Republican Party May Vote on Purity Resolution De-Funding Pro-Abortion Candidates
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 24, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — National Republican Party leaders may vote on a purity resolution at their January meeting that would prevent the party from funding candidates that did not adhere to a set of GOP principles, one of which includes opposing abortion. The resolution is sparking an internal party debate on the best way to advance pro-life principles.
The resolution is sponsored by Jim Bopp, a prominent pro-life attorney who is the legal counsel for the National Right to Life Committee and a longtime Republican committeeman from Indiana.
Bopp’s measure makes it so the Republican Party can’t provide funding to any candidate that opposes more than three of the ten established principles on fiscal and social issues.
The idea is that Republican candidates in good standing must adhere to Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of supporting GOP candidates who agree with the party 80 percent of the time.
A candidate who disagrees, "as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee," the resolution says.
Bopp and nine other members of the RNC are behind the resolution they say is needed because of what happened in the special Congressional election in New York where the party backed a pro-abortion candidate over a pro-life third party candidate who ultimately lost by a small percentage to a pro-abortion Democrat after the pro-abortion Republican withdrew.
"Having the RNC financially support liberal Republicans who are future party splitters is just very damaging to our ability to reclaim our conservative bona fides," Bopp told the Hotline, a political publication.
"Over the last several years, we’ve supported [ex-Sen. Lincoln] Chafee, then [Sen. Arlen] Specter, then [Assemb.] Dede [Scozzafava] in New York 23," Bopp added.
"In each case, we invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, and the result was severe damage to our credibility among conservatives, and in each case they switched parties, and/or endorsed the Democrat. We just need to have some standards so this won’t happen again," he said.
Bopp also says his resolution is good because it allows pro-life independents and Democrats to move towards the Republican party if they agree on 80 percent of the other issues.
The resolution reads: "THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:"
Two of the 10 statements include: "We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare" and "We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion."
Some Republicans say the resolution could pose problems for Republicans next year as they attempt to lower the stranglehold pro-abortion Democrats have on Congress.
They say it would prevent the party from supporting pro-abortion Senate candidates Mike Castle in Delaware and Mark Kirk in Illinois. They say the resolution would keep those Senate seats in the hands of Democrats and ultimately hurt pro-life efforts in the Senate by giving pro-life party leaders fewer caucus members on key votes and fewer committee assignments.
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