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House Freedom Caucus Looks To Be A Force — In Leadership And Lawmaking

House Freedom Caucus Looks To Be A Force — In Leadership And Lawmaking

By Matt Fuller, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — The House Freedom Caucus is only a few weeks old, but some members say the new conservative faction is already pulling the House Republican Conference to the right. Before the HFC convened a single meeting, it so complicated the GOP debate on a proposed border security bill that leadership eventually had to pull the measure from the floor.

But even more than a formalized “hell no” caucus that can thwart GOP leadership’s most moderate plans, the HFC could be a springboard for a new conservative leader — even if that’s not the group’s intention.

“I don’t look for any springboards,” Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio told CQ Roll Call last week. “I’m just trying to serve the families I get the privilege of representing — plain and simple.”

Jordan is one of the nine founding members of the organization and he could be the chairman of the HFC, though he said, “That’s for the group to decide.”

Asked to cut the “aw-shucks stuff,” Jordan replied, “But that’s me!”

“I’m not worried about raising my profile,” he continued. “I’m not worried about running for anything else. I don’t even know if I’m going to be the chairman of this organization.”

It’s true the HFC hasn’t chosen a leader — it might ultimately decide to not have a chairman — but in conversations with a number of HFC members, it seemed Jordan has the inside track if the group goes that route.

“I’d love to see Jim Jordan as speaker myself,” said one member, who went on to compare Jordan to George Washington.

“Jim doesn’t have that ego,” the member said. “He doesn’t need some power position to make his life one with the universe.”

Being chairman of a newly minted conservative group is a long, long way from being speaker. And even though Speaker John Boehner likes to tout that he was once a rabble-rousing outsider himself — when the Ohio Republican was a freshman in the early 1990s, he was part of the “gang of seven” that took on a number of business-as-usual scandals at the Capitol — he has also maintained strong ties to pro-business Republicans and the donors who come with those positions.

Jordan, meanwhile, spent a recent Monday afternoon at The Heritage Foundation, railing against the 114th Congress’ business-focused agenda and “crony capitalism.”

All the “Jordan as speaker” talk assumes a collection of the most disagreeable Republicans could actually coalesce behind one person — and draw in an even larger swath of the conference. Not impossible, but not exactly likely.

After two official meetings — the most recent, on Monday night, lasted almost two hours and went until nearly 9:30 p.m. — the HFC doesn’t have a chairman. As Jordan acknowledged, he might not even be the leader of the group. Some members pointed to Raul R. Labrador of Idaho as a possible choice.

But whoever the leader is, the HFC could be a real thorn in leadership’s side. The group is already claiming victory in what was shaping up to be an intraparty showdown over Texas Rep. Michael McCaul’s border security bill.

The bill was purportedly pulled because of the weather, but is conspicuously not on the schedule this week, with no commitment from leaders that the House will ever take it up.

It’s an early bit of obstructionist momentum that worries some mainstream Republicans, who fear the faction is less about imparting a conservative vision and more about preventing anything from getting done.

“They’re not legislators, they’re just a——-,” a senior GOP aide told CQ Roll Call. “These guys have such a minority mindset that the prospect of getting something done just scares them away, or p—– them off.”

The aide said the Republican Study Committee, a larger and more established collection of conservatives, had shown some willingness to work with leadership. “So the fact that the RSC can’t be the ‘no’ caucus, they have to create their own ‘no’ caucus.”

The aide said the HFC — a collection of “the craziest of the crazy” — was obviously a repudiation of the current RSC.

RSC Chairman Bill Flores of Texas disagrees: He said the new group is “complementary” to his group. But while there is nothing in the bylaws preventing a member from joining both, it’s clear some members won’t.

Labrador, for instance, is done with the RSC, while it looks like Jordan, a former RSC chairman, will remain a member.

But more than a criticism of the RSC, more than a springboard for the speakership, the House Freedom Caucus seems like it could have true influence inside and outside the GOP conference.

“It’s going to be a large bloc,” Justin Amash of Michigan told CQ Roll Call this week. “It is already a large bloc. And leadership is going to have to take it seriously, and understand that we expect the House to work in a way that is open and accountable.”

Labrador told C-SPAN Tuesday the group has 30 members on board already. He told CQ Roll Call the night before that those members will find a voice in the HFC.

“That’s the whole purpose of the organization,” Labrador said. “We have a lot of people here who feel they are not being heard.”

Members on Monday discussed the rules for the organization, which they still have not finalized. But the larger discussion was on the House-passed Department of Homeland Security funding bill currently before the Senate. “We spent two hours talking about what our response is going to be and what’s going to happen if the Senate fails to reach cloture,” Labrador said Monday night.

And what will that response be?

“Our position is going to be pretty simple,” Labrador said. “We passed a bill and we need the Senate to act.”

