Vance railway safety bill debate tests more populist, blue-collar GOP
W. James Antle III
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After a train derailment in East Palestine exposed his constituents to toxic chemicals, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) introduced a railway safety bill that quickly won bipartisan support.
Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), and John Fetterman (D-PA) joined a number of conservative Republicans in supporting Vance’s efforts, which would among other things regulate crew sizes and under certain circumstances require railroad companies to notify local fire departments when carrying hazardous materials. But a slew of conservative groups, organized by FreedomWorks, came out against the legislation, warning it would create “gross inefficiencies for thousands of businesses.”
The debate has implications beyond the issue of railway safety. The Republican electoral coalition is becoming more working-class and its relationship with the business community has grown increasingly complicated. Vance is among the Republicans arguing that conservative domestic policy needs to be retooled to serve the economic and material interests of the new coalition in mind rather than the old one.
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These disagreements could also have a major impact on 2024. The Republican primaries look likely to be dominated by former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who are in many ways debating the meaning of conservative populism. The general election could once again come down to industrial battleground states, as President Joe Biden appears to recognize. The same could be true of control of the Senate.
“There’s pretty broad recognition [among Senate Republicans] that there’s a different coalition now,” Vance told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “We’re bringing party leadership in line with the coalition.” He said prioritizing the needs of East Palestine over the railroads’ interests was “basic constituent service.”
Two of the conservative Republicans who have been most supportive of Vance’s railway safety bill are Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who is also a populist, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has in recent years become a fellow traveler.
Vance dismissed the conservative groups rallying against him as organizations that “don’t have influence anymore” but “did in the [George W.] Bush administration.” He acknowledged that his many of his colleagues had “reasonable” and “good faith” skepticism of regulations yet does not see his bill as incompatible with free markets.
“This is an industry that enjoys special subsidies that almost no industry enjoys,” the freshman Ohio Republican previously said. “This is an industry that has enjoyed special legal carve-outs that almost no industry enjoys. This is an industry that just three months ago had the federal government come in and save them from a labor dispute. It was effectively a bailout, and now, they’re claiming before the Senate and the House that reasonable regulation is somehow a violation of the free market.”
Chris Griswold, policy director of American Compass and a veteran of Rubio’s legislative staff, described conservative objections to Vance’s bill as being “about defending an anti-governing ideological orthodoxy, empirical evidence be damned.”
“Railway companies bear only part of the cost, and endure little of the total harm, of a major derailment disaster,” Griswold wrote in an op-ed. “The industry’s workers and the broader public bear the rest — often a far greater share, as the people of East Palestine tragically now know.”
Many of the previous breaks between business and the GOP have come over cultural issues. Republicans have started to push back against corporate boycotts of states that have passed conservative legislation, especially on social issues. DeSantis has been in a public fight with Disney. There is growing sentiment in favor of curbing Big Tech’s influence, plus regular denunciations of “woke capitalism.”
This fight lacks the same cultural undertones, other than people adversely affected by the East Palestine train derailment are largely working-class Trump voters.
“Corporate America isn’t always aligned with the national interest,” Vance said, adding that creating jobs and products that enhance U.S. living standards is crucial but not sufficient to justify being on the wrong side on China or the culture war.
Nevertheless, there remain many conservatives who believe some on the Trump-era Right are too eager to resort to the use of government power without appreciating the pitfalls.
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Without taking a position on the railway bill, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said it was a fruitful discussion for conservatives to have.
“I and we at Heritage are big fans of Senator Vance,” Roberts told the Washington Examiner. “And one of the reasons we are is because he has the courage and, frankly, the ability to communicate why that’s a properly conservative conversation to be having. Thoughtful conservatives might fall on either side of that particular bill.”