Larry Arnn and Matthew Spalding wrote a shorter, simpler Republican Party platform for presentation before the Republican National Convention in July.
Arnn, Hillsdale College’s president, and Spalding, associate vice president and dean of educational programs for the Allan P. Kirby Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, created the platform based on the original 1860 Republican platform to replace the more than 30,000-word platforms written in recent years. Spalding said although they’ve discussed the idea for more than five years, this year’s election presented an opportunity because of discussion and turmoil surrounding Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and a breakdown in party consensus.
“Platforms are good ideas because they are tools of representative government,” Arnn said in an email. “They are the means by which people know what they are voting for. For that same reason, I think they should be simple and clear, instead of the tens of pages that prevail today.”
Although the platform committee did not adopt their submission, responses suggested a future push to simplify the GOP’s platform before the next presidential election, Spalding said.
Boyd Matheson — Sutherland Institute president and former chief of staff for Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah — worked with Arnn and Spalding on the platform. Matheson, a delegate on the platform committee, presented the simpler version to the committee. He said people were open-minded to a simpler platform in the future.
“The response was great,” Matheson said. “I think people immediately sensed this was something we need to get to…What was also interesting was what Sen. John Berasso, R-Wyo., said before he adjourned the committee, which was that we should begin work now on a shorter form.”
Replacing a condemnation of slavery for support of Second and First Amendment rights and the life of the unborn, Spalding and Arnn wrote the platform with 17 points in just under 1,200 words, like the platform written in 1860.
Like its predecessor, the platform cites the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, defends states’ rights, and highlights the need for limited government through the separation of powers.
“It’s not merely historical, it is written for the moment,” Spalding said. “It has some very broad language that isn’t actually issue-specific but is built to incorporate the general ideas of the day. The key is to get to the touchstone of the Declaration and Constitution.”
Unlike the modern party platform, the shorter version lists principles instead of policies to support.
“Modern political parties are this big apparatus for running campaigns, raising money, and less and less have to do with focusing on core ideas,” Spalding said.
Matheson compared the platform-writing process to the functions of Congress, complete with lobbyists and growing pages of amendments favoring certains groups.
Spalding agreed: “It turned into something it was never meant to be: a big, bureaucratic document.”
The college has a history of working on the Republican Party platform. One of the first drafts, if not the first draft, of the 1860 statement was written at Hillsdale College by faculty members Austin Blair and Edmund Fairfield, Arnn said.
“That platform showed the way to combat slavery by constitutional means,” Arnn said. “We are proud of that.”