Republicans facing pressure from left and right in ...vgea.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Apr12018... · Republicans facing pressure from left and right in Virginia's Medicaid debate

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/republicans-facing-pressure-from-left-and-right-in-virginia-s/article_cb3cec06-2d53-58a4-8fb8-77701974721d.html

Republicans facing pressure from left and right in Virginia'sMedicaid debateBy PATRICK WILSON AND MICHAEL MARTZ Richmond Times-Dispatch 11 hrs ago

Del. Chris Stolle of Virginia Beach is among House Republicans

who back expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care

Act. And those Republicans are being pressured by

conservatives to change their position.

In the Richmond area, Stolle’s sister, state Sen. Siobhan

Dunnavant, R-Henrico, is also facing pressure. But it’s a

Peace

Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, and Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach

BOB BROWN

Republicans facing pressure from left and right in Virginia's Medic... http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/repub...

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different kind.

Dunnavant is among the 21-member Senate Republican

Caucus holding firm against Medicaid expansion. And that’s

leading to pressure from Democrats on her and other

Republican senators to change their positions.

The distinct pressures on the Republican legislative siblings

illustrate the division within the state GOP over the issue.

While a significant number of Republicans in the House agreed

— after their caucus nearly lost its majority in the November

election — to support Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s call

for expansion, the Senate has refused.

And now, political pressure is being exerted from all sides

ahead of the legislature’s return to session on April 11 to finish

work on the budget.

Anna Scholl, executive director of liberal group ProgressVA,

said Republicans are becoming increasingly conscious that the

November wave election that flipped 15 GOP-held seats in the

House came at the hands of voters who said health care was

their top issue.

“I don’t think that the pressure on the right and the left here is

equivalent. There is a small minority of vocal Donald Trump

supporters who will oppose providing affordable health care

for Virginians no matter what. But [you can’t] equate that small

angry minority and some money from the Koch brothers on

the national level with the vast majority of Virginians who

support expanding Medicaid.”

One pro-expansion Republican delegate, Chris Peace of

Hanover County, posted on Facebook on Thursday that he was

undeterred by a phone call campaign initiated by the

conservative group Americans for Prosperity trying to get him

to change his mind.

Dunnavant

Thomas

Sturtevant


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“To my surprise, the handful of pass-through calls allege that

Virginia is on the verge of a government shut-down (“fake

news”), and that as a Delegate, I should vote to get rid of

Obamacare. While I wish I could have such a vote, only the

United States Congress can repeal the Affordable Care Act and

they have failed to do so,” Peace wrote.

Since the session, Americans for Prosperity has coordinated

phone calls to legislators and radio ads opposing expansion.

“We hope that the legislature passes a clean budget,” said AFP

spokesman Lorenz Isidro.

As far as Peace’s Facebook post, he said: “This is proof that

constituents are calling him. … Energy is still high.”

***

The Republican Party of Virginia’s State Central Committee

was divided on the issue of Medicaid expansion when the

committee met March 24 in Richmond.

Committee member Eve Marie Barner Gleason of the 10th

Congressional District in Northern Virginia introduced a

resolution commending state lawmakers who opposed

Medicaid expansion.

The resolution said, in part, that “Virginia’s liberal Democratic

Governor Ralph Northam made Medicaid expansion a

cornerstone of his campaign, without regard to the long-term

fiscal soundness of this program or its budgetary impact” and

“the State Central Committee of the Republican Party of

Virginia calls on all elected Republicans in the General

Assembly to send the governor a budget that does not include

funding for Medicaid expansion.”

Stolle, a member of the party’s executive committee, and

freshman Del. Bob Thomas, R-Stafford, a member of the State

Stolle


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Central Committee, spoke in favor of Medicaid expansion. But

they were alone.

The resolution failed by one vote.

Jeff Ryer, who is a member of the State Central Committee

from the 2nd Congressional District, a political aide to state

Senate Republicans and an opponent of Medicaid expansion,

said the vote was not on the merits of expansion.

“We did not believe that in the current circumstance it would

be a good idea for the party to weigh in on what is ostensibly a

dispute between Republicans,” Ryer said. “The vote was not

decided on the merits of the issue. The vote was decided on

the wisdom of weighing in.”

***

Republican delegates supporting expansion could run the

risk of a primary challenge in 2019, when all 100 House seats

and all 40 Senate seats are up for election. That risk became

real this week for Thomas, who squeaked by Democrat Josh

Cole in November in the district previously held by former

Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford.

On Thursday, Paul Milde, former chairman of the Stafford

Board of Supervisors, announced he’d run against Thomas in

the 2019 primary because Thomas voted for Medicaid

expansion. Milde was one of two opponents Thomas beat in

the GOP primary last year.

“By joining 49 liberal Democrat delegates to support

Obamacare and Medicaid expansion during this year’s session,

Bob Thomas has failed to keep faith with the voters who

nominated him last June,” Milde said in a news release.

“Worse, he has effectively aligned with Governor Northam and

the Democrats to oppose Republican senators like Richard


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Stuart, who are standing up for conservatives and for fiscally

responsible budgeting.”

Thomas was one of 20 House Republicans who voted for the

budget, even though he represents the same 28th House

District held for 30 years by Howell, who as speaker repeatedly

blocked expansion of Virginia’s Medicaid program under the

Affordable Care Act.

The November turnaround, coupled with the landslide victory

of Northam in the governor’s race, changed the political

dynamic in the General Assembly over Medicaid expansion.

“From the very first days of the session, it became clear the

votes to block all forms of expansion were just not there,”

Thomas told constituents in a newsletter the day after the

budget vote on Feb. 22. “Recognizing some form of expansion

was inevitable, I put my support behind negotiating for the

strong conservative reforms I campaigned on.”

Buoyed by what he described as “positive reaction,” he

subsequently held a district telephone town hall poll that

showed 61 percent of constituents in favor of expanding

Medicaid with reforms, while just 17 percent said the state

should oppose expansion “under any circumstance.”

“It’s a changing landscape and there’s an opportunity to fix the

existing program that we haven’t had for a long time,” Thomas

said in the interview.

The reforms include a work-for-benefits requirement that

House Republicans adopted — and Senate Republicans

rejected as too weak — as part of a proposed Medicaid waiver

that supporters said the administration of President Donald

Trump has supported in other Republican-led states, including

Kentucky and Indiana.

“The Medicaid question is so fundamentally different this time


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around, “ Thomas said. “I don’t know if they realize that or not.”

***

On the Senate side, Republicans face a different kind of

pressure.

Dunnavant and Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Richmond, will be

hearing from an increasing number of constituents because of

lobbying by pro-expansion groups. On Thursday, a campaign

called Healthy Virginia Now knocked on doors in their districts

to encourage people to call the senators and tell them to vote

for expansion.

The effort was coordinated by groups including Planned

Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, New Virginia Majority, SEIU

Virginia 512, and the Virginia Civic Engagement Table. Sen.

Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, and Dels. Debra Rodman,

D-Henrico, and Schulyer VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, joined in

the effort, according to a news release.

On Thursday, Northam and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., held a

roundtable discussion on education funding and Medicaid

expansion at a Richmond elementary school in Sturtevant’s

district. Sturtevant’s name did not come up, but when asked

about the venue, Northam said Democrats wanted to make

sure they get Sturtevant’s attention.

“We like to have these folks come out and talk to their

legislators and he’s obviously one of them in the Senate that

needs to hear from our parents and teachers and know what

this means about expanding health care and the resources it

could bring back to the commonwealth and right here to his

district,” Northam said.

Sturtevant could not be reached for comment.

Dunnavant said she’s not changing her mind.


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Patrick Wilson

Michael Martz

“I thought we were all tired of policy decisions being made in

emotional politicized ways. I’m sticking with data and

reasoning and critical thinking,” she said. “I’m a firm no on the

governor’s budget and the House budget. I think it is an

inappropriate use of funds.”

[email protected]

(804) 649-6061

Twitter: @patrickmwilson

[email protected]

(804) 649-6964

Justin Mattingly contributed to this report.


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Republicans facing pressure from left and right in ...vgea.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Apr12018... · Republicans facing pressure from left and right in Virginia's Medicaid debate