GOP Drops Litmus Test on Late-Term Abortion

Achieving an uneasy truce in the GOP’s latest fight over abortion, Republican Party leaders Friday soundly rejected a proposal to withhold support for candidates who fail to oppose a controversial late-term abortion procedure.

The lopsided 114-43 vote at the Republican National Committee’s annual winter meeting here belied the weeks of intensive lobbying and flurry of last-minute maneuvering surrounding the “partial-birth abortion” issue, which laid bare once more the continuing divide between the party’s socially moderate and conservative wings.

In a compromise aimed at papering over those differences, at least until the next battle, RNC members adopted a resolution that restated the party’s abhorrence of the abortion procedure, which opponents have likened to infanticide.

At the same time, however, the resolution stops short of denying party funding or the GOP’s endorsement to candidates who fail to oppose the procedure, avoiding the “litmus test” that threatened to scare off potential supporters--most particularly women and independents--and alienate major party donors.

“We leave here invigorated, stronger, more united for having had this debate, and more committed than ever to our mission, one that includes a ban on partial-birth abortions,” said RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson as the debate concluded.

From an ideological standpoint, the tensions were just the latest in a perpetual fight between purists--who tend to provide organizing energy and grass-roots muscle--and Republican pragmatists, most often the party’s elected leaders.

In recent years, the skirmishes have tended to flare over abortion, arguably the most socially divisive issue of our time, which pits live-and-let-live social moderates like Govs. Pete Wilson of California and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey against conservatives, who see opposition to abortion as a religious or moral imperative.

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Ultimately, the pragmatists prevailed Friday, arguing that it would do more harm than good to blackball candidates on the basis of their stance regarding late-term abortion. Better, they said, to get as many Republicans as possible elected to Congress to fight the abortion battle on Capitol Hill.

“The worst thing you can do for the pro-life cause is lose our majority,” said Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), one of the House’s most ardent abortion foes, in remarks before the formal debate began.

The Republican-controlled House and Senate have twice passed bans on the late-term procedure--each vetoed by President Clinton.

Friday’s vote was hailed by Republicans for Choice, which credited the GOP leadership for not excommunicating diverse members of the party.

The proposal to shed support for--and withhold money from--GOP candidates who decline to oppose the late-term abortions was promoted by the party’s religious right and brought to the leadership by Tim Lambert, a national committee member from Texas.

“This is not only the right thing to do morally, it’s the right thing to do politically,” Lambert said.

But the prevailing view characterized the resolution as an improper “litmus test” for who could wear the Republican banner--and that such assessments were too restrictive for a party that is trying to reach out to moderates, including pro-choice Republicans.

Among those addressing the RNC was California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren--the state Republicans’ presumptive gubernatorial nominee--who professed his opposition to late-term abortions but said, “I’d ask you if tactically it makes the most sense” to deny backing to candidates who don’t hold the party line on the issue.

He said Republicans need to attack Clinton, not one another, on abortion.

Hyde led the argument against Lambert’s position, saying that weeding out Republican candidates would be strategically stupid.

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“We can have a [party] resolution that condemns this barbarism, that condemns a president who is so insensitive as to support it and have it continue, and we can have a law that makes it illegal and criminal,” Hyde said. “But let us try to maintain every vote we can get, because you win by addition, you do not win by subtraction.”

His remarks were met with a standing ovation.

Afterward, Lambert said Hyde was “out of touch” with rank-and-file Republicans.

Among the committee members supporting Lambert was Steve Curtis of Colorado, who said that for the party platform to condemn late-term abortion--but to tacitly embrace Republican candidates with money whether or not they vow to fight it--was “double-speak and hypocrisy of the highest order.”

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Committee members from California were split. John McGraw said the GOP “must be willing to take a courageous stand” in adopting Lambert’s resolution, while Michael Schroeder, chairman of the California Republican Party, complained that “we’ve never excluded somebody from the party for disagreement over a single issue.”

Rather than shrink from the publicity, Republican leaders claimed to welcome the party infighting that the abortion debate exposed.

Among those loudly criticizing Lambert’s litmus proposal was former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour.

“No elite group, no oligarchy, can usurp the power of Republican voters in deciding our nominees,” he said. “Once the voters have spoken, should 165 people [national committee members] go back and review who’s OK with us, and who is not OK with us? We are a bottom-up party, not an oligarchy.”

Times staff writer Peter M. Warren contributed to this story.