions. Finally, we too may wish to establish our own PACs for independent
expenditure campaigns against those who oppose property rights.
5.) We must let those who call themselves our friends know that we can find
new friends. Some Republicans clearly take the property rights movement,
believing that the movement simply has no other place to go. To the extent
possible, we should recruit democrat champions of our cause. If Republicans
to not want to get the credit for protecting private property rights, perhaps
a Democrat will.
6.) We must let those who call themselves our friends know that we're not
beyond shaming them into voting on property rights. Taking a lesson from
the Democrats, we too can make all those who oppose property rights look
anti-child. We can recruit school children to write letters to Trent Lott
explaining why property rights are important to their future and their families'
future. Let Lott look in the face of a child and explain why he won't schedule
a vote on property rights.
There are no doubt some among us who are uncomfortable with the kind of
tactics I've outlined, but I think we have no other real alternatives. Too
often we have chosen to sugar coat the depth of our frustration with our
elected officials in the interest of preserving our access to them and this
has cost us dearly. Self-censorship is a disservice not only to our movement,
but to politicians as they get an unrealistic view of what we're really
thinking and they act according to that distorted world view. At some point
we also have to ask ourselves precisely why have we been struggling to maintain
access to politicians for if not to argue strenuously for what it is we
truly want, what we truly believe in.
There are others of us who no doubt believe that we needn't sacrifice access,
we needn't use the stick on wayward politicians if we simply settle for
incremental reform -- reform politicians advise us is possible. While short-term
benchmarks are important -- indeed vital to our movement -- there is a problem
when we make incremental reform the goal. Inevitably incremental reform
would give way to incremental incremental reform, and so on until we have
no goals at all. Politicians would like nothing better than for their advice
to lead us to have no demands at all. We cannot allow the tail to wag the
dog -- politicians to dictate what our goals will be instead of us dictating
what their goals will be.
Let me conclude repeating something that Paul Weyrich said in his letter
to Trent Lott. He said Lott had told a number of his colleagues of his betrayal
on the Chemical Weapons Convention that "conservatives will get over
it." No doubt he thinks the same of the property rights movement of
his betrayal of us on property rights legislation last year. We need to
send a loud and clear message that we won't get over it and will never forget.
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