For House Republicans, the summer of the grudge is giving way to the summer of love.
Speaker Bill Howell and his House Republicans have a lousy relationship with Virginia FREE, a prominent, nonpartisan business advocacy group that rates legislators mostly on corporate issues. For the second time since 2003, Republicans appear to be boycotting the organization's candidate-vetting sessions in Richmond in early September. Only a few Republicans plan to attend the meetings, at which candidates are quizzed by lobbyists and complete a Virginia FREE questionnaire.
However, most Republicans, with Howell's blessings, are expected to participate in regional interviews by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, a reliable, occasionally underwhelming cornerstone of the business lobby working to establish a more vibrant image under its new chief, a well-known Republican who says he's committed to the chamber's nonpartisan tradition. The chamber is thrilled with the political cattle call, which, unlike Virginia FREE's, puts candidates directly in front of the business class rather than its lobbyist handmaidens.
Such intrigues are small tiles in a larger mosaic, one that has become more sharply defined since the first-ever GOP takeover of the General Assembly in 2000: the Republicanization of the lobbying corps. It is a consequence of the partisan shift in Richmond. But it can be characterized by a tendency among the lobbied and lobbyists to personalize differences and a preoccupation with control, particularly among the lobbied.
Virginia FREE is suspect among House Republicans because its report card, largely based on roll-call votes, in 2003 graded the GOP leadership team lower than the Democratic counterpart. But that was the exception, not the rule.
House Republicans are also steamed over needling by Virginia FREE on transportation funding. In 2008, the group hit the Republican House and the Democratic Senate for failing again to finance roads. Three years on, Republicans still wince over that criticism, even after backing a highway-funding plan financed with the public's credit card.
This past May, Virginia FREE committed the ultimate sin. Its spring luncheon in Northern Virginia overlapped with the House Republican Caucus' fundraiser at The Homestead. Adding insult to injury: The Virginia FREE event featured Mark Warner, the tax-raising Democratic governor-turned-U.S. senator who, as a hawk on federal spending, is a favorite of many boardroom types.
There may be a larger issue, however: The changing roles of groups such as Virginia FREE.
Not long ago, Virginia FREE, in part, because it collaborated with other business groups, controlled the franchise on corporate-oriented political intel. The Virginia Chamber of Commerce interviews indicate otherwise. So, too, does the rise of the Virginia Public Access Project, an online watchdog of money and politics. It mashes for a broad audience many of the numbers that Virginia FREE did for business leaders.
All that, combined with economic pressures, has some Virginia FREE members leaving, among them the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association.
Because he's the face of Virginia FREE, Clayton Roberts is a target of Republicans' ire, never mind he's one of them.
A former political reporter, Roberts worked for a GOP delegate from Southside. He spent seven years at the National Right-to-Work Committee before helping launch Virginia FREE more than 20 years ago as a research-oriented cheerleader for the state corpocracy.
Identifiable Republicans now head the once-mighty Virginia Manufacturers Association (Brett Vassey, a former policy aide to Gov. George Allen), the state wing of the National Federation of Independent Business (Nicole Riley, who worked for a Republican delegate and two GOP attorneys general) and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce (Barry DuVal, a former congressional candidate and commerce and trade secretary under Gov. Jim Gilmore).
That may be a comfort to House Republicans, though it speaks to a constant in statehouse politics: chumminess. Democrats demanded it, too, when they were in charge.
How quickly we forget.
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