TOM TANCREDO for PRESIDENT 2008 = OUR LAST HOPE to SAVE AMERICA
Posted on 12/09/2004 9:15:11 PM PST by Walkin Man
In House, a band of new rebels
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON - After dubbing President Bush's "open door" border policy a threat to national security, Rep. Tom Tancredo says, he got a call from Bush aide Karl Rove proposing that he never again "darken the doorstep of the White House." He's glad that the non-invite apparently didn't extend to the annual congressional Christmas party.
"It means a lot to my wife," quips the third-term Colorado Republican, who attended the White House event Monday.
There's no question that a public rift with a Republican president is a tough career move for any aspiring GOP lawmaker. But for Mr. Tancredo, who came to the House after running a libertarian think tank in Golden, Colo., standing up for ideas is what politics is about - and for him, no policy is more vital than controlling borders and ending the "cult of multiculturalism" that sees the US as "groups of victimized classes."
This week, he joined 66 other House Republicans who voted against intelligence reforms over the issue of border-security. They didn't prevail, but their opposition slowed action on the measure and showed that some GOP lawmakers are ready to wield a new level of assertiveness in Bush's second term.
That doesn't mean the president faces an open revolt from within his party, but there is a new restiveness in Republican ranks on issues ranging from Social Security reform to national defense and the budget deficit. The new voices aren't the biggest names in the party. Some haven't been around long enough to bang a gavel. And party isn't their first loyalty.
"I'll never have any institutional power," Tancredo says. "I'll never be given a chairmanship. The only two things I have are my voice and my vote, and I have to use them as effectively as I can."
Before the Nov. 2 election, some would-be naysayers downplayed rifts with the White House, largely because they didn't want to see a Democrat naming Supreme Court Justices. Now, with President Bush heading into a second term, they're drawing lines in the sand for the 109th Congress, in which the GOP will enjoy a 29-seat House margin.
Take Rep. Mike Pence. The two-term Indiana lawmaker shot to celebrity among conservative activists after standing up to pressure from the White House and GOP House leaders during an epic 2003 Medicare vote that stretched out to nearly three, bone-crunching hours. More than 70 conservatives signed a petition against the bill. In the end only 25, including Pence, voted to defeat it.
"He is one of those people who is respected because he will always vote his principles, as irritating as that may be to some of the Republican leadership in the House," says Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union, which invited Pence to be the keynote speaker that winter.
A talk radio host before coming to Congress, Pence resists pressure with conspicuous grace. "He is animated by, informed by, and motivated by his religious faith and his conservatism," says attorney Greg Garrison, who took over Pence's show when he moved to Washington.
After only four years on Capitol Hill, the Indiana lawmaker was just elected to chair the influential Republican Study Committee. With about 100 members (complete headcounts are never released), the RSC is "the majority of the majority," Pence says, citing Speaker Dennis Hastert's formula that most Republicans must support a bill before it can move to the floor. He expects to have a say in what moves in the new Congress, and is signaling that Bush cannot count on a rubber stamp from House conservatives.
"House conservatives must rally support in Congress and the country for President Bush's agenda where it conforms to the ideals of limited government," he wrote last month. But they must also "undo" much of the 2001 campaign finance reform act, roll back the entitlement elements of the Medicare prescription-drug law, and reverse the federal role in education advanced in the No Child Left Behind Act, the president's signature domestic program, he urged. Unlike previous RSC chairs, Pence resigned his party role as deputy whip to avoid "serving two masters."
Rep. Jeff Flake (R) of Arizona is another potential breakaway - on the issue of fiscal policy. Formerly with a think tank and lobbying group, Mr. Flake in his two terms has voted against a bigger federal role in education, the creation of a Homeland Security Department, farm subsidies, and most annual appropriations bills. Recently, he has attacked pork projects so relentlessly that GOP Rep. John Peterson summoned groundhog celebrity Punxsutawney Phil to Capitol Hill this week to defend his $100,000 earmark for a weather museum in Punxsutawney, Pa. - and invited Flake to attend. (He did.) The earmark was one of $25 billion in pork spending in the $322 billion omnibus spending measure signed by Bush this week.
GOP moderates, who played a big role reining in the Bush agenda on tax cuts and energy policy in the Senate, are also gearing up for a more vigorous role in the 109th Congress. The Republican Main Street Partnership counts 12 senators and at least 50 House members. They are planning a push to support fiscal restraint and stem-cell research that could put them at odds with Bush.