That means not caving on a clean DHS funding bill — one that doesn’t block President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration. Labrador said Tuesday morning he was open to a House and Senate conference on the bill. “Boehner and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell told the American people before the November elections that we needed to fight ‘tooth and nail,’ that we needed to stop the president and his illegal, unconstitutional actions — and I think if they fail to do that as leaders, they’re going to fail the American people.”

Exactly how the DHS funding bill plays out is unknown, but two things have never seemed in doubt: There won’t be a shutdown at DHS, and the president won’t sign a bill that blocks his immigration action.

Those two conditions don’t portend well for the HFC’s stance. But either way, members insist the group is really more about process, about fairness. “There should not be some congressmen who are more equal than others,” Mo Brooks (R-AL) told CQ Roll Call, summoning George Orwell to discuss the HFC’s principles.

Members understand that coming together on policy will be the biggest challenge. They see the HFC, however, as a step in the right direction.

“That’s been the conservative problem all along,” one member said. “It’s that the approach has always been really scattered. And it’s always been a day late and a dollar short.”

The member continued that he was hopeful the HFC could change a trend in conservative lawmaking: “Somebody comes up with a plan 24 hours ahead of time and everybody scrambles around, like, you know, can’t find their butts with both hands and a flashlight.”

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Conservatives Take Credit For Derailing Border Security Bill

Conservatives Take Credit For Derailing Border Security Bill

By Matt Fuller, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — With inclement weather grounding planes across the country Monday, GOP leaders pulled a border security bill from the floor schedule this week, citing the weather and an already condensed schedule.

One day later, though there are no blizzards conveniently scheduled for next week, Speaker John Boehner wasn’t about to commit to a timeline for resurrecting the border bill — a delay that some hard-line conservatives are already chalking up as a victory.

“We’re going to continue to talk to our members about these issues,” Boehner said following a Tuesday morning conference meeting. “When you look at it, it wasn’t the border bill itself. Frankly, it was issues that weren’t even in the committee’s jurisdiction.”

The Ohio Republican was asked when the House would vote on the contentious border bill, but that wasn’t the question he answered. “We’re going to have to walk through all of this with our members, and when we’re ready to move, we will,” he said.

Boehner acknowledged that leaders had already faced a couple of revolts in the early weeks of the 114th Congress. “Yeah, there have been a couple of stumbles,” he said, referring to an abortion bill leaders pulled last week and the border bill they pulled this week — but he said it was all in an effort to listen to the American people.

“It’s all about working with our members, listening to our members, and working through what are some very difficult issues,” he said.

But as Republicans continue to work through the issues on the border bill, and as many rank-and-file members maintain that pulling the border bill was a reflection of the weather cutting an already shortened week shorter, conservatives coming out of the GOP conference meeting Tuesday claimed they were the real storm that brought down the border bill.

“I know there were several people who raised concerns with us moving forward this fast,” Rep. Raul R. Labrador told CQ Roll Call.

Specifically, Labrador said conservatives were concerned that the Department of Homeland Security funding bill still hadn’t been taken up in the Senate, nor had a number of immigration proposals been heard in the House Judiciary Committee.

“It sounds like they’re going to wait on the Senate to work their will on the DHS funding bill, which is what we should have been doing all along,” Labrador said.

The Idaho Republican said some of the credit for holding up the border security bill belonged to the new group conservatives have been putting together for the last few weeks, the House Freedom Caucus.

The HFC held its first official meeting Monday night, and while the roughly 40-member pow-wow was supposed to be about bylaws, the meeting ended up largely being about immigration and the border security bill.

“We have 40 conservatives with 40 different ideas,” Labrador said, explaining the rationale for the new group. “And we’re less successful because we’re taking 40 different ideas to the leadership. It’s better to have 40 conservatives working together to take one idea to the leadership.”

Whether those 40 conservatives can actually coalesce around a single idea may prove difficult, but Labrador said they were already having an impact on the border measure. The bill has been dubbed by Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas as “the toughest border security bill ever,” but many conservatives believe it doesn’t do enough to enforce immigration laws.

Other conservatives, like Mo Brooks of Alabama, just want to see whether GOP leaders will fight President Barack Obama on his executive action on immigration. “Whether the House and Senate leadership will live up to those representations, only time will tell,” Brooks said.

Indeed, many House Republicans are waiting to see what the Senate can pass on the DHS funding bill. The House-passed bill blocked the executive action, but it seems unlikely that Senate Republicans could find enough — or any — Democratic votes to go along with such a plan. And it seems just as unlikely that Obama would sign a measure effectively blocking his immigration action.

Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Carter of Texas said he planned to meet with his Senate counterparts, “this week or next,” to see what they could accomplish.

“We’re going to fund the Department of Homeland Security,” Carter said. “I can guarantee you.”

