GOP Conference Chair McMorris Rodgers discusses effort she is leading to craft a message that reaches a diverse and growing electoral base
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-5) appeared before a breakfast meeting of The Ripon Society this past Friday to discuss her role as Chair of the House GOP Conference, the approach she brings to the job, and why it is so important for Republicans to not only find the right policies to talk about this year, but find the right tone, as well.
“Every time I go to Silicon Valley, I walk away inspired,” McMorris Rodgers stated. “You can’t help but visit those companies and walk away inspired by what’s going to happen next. You’re just taken by those out there imagining what’s possible — new products, new services, and new ways to improve our lives. To a certain extent, that is the same approach I wanted to bring to Capitol Hill when I was elected Conference Chair and put in charge of the messaging. I want us to be thinking anew about how we as Republicans communicate and connect with people in this country — and bringing a little bit of that Silicon Valley approach.
“Whether it’s new products or services or new public policy, it all starts with smart, hard-working, creative people who are thinking of ways that we can improve people’s lives. That’s what we’re doing on Capitol Hill through public policy. We are promoting these legislative ideas that are going to improve people’s lives. And that’s the way we need to be communicating what we are about — that no matter what it is, we want a better life for you.”
McMorris Rodgers was elected to the House in 2004. The daughter of family farmers, she worked her way through college as a drive-thru cashier at McDonald’s before becoming the first in her family to earn a degree. It is with this perspective that McMorris Rodgers views her role as GOP Conference Chair, where her job is not only crafting a message for House Republicans, but making sure that message reaches a diverse and growing electoral base.
“We cannot allow ourselves to be defined as stubborn or out of touch or only for the rich,” she stated. “Tone matters. We need to be aware of that as we are thinking through our communications, and keep in mind the old adage that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. Showing up also matters. We’ve been promoting our members getting out and talking to nontraditional Republican voters, and have been doing a whole host of things to help encourage that. One thing we’ve been doing is a series called ‘meetups.’ Last week, we had over a thousand Vietnamese-Americans from around the country — 30 different states represented. This is our second Vietnamese-American meetup. We did an Indian-American meetup last year. Did you know that Ghandi’s grandson is a Republican State Representative in Kansas? He’s actually Lynn Jenkins’ neighbor. I didn’t know this until we did our Indian-American meetup. He came out, and we highlighted him and celebrated him.
“We’ve done a lot of work with Hispanics and millennials. March was Millennial Madness for Republicans. I was challenging our fellow colleagues to go to the college campuses and university campuses to engage the youth leaders. We had a Millennial Meetup here in DC, where we invited a number of youth leaders from around the country to come and sit down with Paul Ryan and Aaron Schock and Jamie Herrera Beutler – some of our younger members. By the way, we are younger than the Democrats. We are five years on average younger than the Democrats in the House. We have 27 members that are under 40; Democrats have 13. Our leadership team is 17 years on average younger than the Democrats. So when it comes to youth and the next generation, Republicans have a great story to tell. So much of this, I think, is just us telling our story a bit better.”
In that regard, one other area where McMorris Rodgers said that Republicans have a good story to tell is women and, more specifically, in the number of women who hold leadership positions within the GOP. “Four out of five women governors are Republicans in this country,” she observed. “Of the 10 lieutenant governors that are women, six of them are Republican. There are dynamic women leaders who are Republican, showing how it can be done and doing it well. We need to celebrate the leadership that they’re bringing.”
According to McMorris Rodgers, another area where Republicans have a good story to tell is health care, where the party is not only working to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but replace it with a series of reforms that help people without harming the economy. “Millions of people have been hurt by this law,” the Washington lawmaker stated. “Now it’s up to us to make sure that America knows that there’s a better way forward. We agree that the health care law needs to be reformed — no one wants to go back to the way things were. But we need to be putting forward what that path is after four years of Obamacare on the books. And we’re working on that. Kevin McCarthy and I have been leading a group called HOAP – the House Obamacare Accountability Project. I think of it as having two tracks. One track is focused on policies — on legislative bills that we bring to the floor in real time to help people who are being hurt by this law. You saw it this week with Todd Young’s bill — the restoration of the 40-hour work week. That’s important. The CBO projected that 2.5 million people are going to see their hours reduced if the 30-hour rule stands.
“It’s important especially when you look at those who are going to be impacted disproportionately. It’s women. It’s young people. It’s recent college grads. You saw us on the House floor really trying to define that bill in ways that would appeal to those groups. So part of the HOAP effort is legislation that will help people who are being most impacted. But the other part is putting forward our policy solutions. There’s still quite a debate within our conference as to whether it should be one bill or a series of bills. We are working through that, and are going to be clearly presenting what a Republican reform to health care would look like moving forward.”
Following her remarks, McMorris Rodgers was asked about GOP efforts to help the less fortunate and assist those who have been left behind in the struggling economy.
“The issue of poverty is a very important one, and I think we need to be doing some more work,” she said. “There’s been some great leadership by Paul Ryan and Steve Southerland. Frank Wolf has also been a longtime champion on this issue, and he has numerous practical ways that Republicans could demonstrate that they are committed to the most vulnerable in this country. Whether it is visiting the food bank in your district on a regular basis or bringing the community together to talk about these issues, he has some practical tools that we can use. I’m convinced that if we can demonstrate and better articulate how our policies are going to help the most vulnerable, then that’s going to translate to everyone in this country.
“For too long, Republicans haven’t been talking about the most vulnerable and the poor. In our own minds, we believe that our policies are going to help everyone, no matter who you are. But we haven’t connected that to the most vulnerable. We need to be talking about this more. We need to be consistently bringing this up in our messaging. It is a goal of mine, and I think we are moving in the right direction. But there’s more work to be done.”
To view McMorris Rodgers’ complete remarks before The Ripon Society’s breakfast discussion this past Friday morning, please click on the link below:
The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 – Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.