Vander Plaats draws sharp contrast with chief rival

AMES — State government has been expanded by “governor after governor after governor,” a practice that must stop if Iowa ever hopes to truly prosper, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats told supporters Wednesday night.

Bob Vander Plaats speaks to supporters Wednesday night in Ames (photo by Dave Davidson, www.davedavidson.com).

“Governor after governor after governor… you do the math about how many governors that is,” he said.

The not-so-veiled shot was directed at Vander Plaats’ chief rival for his party’s nomination, former Gov. Terry Branstad.

While both Branstad and Vander Plaats have avoided directly attacking the other, their rivalry has nonetheless boiled over in recent weeks. Last month, several lawmakers and the influential social conservative group Iowa Family Policy Center endorsed Vander Plaats’s campaign and vowed to sit out the fall election if Branstad were the party’s nominee. The move sparked outrage in many Republican circles and motivated the Linn County Republican Party pass a resolution demanding candidates support the eventual nominee if they want the county party’s support.

Vander Plaats was the only candidate not to sign on to the pledge, causing many to surmise he would run as an independent if he loses in the primary.

In an exclusive interview with The Iowa Independent, Vander Plaats said he would never sign on to “blind loyalty pledges,” saying the idea “just doesn’t sell to the general voter.”

“But I do know after running for this office a couple times that whoever the nominee is of the party carries a huge responsibility,” he said. “That responsibility is to genuinely and authentically earn the support and endorsement of your peers in the race and their supporters. They don’t want to be taken for granted. They don’t want to be, ‘OK, I guess we’re Republicans so we’ll hold our nose and get behind Vander Plaats.’  They want you to earn their support and endorsement as well. “

For many, the primary campaign between Branstad and Vander Plaats is a battle for the soul of a party. Branstad, a four-term governor who left office in 1998, has had difficulty winning over social and religious conservatives since entering the campaign last year. Those voters, who make up the base of the party, point to his appointment of a lieutenant governor who supports abortion rights and a Supreme Court Justice who penned the decision legalizing same-sex marriage as proof that his conservative credentials are in doubt. They also question his association with Doug Gross, a Des Moines attorney and longtime adviser to Branstad who has angered many social conservatives for calling for the party to be more accepting of differing ideas.

Vander Plaats said the primary will decide whether Republicans truly believe in conservative principles or not.

“I think what Iowans want is they want to see someone who’s principled and someone who can cast a compelling vision,” he said, adding: “The danger is when we try to be all things to all people. The people of Iowa will think, ‘well, you really don’t stand for anything.’ So, whether I’m left of you or right of you is irrelevant because I don’t trust you because you’re all over the place.”

While Vander Plaats said he wants to stay away from attacking Branstad personally, saying candidates should “give people reason to vote for you, not vote against your opponent,” he does plan to draw sharp contrasts with his rival, whom he characterized as the “establishment” candidate.

“The environment today may be against the establishment that’s in charge right now, but they really don’t want to go back to another establishment,” he said. Voters want someone to speak up for all of Iowa, “not just a part of Iowa or a sect of Iowa or just those with access.”

The majority of Vander Plaats’ remarks Wednesday night focused on the economy and the size of state government. He said the bureaucracy that has grown over years is not only hurting Iowa business but also education. Things were already bad before Gov. Chet Culver took office, he said, but they quickly got worse.

“He decided to be a Hillary Clinton Christmas tree on steroids,” Vander Plaats said.

One of the first things he hopes to do in office is shrink that bureaucracy and find ways for the private sector to take on many of the jobs currently performed by the state.

It took more than an hour for Vander Plaats to address same-sex marriage, an issue that has long been the centerpiece of his campaign. Vander Plaats believes he can stop the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage with an executive order, pointing to language in the state’s constitution that calls the governor “chief magistrate of the state.”

This interpretation doesn’t bode well with constitutional scholars or Vander Plaats’ fellow Republican gubernatorial hopefuls. They say the governor does not possess that type of authority and issuing an executive order like that could result in a constitutional crisis, pitting branches of government against each other.

Conservative blogger and former Republican Party of Iowa political director Craig Robinson pointed out the flaw in Vander Plaats’ logic, saying the use of “chief magistrate” in the constitution “is just another name for governor, just like the constitution refers to voters as electors. This provision simply gives the office of governor its name, nothing more.”

“In fact, the historical analysis that I’ve found argues that the lack of any description of gubernatorial duties in the Iowa Constitution shows that the drafters constructed the governorship to be a relatively weak office,” Robinson said.

But those critics won’t deter Vander Plaats.

“I see this as a great civics lesson,” he said. “That’s the former teacher in me, I guess. The Supreme Court doesn’t make law. And this goes beyond just marriage. This will impact private property rights, free enterprise, education, health care, free speech, you name it.”