But while Republicans wait on the Senate, the question remains whether McCaul’s border security bill will make it out of the House, which could portend further action on immigration.

According to House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY), the border security bill was “alive and kicking.”

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

McCarthy On Track For House Majority Leader Post

McCarthy On Track For House Majority Leader Post

Washington (AFP) – Republican Kevin McCarthy was widely expected to ascend Thursday to U.S. House majority leader, a position vacated by Eric Cantor who triggered a GOP leadership scramble last week with his shock primary loss.

McCarthy, elected to Congress just eight years ago from overwhelmingly Democratic California, was among the group of “Young Guns” shaking up the House of Representatives.

Today McCarthy, currently the number three Republican, emerges as the consensus candidate to fill the majority leader role at a time of deep divisions within the Republican Party ahead of November’s congressional elections.

The loss of establishment giant Cantor to an even more conservative but virtually unknown challenger re-opened a rift between moderate Republicans and the far-right wing that has rattled the party in recent years.

An expected win would make McCarthy the deputy to House Speaker John Boehner, who is eager to regain a sense of stability in his fractious caucus in the run up to November and the eventual presidential race of 2016.

McCarthy has the backing of several committee chairmen including the powerful Paul Ryan, according to The Washington Post, but McCarthy is being challenged for the post by fiercely conservative Raúl Labrador.

The two-term congressman from Idaho has the support of the far-right wing, which launched an unsuccessful coup against Boehner last year, but Labrador’s candidacy has not gained broader traction.

Nevertheless he appealed to fellow lawmakers in a closed-door session Wednesday in the U.S. Capitol basement, arguing that members of Congress should not have less influence on legislation than leadership staff.

“By electing me, you’re not getting rid of anyone,” Labrador said, suggesting that McCarthy would merely keep his whip position. “You’re just adding a new needed voice to the leadership table.”

A win by McCarthy would free up his majority whip position, for which the race is more wide open.

Three lawmakers are vying for that job, including moderate Peter Roskam.

But two far-right lawmakers are also in the running, and the whip position was being seen on Capitol Hill as a chance for conservatives to stake their claim to a position in Republican leadership.

Steve Scalise, who heads the caucus of House conservatives known as the Republican Study Committee, has the momentum as of Wednesday, but a third candidate, Marlin Stutzman, could throw a spanner into the vote.

A candidate will need to secure 117 votes in the 233-member Republican caucus to avoid a second ballot.

AFP Photo/Win McNamee

Tea Party Challenger To Take On McCarthy For GOP Leader

Tea Party Challenger To Take On McCarthy For GOP Leader

By Lisa Mascaro and Michael A. Memoli, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Conservative Rep. Raúl Labrador of Idaho will challenge California’s Kevin McCarthy for the House leadership, a long-shot bid backed by outside Tea Party’ groups to boost a red-state Republican to majority leader.

Labrador said Friday he was jumping into the race because the message from Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s unexpected loss in his Virginia primary this week was that “Americans are looking for a change in the status quo.”

“Americans don’t believe their leaders in Washington are listening, and now is the time to change that,” said Labrador, a second-term Republican who was elected on the 2010 Tea Party wave.

“I want to create a vision of growth and opportunity for everyone and start getting to work for the American people.”

The race is McCarthy’s to lose, House vote counters agree, but some outside groups, including FreedomWorks and the Campaign for Liberty, urged Labrador to pose a challenge to the Californian, whom they view as not sufficiently conservative for House leadership. More prominent tea party groups, though, are not outwardly involved.

The House’s most conservative members have frequently expressed a desire for leadership that would more directly reflect their populist views. But although red-state conservatives make up a majority of the House Republicans ranks, they have been unable to organize themselves into a governing force. The splintering in their ranks has thwarted efforts to challenge McCarthy.

Two other Republicans, Texas Reps. Jeb Hensarling and Pete Sessions, passed on the opportunity to run, despite enthusiasm from fellow members of the large and powerful Texas delegation.

Any election battle is bound to expose fractures within the GOP. In dropping out Thursday, Sessions said a run would have created an “unnecessary and painful division.”

The four-term McCarthy is not the first choice among the most conservative lawmakers, but his affable personality and ability to foster relationships have put him on a path for a fast rise to the majority leader spot — a position never before held by a California Republican. He would be in line to be House speaker if Ohio’s John Boehner were to step down while the GOP retains a majority in the chamber.

The secret-ballot election for majority leader and other party posts is set for Thursday. Boehner has sought to avoid a protracted battle, which Democrats could use to portray the GOP as a bruised party in disarray.

The speedy election schedule plays to McCarthy’s benefit because he already holds the party’s No. 3 position, House whip, which gives him ready access to members and a network of assistants to help round up votes.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr