Coolidgeservative
“In all my life, I never thought my trusty chainsaw would be put to use so quickly.”
-Dick Lamm-
One of the oddest, to the entrenched political observers, developments of the 1960s and 1970s was the resurrection of former President Calvin Coolidge into the national dialogue of beloved former leaders. A Gallup poll from April 1978 found that Coolidge was America’s fourth most liked President with 11% of adults naming him their first – Lincoln led with 27%, followed by Washington’s 26%, and FDR’s 20%. Younger pols, just entering the public sphere, didn’t see it as much of an enigma. With the power of government growing in every single Presidential Administration since FDR, the Liberty Conservative (and some Minaprogressives such as Dick Lamm) base began to look back fondly on the small government individualism of Silent Cal.“In all my life, I never thought my trusty chainsaw would be put to use so quickly.”
-Dick Lamm-
Among them was President Ronald Reagan. Mounting a portrait of Coolidge in the position of honor in the Oval Office – the other portraits being that of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ben Franklin – Reagan’s longtime goal was to shrink the size of the ballooning federal government. Not pare it down or control its growth as Nixon had done, but dramatically cut huge swaths of the burgeoning bureaucracy that FDR, Kennedy, and Wallace had so created. On board with this plan was his economic team: SecTreas William Casey (later Charles Percy after Casey retired in 1980), SecLabor Richard Schweiker, SecHEW Caspar Weinberger, Trade Representative Art Laffer, and OMB Director Del Latta. Gone were the Rockefeller-wing New Deal consensus moderates that past GOP Administrations had to deal with. The libcons were in charge, and under Reagan they were not planning to pull their punches.
However, there were several issues that had to be dealt with. Firstly, the tax cuts and aid to anti-communist nations came first in Reagan’s priorities, along with other bills concerning the immediate economic recovery. Even the supply-side economists like Milton Friedman knew that immediately cutting government spending could be more detrimental than beneficial in a stagnating economy. Bolstered by rising growth and the effective 60-seat supermajority in the senate won in 1978, the problem then shifted from one of timing to one of strategy. How would the Administration and congress push for the massive spending cuts needed to balance the budget?
Several theories were considered within the economic team. Latta and Casey were supportive of the President’s idea of a “Balanced Budget Amendment” to the Constitution, copying what many states had to prohibit large deficits, but this was quashed by House and Senate leadership as a non-starter on Capitol Hill. Discretionary cuts in most spending were what congressional leadership, Laffer, and later Percy were in favor of, but many considered these politically problematic. The firebrands wanted to gut Amcare, considering the massive entitlement a bloated waste of money that was doomed to fail. Reagan shared their concerns, but knew attacking the popular health insurance program was suicide in a public opinion standpoint. No, Reagan eventually settled on Weinberger and Schweiker’s proposal – go after the Federal Bureaucracy. Shades of Calvin Coolidge.
Passed in the 1880s, the Pendleton Act created the modern civil service and resulted in the elimination of the “Spoils System,” whereby Administrations could use government jobs to reward political allies. However, as a result it became almost impossible to remove government bureaucrats through a maze of job protections and union contracts. With the Government expanding more and more in the successive administrations since FDR, a series of scandals involving corruption and personal improprieties among senior members of the civil service drew national attention to these facts, one of them being President Reagan. While strongly supporting the civil service against patronage appointees, the PATCO strike, scandals, and the massive resistance from the bureaucracy to the Buckley-Shriver Commission (which Reagan created to investigate fraud and waste in the executive branch) convinced the President that this was something to go after. Consulting with Congress, the coming strategy was to repeal the Pendleton Act with a superseding bill that still prohibited the ‘spoils system’ while creating “At will” employment for nearly all federal employees – serving at the will of the President and Cabinet.
Nevertheless, the bill passed the House on a party line vote (Speaker Brock and Majority Leader Roy Cohn allowing a smattering of defections). The senate was trickier, George Murphy only getting the votes to invoke cloture of some moderate Republicans and Independent Joe Biden by informing them that it was either this or cutting Amcare. It passed cloture and then endured several defections. Conference committees added several amendments that moderated the bill and created “just cause” requirements for workers in certain fields such as the Intelligence Community and the Justice Department. Senator Dick Lamm then announced his support of the amended bill, joined by conservative Democrats Jesse Helms and Orval Faubus. It passed both houses, and Reagan signed it into law.
In what was arguably one of his most decisive legislative victories, Reagan was magnanimous to the fearful bureaucracy. Few were immediately canned by order of the President, Director Latta implementing an Executive Order to slowly cut 15% of each department (except Defense) by attrition – beginning with the incompetent and corrupt officials gleamed from the original OMB and GAO audit. The hope by the Administration was to reach a balanced budget by Fiscal Year 1983, a lofty goal, but one Reagan was determined to see through.
