Five local Republicans running for state office advocated a return to fiscal conservatism in state government at a candidates forum Monday.

“We have done business in a way that voters have said, ‘No more,’ ” said Mike Brubaker, making his first run at state Senate in a district that covers most of norjthern Lancaster County. “It’s an exciting time to be a Republican.”

At the very least, the local candidates agreed, the Republican Party has arrived at a crossroads, partly due to last year’s controversial and now-repealed legislative pay raise and partly because state spending has ballooned faster than the rate of inflation since 2002.

Many are predicting a harder line on state spending in 2007 from Republicans, particularly from new lawmakers.

“You are definitely going to see a more fiscally conservative Legislature,” said Mike Folmer, state Senate candidate in the 48th District, which includes northwestern Lancaster County.

Next year’s state budget negotiations are “not going to be pretty” if Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell gets re-elected, Folmer said.

“It’s going to be a major fight,” he said.

Terry Madonna, director of Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Politics & Public Policy, agrees.

“If Rendell wins, he’s going to find a very different Legislature, one that’s going to give him far less spending than he got in his first four years,” Madonna said Monday afternoon.

However, he doesn’t see the 2006 statewide election as a time for the GOP to be feeling confident.

The GOP may lose enough seats in the state House to forfeit its majority; in part, he said, because Republicans are losing support in a traditional stronghold, the Philadelphia suburbs.

Lynn Swann, running for governor, and incumbent U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who is running against state Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., are facing uphill battles. Both Republicans are trailing their Democratic opponents in voter polls with four weeks before the Nov. 7 election.

“This is not a good year to run as a Republican,” Madonna said.

In May, more than a dozen incumbents statewide were thrown out of office, in part, because of last year’s pay raise, which would have boosted lawmaker salaries between 16 and 54 percent had it not been repealed.

Among the losers were state Senate Majority Leader David “Chip” Brightbill, who lost to Folmer, and President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer — both Republicans who took heat for their role in the pay raise.

Republican Bryan Cutler, who is running in the 100th state Legislative District in southern Lancaster County, said the pay raise debacle “made us stronger.

“It returned us to our principles,” he said.

But Bruce Beardsley, chairman of the Lancaster County Democratic Committee, said Republicans may have undercut themselves by removing fiscal moderates like Brightbill.

Republicans “are going through a period of self-destruction,” he said. “Those Republicans who were defeated (in the primary) were the more moderate of the party.

“If Republicans are smart” they will try to compromise with state Democrats on spending, Beardsley said. “The secret now to win statewide office is to elect and nominate moderates on both sides of the aisle. ... If they are going to go to the far right and continue to nominate extremists like Santorum, they are going to lose.”

Local GOP candidates, though, don’t see Santorum’s struggle for re-election as a sign of trouble for their races. They plan to continue advocating for tightening the state budget, reforming property taxes, holding the line against raising the state’s minimum wage and restructuring the Legislature.

“We are saying we are going to be extremely careful for how the budget is set,” Patrick Snyder, Republican nominee in the 96th Legislative District, said. “Voters clearly said it. They want responsibility out of their legislators.”