Rep. Mark Kirk (R) of Illinois, a cochair of the moderate Tuesday Group, says "The agenda I have is to reorient the work of the Congress to more accurately reflect the problems facing people in the suburbs." He also plans to push Republicans to get back to their Teddy Roosevelt roots in the environmental movement. As a student in Britain, he worked as an aide in the House of Commons and saw "Soviet-style" party loyalty up close. "The overwhelming loyalty of a member of Congress should be not to a party platform but to their state and the people in it," says the former Navy intelligence officer, still active as a reservist.
This is the thanks Tancredo gets from his own party for upholding the rule of law!
GRRRRRRR.....
About 35 years ago, it used to be called the "Wednesday Group." I wonder why they switched days.
I think the open door policy is BS myself, this just invites the crazies to step right up. I still cannot figure hopw they can track a sick cow all the way back to it's place of birth and they can't find millions of illegals, half of whom are drawing assistance of some kind or other
Sorry, I don't know.
I think that there still is a "Wednesday Group"
Tancredo is a lying sack of hypocracy. First he breaks his term limit pledge, then he has illegal immigrants working on his house. Even Ron Paul isn't as irrelevant as TT.
This is the thanks Tancredo gets from his own party for upholding the rule of law!
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This is a very bad deal --- I am still totally perplexed as to WHY BUSH WOULD SUPPORT THIS GROSS LIBERALISM ??? It is totally irresponsible, against all rule of law, and totally unfair to the American people. Not only that, it flies in the face of what we are doing for the cause of freedom, democracy and soverignty in the Middle East. Why are we dying in Iraq to create a soverign democracy, with respected borders there, establishing a government with a respected system of laws, when we are doing just the opposite here in our own country??
I am lost on this one. What does Vincente Fox have on Bush anyway?? I am also concerned about the hypocrisy in that Bush campaigned on "the number one job of the President is the security of American citizens"...yet, what are we getting relative to illegals, borders, laws, respect for citizenship, etc.???
Open borders? For what? Didn't enough liberals die on 9/11??? Think about it, Libs!
Two different factions of GOP moderates in the House eh? Gosh, I should run. So many clubs for me to consider joining. LOL.
They both certainly share a love of freedom, opportunity and the satisfaction of immigrants making it in America.
The reason the government can find the one sick cow is because they really want to find it.
They really want the millions of illegals to stay so they can mow the grass at the country club for peanuts and drive down wages for all law-abiding, tax-paying Americans.
Hopefully true conservatives will take over the majority in the congress. Let's see how these guys vote on the FTAA treaty, before we start doing the happy dance.
Trancredo may be a hypocrite, and you may not like him, or is ideas, but he is not irrelevant, and getting more air time all the time. It might be wise just to deal with the merits of the illegals debate, and put aside personality animus. Just a thought.
TOM TANCREDO for PRESIDENT 2008 = OUR LAST HOPE to SAVE AMERICA
Excellent question!
Course don't ever question our President or his lackeys about stuff like this or you will be accused of being a MSM plant or a commie demoRat!
Bump.
That would be beautiful Miss!
From post: "He is one of those people who is respected because he will always vote his principles, as irritating as that may be to some of the Republican leadership in the House - "
I don't understand how the rest of them went from principles - to being like robots who just go with the flow - no matter how stupid or how much harm it does the nation -
Don't they understand that what is happening to the Democrat party can and will happen to the Republican party if they also stop listening to the people - or continue to follow a policy that harms this nation -
We need for more to stand on the principles that have been long held by the citizens of America - or else we will become the third world nation that the Socialist - and evidently President Bush - seem to want -
It's a shame it has gotten this far - where all the leaders in Congress have become so corrupt they answer to a czar like creature instead of thinking of the nation first - and then party second -
Is it Rove(Cheney) that has the say on the illegals issue - with a blind or ill informed President going along?
I'd like to know - because now even Christmas is under attack - to please all these "others" - and to be PC -
Americans want to remain Americans - and have the "others" join us as Americans - or - Get Out!
I agree. I am and immigrant and proud NATIONALIST AMERICAN. I am sick of illegals turning my country into the same sewage that me and my family left behind.
Hypocrisy??
You wanna talk hypocrisy? OK.
How about a party that wraps itself in the flag, law and order, and security from terrorists that is doing everything it can to weaken our borders and let al-quida in along with millions of Mexican illegals!
It also looks the other way as these millions of law-breakers go to work everyday in jobs that Americans used to do before the flood of illegals was encouraged to come and steal the bread out of our mouths!
Anybody that tries to stop the overrunning of America by illegal aliens is a hero in my book!
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