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In an interview with Barbara Walters in the White House, when asked what the President’s most important domestic responsibility was, President Reagan would reply “Making sure the courts are staffed with the right people.” All conservatives, both Wallace communonationalists and Reagan liberty conservatives remembered the activism of the Warren Court – some issues had support, but others were felt to have hurt the nation greatly. George Wallace would later say his greatest regret was having to appoint Byron White and Bobby Kennedy to the Court, and that John Rarick didn’t get through. He considered Harrold Carswell and Bill Baxley as part of his greatest triumphs as President alongside Amcare and winning the Vietnam War. Reagan was similarly proud of appointing James Meredith, but the Court still wasn’t secure enough for his tastes.
The opportunity of a lifetime arrived in May 1979. After eleven years on the Court, Kennedy-appointed Chief Justice Nicholas Katzenbach announced he was retiring from the bench. While moderate in many respects, most considered him solidly on the social liberal wing for his votes in Henry v. Minnesota and Hanson v. Kentucky. For liberty conservatives and Wallace Democrats, the retirement brought a cautious and eager optimism to their watch of the White House – all hoped that Reagan would appoint a ‘strict constructionist’ to the position and bulletproof the judiciary.
Reagan did not disappoint. At the advice of Attorney General Edward Brooke and Deputy White House Counsel Clarence Thomas (a young attorney, but someone who had rapidly risen in Reagan’s confidence), the President selected University of Chicago Law Professor and former District Court Judge Robert H. Bork to replace Katzenbach. Possessing a firm record of constructionism and a sharp legal mind, he rapidly earned the praise of liberty conservatives and communonationalist Democrats. Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Herman Talmadge vowed to “Push him through no matter what,” while Majority Leader George Murphy merely said “He will be confirmed.” Despite a filibuster attempt led by George McGovern, Silvio Conte, Frank Church, and Pat Leahy, Bork was confirmed by a 78-21 vote margin.
Bork, Stewart, Burger, Harrold Carswell, Bill Baxley, and James Meredith would form a solid bloc of conservative constructionism on the Court – joined most of the time by Thomas Dewey and sometimes by Byron White. Most of the decisions of the Warren and Katzenbach Courts were respected, especially in the realm of civil rights given that even the conservative appointees were practically Thaddeus Stevens in their outlook, but several minor but expansive decisions were reigned in. Baxley would oftentimes join his moderate and liberal colleagues (William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, and Robert F. Kennedy) on commerce clause arguments (due to his communonationalist origins), but by and large the bloc held firm.
Such was widely debated by legal scholars, for the Briggs Initiative was slowly approaching the highest court in the land.
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Regardless of one’s opinion of the Reagan Administration, the flurry of activity in pushing their priorities through congress painted the picture of a dynamic President. However, among that dynamism came tragedy.
Beloved in his home state, Tom McCall had taken to his job as Vice President with a gusto not usually seen. He took the mantle of the hardworking partner of the President that Scoop Jackson had carved out – Reagan routinely sought out his counsel on the liberty conservative domestic reform initiatives the Administration passed, as well as the energetic McCall utilizing his journalistic charisma to representing the US on many state visits to foreign governments.
Thus, it came a great shock when the Vice President issued a statement to the nation in a direct conference to the press. A somber President Reagan and First Lady Nancy joining the Second Lady directly beside him, McCall announced that doctors had diagnosed him with prostate cancer – usually terminal. “Though I feel like a man far younger than myself, still spry and eager to serve, this will change quickly. In my responsibility to this nation and her people that was stated in the oath I took on the steps of the Capitol, persisting for any longer with this cloud hanging over me will do all a great disservice. Therefore, I shall resign the Vice Presidency. May God bless all of you, and may God bless the United States of America.”
Returning to Oregon at the height of his popularity, Tom McCall would remain active in public life until his cancer deteriorated his health to a degree that he was bedridden. He would pass away in 1983 – funeral attended by every living President and Vice President, nearly two hundred thousand lining the procession through downtown Portland.
However, there was only one man on Reagan’s mind. Only one that he believed could fill McCall’s shoes.
Ford was equally gracious. “I am deeply honored by the show of support and confidence from President Reagan, a truly great and humble man. I will not take this task lightly, but I know that with every breath in our bodies, President Reagan and I will fight nonstop for the cause of Liberty. A cause that will triumph.”
Enthusiastically backed by McCall, Ford would sail through the House of Representatives unanimously, and through the Senate on a 99-1 vote (the only nay being that of liberal gadfly Ramsay Clark of New York).
