Voters should see virtue in Virginia’s Ed Gillespie

For the whole-quarter century I’ve known him professionally (our stints as House leadership staffers in the 1990s coincided), Gillespie has been a solutions-oriented reformer. That’s the attitude, and skill set, he’ll bring to the job as Virginia’s chief executive.

I saw this first-hand as I watched the development of the famous Contract With America that guided the first Republican Congress in 40 years back in 1995. People who remember the Contract at all these days associate it with then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s aggressive, hard-edged persona and with some of the subsequent bitter budget battles. Those hazy memories are mistaken.

The Contract itself involved only proposals that enjoyed super-majority support from the broader public, and its key building blocks were a series of systemic reforms that curbed unethical or self-serving practices that had been rampant under Democratic congressional rule.

It was those reformist impulses – independent audits of Congress, reduction of bloated congressional staff levels by a third, term-limits for committee chairs, a requirement that committee meetings be open to the public instead of conducted in secret – that provided the main, original impetus for the Contract.

And those reforms, those corrections of long-running abuses, were in significant part the brainchild of a team led by Gillespie and his colleague Kerry Knott, both of them on the staff of then-Rep. Richard Armey, R-Texas. The basic idea for the Contract originated at an Armey staff retreat held one weekend in a Virginia mountain cabin. I witnessed it spread on Capitol Hill through diligent, patient salesmanship by Gillespie and Knott, and eventually by Gingrich’s team as well.

After those internal congressional reforms, the major policy changes pushed by the Contract included the creation of the per-child federal tax credit as well as elements of the welfare reform bill eventually signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. A decade later, the center-left Brookings Institution concluded that the 1996 welfare reform helped cut welfare rolls by more than half, sent more money per person to the truly needy, provided means for able-bodied citizens to move from welfare to productive work, brought the poverty rate to historic lows, and saved taxpayers well more than $100 billion.

These are the sorts of practical, sensible policies that are Gillespie’s hallmark, and it is the approach he will take for a state government focused on improving policies affecting Virginia families. Gillespie spent significant time in the past couple of years convening nine separate policy “working groups” to craft proposals that will benefit his state. This is how he works: systematically, thoughtfully, and with long-range vision combined with practical delivery of results.

Meanwhile, even after serving in the rarified air of the White House and the upper echelons of politics, Gillespie never let it go to his head. When I lived in Alexandria, Va., from 2006-2011, Gillespie lived somewhere nearby. It was common for me to see him doing his family’s grocery shopping at Safeway, or taking his kids to Roy Rogers for lunch. He was always good for a quick chat and some kind words. He’s genuinely friendly – a good and decent man.

All of which explains why amidst GOP infighting between pro-Trump and #NeverTrump forces, or between the “establishment” and the grassroots, Gillespie uniquely has been able to unify Virginia Republicans around a common vision.

Every reason exists to believe he can do the same not just for his party, but for his state.

Quin Hillyer (@QuinHillyer) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a former associate editorial page editor for the Washington Examiner. Hillyer’s new novel, Mad Jones, Heretic, is available on Amazon.

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