Republicans should use lessons learned to pass SAVE America Act

OPINION:

Remember “Hillarycare”? Bill Clinton rode into the White House in 1992 with silver hair and a silver tongue — and a spouse everyone knew had her own presidential ambitions.

One of President Clinton’s first acts was handing his policy-oriented first lady, Hillary Clinton, the task of pushing through Congress a budget-busting socialized medicine scheme that became known as “Hillarycare.”

Republicans in both chambers of Congress stood united against it. They committed to pulling out all the stops, made opposing it a top priority, took the case directly to their home states and rode the resulting momentum all the way to the historic Republican takeover of Congress in 1994.

Fast-forward more than a decade, and another young, driven Democratic president came to town with dreams of enacting another budget-busting socialized medicine scheme: the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.”

Americans continue to feel the impact of Obamacare today as health care costs rise, employers face growing compliance burdens, and businesses are forced to navigate an increasingly complex web of federal regulations.

There was a moment in December 2009 when Republicans faced a choice. They could concede the fight to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, take the loss, let the House deal with it, and hope that the legislation’s low polling among voters 55 and older would bring midterm victories in a year.

Or they could pull out all the stops in the Senate and fight what many correctly viewed as a bureaucratic abyss, one that Americans would be forced to fund regardless of age, health or means, sinking future competition in the health care market and paving the way for a government health care monopoly.

There was a difference in how the Republican Senate reached its decisions in 2009. Hard-liners such as Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma were willing to stand up to Reid’s procedural maneuvers, which included continuing the debate and amendment process for as long as possible to kill the bill. This took up most of December.

Eventually, the fight extended to Christmas Eve, and Reid attempted to make Republicans opposed to Obamacare look like the Grinches who stole Christmas.

Another faction of establishment-oriented Republican senators, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair John Cornyn of Texas, had forgotten why voters sent them to Washington.

Eventually, they figured the best Republicans could accomplish was to tarnish the ACA but ultimately allow passage. The thinking was that the next year would make great fodder for the midterms.

Exploiting divisions within the Republican conference did affect the midterms. It led to the tea party revolt, when conservative grassroots activists decided they had had enough and demanded that Republican representatives do what they promised they would do: stand up to President Obama’s liberal policies and block them at every turn.

This week, the Republican-controlled Senate will take up the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship to cast a ballot. How do Americans feel about it? The White House recently noted that “71% support the SAVE America Act — including 69% of independents and half of rank-and-file Democrats” and “75% support proof of citizenship to vote.”

Although Mr. DeMint has moved on to create and guide a successful Washington nonprofit, the Conservative Partnership Institute, and, sadly, Coburn died in 2020, Messrs. McConnell and Cornyn remain in the Senate. Mr. McConnell has handed over leadership reins to Mr. Thune of South Dakota, who, one hopes, won’t just follow the McConnell technique of concession and hope for the best down the road.

Mr. Cornyn finds himself in a hotly contested runoff with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a favorite among grassroots activists.

As President Reagan famously put it, “Here we go again.”

Have Messrs. McConnell and Cornyn, who between them have served in the Senate for a whopping 65 years, learned any lessons from all their collective experience? The vote on the SAVE America Act will lead many to answer that question.

Conservatives are counting on Mr. Thune’s leadership and courage to — you guessed it — pull out all of the stops. After all, it’s why they sent him to Washington.

• Ryan McGowan is CEO of the Institute for Legislative Analysis, a policy and data research and technology organization.