RNC to Offer Members Alternative to "Purity Test"
The Republican National Committee is backing away from a controversial "litmus test" for GOP candidates and will offer members a significantly watered-down version to vote upon at its annual conference next week, FrumForum has learned.
Jim Bopp, the RNC member from Indiana who originally proposed the so-called "purity test" has submitted a milder version, dubbed the "accountability resolution." The latter makes no reference to the first “10 points” that all GOP candidates would be questioned on, including supporting the Defense of Marriage Act, opposing cap and trade, and denying federal funds from use in abortions. Instead, the new resolution requires that all candidates sign a pledge obliging them to return any funds donated by the RNC if they decide to switch parties.
Bopp denies he's shelving the more extremist "purity test" after outcry from party moderates, and instead plans to table both the new proposal and the original purity test resolution at the conference for members to vote between. “It’s a very fluid situation and we want to present as many options as possible in order to gain support for one or both to accomplish our goals,” Bopp told FrumForum. “[The Purity and Accountability resolutions] are both very much in play.”
In a nod to the members of the RNC more geared towards a big tent philosophy, the new resolution notes that Republicans should embrace all who “espouse conservative principles” and states that the party should “welcome persons of diverse views.”
Moderating the language in the purity test resolution will go a long way in gathering broad support from the RNC. One FrumForum survey of RNC members found significant opposition to the original proposal. The new language may also appeal to an RNC that is looking to apply Scott Brown's upset senate win in Massachusetts to other liberal states.
Bopp insists he did not introduce the new resolution out of fear the purity test lacked the votes to pass. But he said simply, “I don’t know what’s going to pass”--a marked change from the confidence on display just a few months ago, when numerous co-sponsors of the purity test told FrumForum that they expected some version of the litmus test to pass.
Bopp also denied that the accountability resolution was weaker than the original purity test proposal, characterizing the new resolution as simply being more “flexible:"
It allows [RNC Chairman Michael Steele] to consider... the circumstances of a given race, plus all the other factors, and do what’s best for the party.
In the new resolution, the purity tests' ten policy points are replaced with a more general statement which declares that “opposition to Obama’s socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life.”
Click here for the text of the Purity Test and Accountability resolutions.