By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — George H.W. Bush stood before that raucous Republican crowd and uttered those famous words:

“Read my lips: No new taxes.”

He could barely finish the line before the main point was lost to a roar of applause.

Bush, then the vice president, made that historic pledge during his acceptance speech for his party’s nomination at the 1988 Republican National Convention.

That  bold promise helped strengthen Bush’s image as a conservative, a taxpayer protector, on his march to the presidency.

It also helped to seal his political doom.

Four years later, after President Bush had signed a bill raising taxes, his Democratic challenger, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, used the incumbent’s words against him to devastating effect.

Bush’s pledge might just be one of the best examples of the costly nature of failed political oaths.

There’s power in the political pledge, as conservative kingmaker Grover Norquist has proved during the 25-plus years of his “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”

Kathleen Falk, former Dane County executive and Democratic candidate in a probable recall election against Gov. Scott Walker, has evoked a pledge on collective bargaining that some argue has won her the backing of some of the state’s more powerful labor unions.

She’s pledged to veto the state’s budget if lawmakers do not restore collective bargaining for unionized state employees – should she be elected.

Signing on the dotted line can hold a lot of sway with voters, serving as a quick study on a politician’s presumed values.

But there’s danger, too, according to pundits and politicians who argue such pledges have amounted to blood oaths in shutting down political discourse and freezing common ground in solving some of the nation’s toughest problems.

Taking the pledge

Tax foe Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, or ATRF, launched the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” in 1985. At that time, about 100 U.S. House members and 20 members of the U.S. Senate signed the pledge, which asks every candidate for elected office to make a written commitment to their constituents to “oppose and vote against tax increases.”

The conservative education organization’s initiative, Norquist told Wisconsin Reporter in a recent interview, was instrumental in passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

The foundation has experienced robust growth over the years.

As of earlier this month, 238 U.S. representatives and 41 senators, all Republicans save two Democrats, have signed the pledge.

In Wisconsin, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and all five GOP representatives have signed on.

As of Feb. 9, 1,278 state legislators nationwide are committed to the oath, including six of Wisconsin’s 33 senators, and 18 of 99 Assembly members.

Walker is among 13 state chief executives who have signed Norquist’s pledge.

Norquist isn’t shy about the power the document holds.

“It helps you win,” he said. “If you break it, it’s fatal.”

For those who backslide or break the pledge, the consequences can be costly. Many don’t survive primary races in subsequent elections, as Norquist says in this “60 Minutes” video profile late last year.

He holds a lot of power, but Norquist dismisses that notion, saying taxpayers have the power — and they don’t forget. The pledge, and the foundation, he said, just educates taxpayers on the records.

“It’s the same wording,” he said of the pledge. “There are no weasel words at all. People know that everyone else knows what it means. If you break it, everyone knows what you did …

“It becomes a powerful tool both in an election but also in governing,” Norquist said.

U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, has served the 5th Congressional District for more than 30 years. He was first elected in 1979 on a commitment to not raise taxes, long before Norquist’s pledge, his staff said in an email to Wisconsin Reporter.

“I signed this Taxpayer Protection Pledge only because it reflected the same commitment I had already made to my constituents years before the pledge was a twinkle in Grover Norquist’s eye,” Sensenbrenner wrote in the email. “This is the same commitment I continue to make to my constituents, regardless if this pledge exists or not.”

Wisconsin’s Democratic congressional delegation hasn’t signed the pledge.

U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin, was elected to the Senate the same year Bush made his famous “Read-My-Lips”-declaration, and plans to leave office next year.

Kohl has had a long-standing policy of declining to participate in political pledges, said his spokeswoman Dawn Schueller. Kohl could not be reached for comment Monday.

U.S. Reps. Tammy Baldwin, D-2nd Congressional District, and Ron Kind, D-3rd Congressional District, did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment.

Pledging into a corner

Even taxpayer advocates, like the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, see potential pitfalls with such pledges.

“When you do that, the problem is that you basically cut off options,” said Dale Knapp, research director for the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.

Knapp said a lawmaker could effectively support a tax neutral position, with an increase in sales tax offset by a cut in income tax, for instance. The question is, Knapp said, is the lawmaker going against a pledge?

In hard-line circles, the answer is yes.

“In terms of good public policy, you want to look at everything available to you,” he said.

Knapp has joined a chorus of others who have expressed the same criticism of Falk’s pledge to veto future state budgets that don’t restore collective bargaining, should she sit in the governor’s chair.

Falk, among a growing field of Democrats preparing a run against Walker in a recall election, has said she “will not be afraid to use the veto pen to restore workers’ rights” if elected.

“After a year of Gov. Walker, we need openness and accountability from our governor, and we need courage from our candidates for this office,” she said.

But many Democrats, including some Wisconsin Education Association members, say Falk’s pledge makes her at the very least appear beholden to organized labor. Falk, according to several news reports, was the only one of her potential Democratic contenders to make the veto pledge.

Falk did not return several phone calls and emails from Wisconsin Reporter.

“Having this pledge mentality where people agree weeks or months or years before a problem has to be dealt with, that’s very problematic,” said Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette, who is mulling a recall run for governor.

“I think it’s a mistake,” he said of Falk’s declaration.” I’d only make one promise, and that is to listen to all people of Wisconsin and not take sides with one group or faction.”

Political pledges  — from the socially conservative “Marriage Vow” presidential pledge to Wisconsin’s union-led oath concerning Act 10  — are making a polarized political climate eve worse, La Follette said.

Joe Heim, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, said while special-interest commitments may quickly condense the issues, they have wounded political discourse and the art of negotiation in law-making.

“This is a symptom of confrontational politics and the lack of compromise,” Heim said. “It seems increasingly the parties want the whole loaf  — all or nothing at all.”

Norquist countered that his pledge is all about choices.

“If you think people want higher taxes, run against the guy whose against higher taxes,” he said.