Freedom Caucus brings its national brand of conservatism to the Pennsylvania state House

• Charles Thompson/PennLive
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  Thompson has covered state government for The Patriot since 1999. Prior to that, he had covered various Cumberland County municipalities and school districts. Thompson lives in Carlisle with his wife, Beth, and their two children.

The new Pennsylvania branch of the House Freedom Caucus is open and ready for business.

The original Freedom Caucus, for the uninitiated, launched within the U.S. House of Representatives in 2015, as a wing within the House’s Republican conference for conservative members who resolved not to compromise on conservative principles in the name of “governing.”

Such going along to get along, its members argued, was a formula for never realizing key conservative policy goals and the slow surrender of personal and economic liberties to a bigger and more powerful government.

Now, in a political sense, the Washington-based organization is franchising itself under the leadership of Mark Meadows, the embattled ex-chief of staff for former President Donald J. Trump, and encouraging establishment of “freedom caucuses” in state Capitols around the country.

Meadows, in his time as a Congressman from North Carolina, was one of the original members of the House Freedom Caucus.

Pennsylvania is the latest branch, and in a public unveiling at the state Capitol Monday, some of the most conservative members of the state House’s Republican Caucus declared themselves open for business in the 2023-24 legislative session.

A Freedom Caucus superstar, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, the midstate Congressman who happens to be the current chair of the Congressional caucus, laid out why it’s needed.

“People don’t vote for Republicans to come to their state Capitol and work out deals in the backroom with leftist Democrats,” Perry said.

But these members and their constituents, he said, feel that’s exactly what happened in Pennsylvania during the course of Gov. Tom Wolf’s Administration, leading to growth in the state’s general fund budget from $32 billion to $43 billion, and governmental over-reach that hit its peak with the coronavirus pandemic.

Worst of all, Perry continued, “Pennsylvania, without inspired Republican leadership, has elected the most radical leftist and the most partisan governor probably of our lifetime, right now, getting ready to take office right now,” he said in a barb directed at Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro.

Shapiro scored a landslide win over his Republican opponent, Sen. Doug Mastriano, last month.

The new Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus, Perry said, will be a center of resistance to what he fears will be a new period of Democrat-led encroachment of socialism – even though Republicans still have solid control of the state Senate – and federal government over-reach.

Chairwoman Dawn Keefer, a Republican House member from Franklin Township in northern York County, said the by-invitation-only caucus here starts with “about 23 House members”; she would not say how many were initially invited.

As in Washington, it appears that the state-level caucus is built in a read-and-react mode.

As Keefer put it, members in Harrisburg will “stand unified to protect personal freedoms, the right to pursue economic aspirations without undue government influence and the right to live and raise a family without Big Brother of government usurping individual liberties.”

And then, she said, react accordingly to the issues they are confronted with.

That said, Keefer made clear the Freedom Caucus is not rejecting the newly-reshaped House GOP leadership team.

It’s just that, as a group, they are declaring they won’t be rubber stamps for them when they feel conservative principles are being compromised.

Democrats reached after Monday’s announcement said they heard too many echoes of Republican rhetoric from the just-ended campaign cycle that they believe voters rejected.

Will Simons, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s campaign committee, noted that the governor-elect has offered an olive branch to everyone – Democrat, Republican or something else – who wants to get things done for the collective good of Pennsylvanians.

But if the Freedom Caucus members refuse to engage in a cooperative manner, they run the risk of making themselves irrelevant.

“Governor-Elect Shapiro will remain focused on the issues that matter most – creating jobs, improving our schools, and making communities safer,” Simons said in a statement, “and he will continue to stand in the way of any attempts to restrict Pennsylvanians’ freedoms.”

The new caucus already drew a silent protest Monday, made up mostly of Harrisburg-area Democrats and others incensed at Rep. Perry’s willing involvement in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to override the 2020 election results and cling to power.

Liz Reilly of Camp Hill held up a sign facing the speakers that read: “Perry and the Freedom Caucus; Insurrectionists and Obstructionists.”

Afterward, Reilly said she came to the event to show the gathered representatives “there are many people very concerned that the Freedom Caucus is not about freedom. If they follow Scott Perry’s lead, this could mainly be about obstructing and voting against the interests of their own constituents.”

Perry, for all the controversy dogging him, however, did just win re-election to a sixth term in the U.S. House from Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, covering Dauphin and parts of Cumberland and York counties.

It remains to be seen how influential Pennsylvania’s Freedom Caucus will be; in many ways the caucus seems like a rebranding of earlier attempts by most conservative members of the House Republicans to band together as a voting bloc, including the short-lived Commonwealth Caucus 20 years ago.

These groups also tend to have more influence when their parent caucus is in the majority; the maximum leverage comes when the bloc of votes the caucus stands for is key to House leader building a majority for or against a certain bill.

They can use that leverage to block GOP leaders from advancing bills they don’t like.

In Pennsylvania, however, the Republicans actually lost their clear House majority this year; the balance of power for most of the 2023-24 session is going to depend on three special elections sometime next year.

But Keefer is bullish about the group’s prospects, arguing it will be helped by its links to the Congressional organization, and the state network which will provide privately-funded staffing that the lawmakers can tap into.

The Pennsylvania State Director is Nick Kerin, who said Monday that he will draw his salary from Meadows’ donor-funded State Freedom Caucus Network, which as of Monday now has outposts in eight states around the nation.

“We have more resources… we have clearly defined expectations of individual members, it is by invitation only so, I think we are more formally structured and that will benefit us for sure,” Keefer said. “The influence of this caucus is about sticking together as a bloc, and we think there’s a lot of influence that we can have.”

A spokesman for the Pennsylvania House Republican leadership, meanwhile, said his bosses see the new caucus as an extension of the GOP’s big tent.

“Members of both caucuses (Republican and Democrat) regularly form informal issue or policy-focused caucuses to bring attention to causes they feel are important,” said the spokesman, Jason Gottesman.

“Foremost, we are the House Republican Caucus and we will continue to universally champion proposals that provide a path to opportunity for all Pennsylvanians. To the extent that any individual group participates in policy formulation that aligns with our overall goals, we appreciate the ability to have that dialogue.”

PennLive Capitol Bureau Chief Jan Murphy contributed to this report.