Conservatives in Blue States: Realistically, What Can They Get Done?

What can a conservative Republican state lawmaker accomplish in a blue state, such as Maryland or Illinois?

This past weekend, members of the State Freedom Caucus—a network of outspoken fiscal and social conservative lawmakers who pressure Republican leadership in their states—gathered in Irving, Texas, for their annual summit.

 Some hailed from deep-red states such as Missouri, South Carolina, and Wyoming, but others came from Democrat-dominated states, such as Maryland and Illinois, where advancing conservative legislation is often all but impossible.

“They recognize they’re in a supermajority blue state, so it’s difficult to pass historic property-tax cuts and school choice, and stuff like that. But what they can do is stop a lot of bad stuff,” Andy Roth, the president of the State Freedom Caucus Network, told The Daily Signal of the group’s affiliates in Democrat-dominated states. 

 Here’s how these blue-state conservatives operate with the deck stacked against them.

Maryland

Matt Morgan is a state delegate in Maryland’s House of Delegates from St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Morgan told The Daily Signal that messaging is king when operating in a state that is wholly controlled by Democrats.

“Ultimately, in states like Maryland, we’re dedicated to transparency and trying to bring some of these issues to really inform the people of Maryland, what’s going on and in the negative impacts from the decisions being made,” he said. “I would think that’s a little bit of a different deal, maybe in some of the red states. And one of the advantages in the blue state being in the Freedom Caucus is the Democratic Party gives you hours upon hours of content daily to criticize.”

Kathy Szeliga, a fellow Maryland Freedom Caucus member from Baltimore County, acknowledged to The Daily Signal the difficulties of being “a minority of the superminority” as a member of the conservative faction of the state’s Republican Party. However, she argued that “we’re punching far above our weight.”

Recently, Maryland Freedom Caucus members took credit for killing a bill they call “condoms for kiddies.” The bill, which was passed through the state House in February, would have repealed a ban on selling condoms in public school vending machines.

Republican Maryland House Delegate Kathy Szeliga (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“That’s just crazy, oversexualizing our kids,” Szeliga said. “Like, can you imagine walking down the hallway in elementary school, and your child looks at the vending machine, and it’s all colorful, and they say, ‘Mommy, what’s in that machine?’”

Szeliga contends her group helped kill the bill, which ultimately was voted down in the state Senate by aggressively messaging on it.

“What Maryland’s Freedom Caucus does is more defensive than offensive,” Szeliga said of her caucus’s work. “The radical ideas coming out of the Left are incubated in places like Maryland and California and Massachusetts. They come up with these radical ideas, and then they test-drive them in these very deep blue states, and so our job is to expose them.”

Illinois

Despite Republicans lacking control of the levers of power in Illinois, the Illinois Freedom Caucus is a fierce group.

State Rep. Chris Miller, the husband of the U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., whose Southern Illinois district overlaps with his, is the chairman of the caucus and has few kind words for Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker.

“He’s got the worst case of Trump Derangement Syndrome I think that I’ve ever seen exhibited, and the only thing is going to fix this thing is for him to have an ICR,” Chris Miller told The Daily Signal. “I don’t know if you know what that is or not, but it’s an inter-cranial rectal removal. In other words, what we would say down on the farm is, he needs to get his head out of his a– and start governing and doing what’s right for the people of Illinois.” 

Illinois Republican state Rep. Chris Miller (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)

As in Maryland, Illinois Freedom Caucus members are keenly focused on messaging what they view as failures of the Democrat-dominated state government.

Illinois Republican state Rep. Blaine Wilhour told The Daily Signal that spreading the word about Democrat policies and Republican shortcomings is at the center of his work.

“It’s all about accountability. We’re governed terribly, led by Republicans as well that don’t stand up for our values,” said Wilhour, adding:

When conservatives don’t push back on terrible policies that inflict harm, both socially and economically, then that window moves all the time. And that’s what happens in states like Illinois.

That’s how you get governed so liberally in states that aren’t crazy and liberal like that. It’s because good Republicans, good conservatives don’t push back.

He accused members of his own party of not sufficiently standing up to the Democrats, saying, “We got Republicans in Illinois that think it’s all right to vote for tax increases, both on the income side and on the gas tax side. They vote for Big Government, which is increasing property taxes exponentially … . These people need accountability.”

Roth praised the work of these blue state Freedom Caucus members, saying that some blue state Republicans “know that they have no power, so they are willing to take the crumbs that the Democrats give them. So, if Maryland or Illinois passed a huge, irresponsible budget, they won’t make a lot of noise about it.”

Freedom Caucus members, Roth said, “will not only vote no, but they’ll tell everybody that they’re doing it to the point where those non-Freedom Caucus members are getting calls from their voters … . So, not only are we fighting the Democrats, but we’re exposing weak-kneed Republicans.”

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