Horowitz: Where is the red-state Laphonza Butler?

Democrats have installed their “lesbian powerhouse” in the U.S. Senate. Where are the “patriot powerhouses” in the red states? And why have we lacked the numbers to nominate a speaker of the House who fully shares our values and interests?

The way to change the fundamental imbalance between the parties is by reforming the way we select nominees.

Following the sudden death last week of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Governor Gavin Newsom needed to pick an interim replacement. He had a large bench of Democrats from which to choose in the once Golden State. So what did he do? He went with the biggest leftist imaginable — a registered voter from Maryland, no less!

In Laphonza Butler, Newsom didn’t find only a reliable leftist vote but also a ferocious voice and leader for every cause Democrats hold dear. By selecting a lesbian activist who is the head of the most prominent pro-abortion organization in the country, Newsom figured he’d floor the gas pedal in a state where Democrats cannot lose and elevate an out-of-state resident who has never held office. Why? Because it serves their interests.

So ... who is our Laphonza Butler? Who has championed and led our most important causes for years? Why are red states teeming with milquetoast Republican state officeholders? Why is it practically impossible to nominate — let alone elect —solid conservatives apart from certain districts in the House of Representatives?

You’d be hard pressed to find a single Democrat outside a swing state who dissents from the party line on a single issue of significance. Yet when you flip the tables, you won’t find a single Republican from a solidly red state who does not harbor some liberal views on critical questions, whether it’s illegal immigration, gay marriage, green energy, or — especially! — Ukraine. Few if any elected Republicans are entirely in line with their base.

The few Republicans who are good on one issue will usually screw us on another critical issue. One might be good on medical freedom but crush us on gay marriage. Another one who is strong on social values will shill for Ukraine or open borders. Even Utah’s Mike Lee, who arguably has the most consistent conservative voting record in the Senate this past decade, is passionate about freeing criminals and handing out more visas.

Republican governors aren’t much better. Why do we keep talking about Ron DeSantis? Because he is the only red-state governor willing to power through corporate politics, identity politics, and the temptation of federal funding. Every other Republican governor supports some level of illegal immigration, mass vaccination, funding for Ukraine, and green energy subsidies. The imbalance between the parties is simply unsustainable.

On the other hand, good luck finding a single Democrat from a blue state who is content with Obama-era liberalism, which looks perfectly moderate compared to the agenda Democrats are pursuing now.

How it is that Democrats have so much unity while Republicans have been mired in fights over the speakership for 10 years? Democrats had the same slim majority in the last Congress and accomplished so much more from their perspective.

Donald Trump also lamented the speaker fight and observed, “Republicans are always fighting among themselves.” Well, it’s no mystery why. Democrats fully support every major and minor policy goal of their base. Republicans are often on the other side of their base on the issues that matter when they matter most.

Something has to give. We can put stock in the new speaker’s election, but the ongoing challenge is that most of the GOP conference will choose leadership out of step with the party’s base.

Short of starting a new party, the only solution I see is to elect a critical mass of game-changers in one election cycle. The problem is that primaries, especially in statewide elections, cost too much money for those types of candidates who want to cut out the GOP donor class. Which is why status quo Republicans continue winning elections.

The only way to change the game is to have state parties change the method of selection from direct popular primaries to representative conventions. Utah once had this model (before Romney gutted it), and indeed this is how we got someone like Mike Lee to defeat a long-standing incumbent, Bob Bennett, in 2010.

The benefits of representative conventions to choose party nominees are immeasurable.

In most states the selection process would be dominated by grassroots activists. Money and media would play a relatively minor role in choosing the nominee because the activists know who these people are and would not be fooled by RINOs putting out slick anti-leftist ads, such as Mitch McConnell promising to repeal Obamacare “root and branch.”

Conservatives could put several Senate seats and dozens of House seats in play every cycle in the 25 more conservative states. Knowing an insurgent candidate could knock them out at a convention — as Lee took down Bennett in 2010 — would encourage milquetoast Republicans to change their behavior. Under the current system, primary challenges are so unsuccessful that they rarely serve as a deterrent in the long run.

The prospect of winning with a grassroots ground game, without the need for a massive (and massively expensive) media campaign, would attract better conservative talent to run for office.

Selecting state government officials through conventions would also help states resist federal tyranny. Right now, Republicans control the trifecta of state government in 24 states. Yet conservatives cannot count on a single state to fight consistently for conservative causes because either the governor or state legislative leaders are part of the GOP establishment.

Direct primaries are a relic of the Progressive Era. Until 1912, most states still used the convention method during presidential election years, but that changed with the emergence of Teddy Roosevelt as a Progressive leader. As historian and Progressive Era scholar Sidney Milkis observed, Roosevelt’s “crusade made universal use of the direct primary, a cause célèbre.”

Roosevelt went on to win most of the primaries, but conservative William Howard Taft won the states that still had conventions and ultimately won the Republican Party’s nomination for president. Roosevelt’s views lived on, however, through the election of Woodrow Wilson. It’s no coincidence that Progressives succeeded at changing the nominating process precisely as the “newly emergent mass media” became dominant in our political culture, as Milkis noted.

Direct primaries have gotten us generations of uniparty Republicans backed by the media, big donors, and corporate interests that work together to hoodwink low-information GOP voters who broadly share our values but are uninformed about the records of so many red-state Republicans.

Moving to representative conventions is the only way to have a fighting chance of bypassing the corrupt Republicans who use donor cash to run on conservative issues but govern the other way. It is the only way to match the blue-state crazies with conservatives who will fight back with equal and opposing force. Absent this change, there is no future for people like us in the Whig Party 2.0.