Posted on 06/18/2014 12:44:39 PM PDT by PoloSec
They may be in the majority, but many House Republicans feel irrelevant.
That’s the problem both candidates for House majority leader promised to fix when they delivered their pitches to the rank and file at a closed door meeting.
“I want every member to feel relevant again,” Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, pledged when he addressed a crowd of about 50 lawmakers. “I want you to feel like you did the first day you came to Congress. Do you remember that day? That was an amazing day filled with endless possibilities.”
First elected in 2010, Labrador is the underdog candidate against House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. McCarthy backers say the four-term lawmaker has already won the support of more than half the conference. The election is Thursday. Sign Up for the Politics Today newsletter!
Despite his apparently wide lead over Labrador, McCarthy echoed Labrador’s campaign pledge for a more inclusive GOP conference, say those who heard both speeches.
It’s a signal that McCarthy knows that while many in the conference are willing to vote for him, they don’t like the leadership’s top-down approach running the House.
“Both of them say we are going to go back to regular order, which is important,” an undecided Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., told the Washington Examiner, referring to a process by which legislation first churns through a committee prior to floor consideration. “Both of them say we want to have all voices heard and both of them are very sincere about that.”
Labrador has built his candidacy around the notion that many lawmakers feel disenfranchised by the leadership, who they say have made unilateral decisions without giving weight to their views. They also complain that senior leadership staff are calling the shots and command more power than elected lawmakers. Labrador told the crowd Wednesday morning that 80 percent of the House GOP feels like they are being ignored by the leadership.
“Why are we even here if the leadership staff is going to make all decisions any way?” Labrador asked the GOP this morning.
Lawmakers have been frustrated this year with a series of bills that were altered at the last minute, brokered behind closed doors or ushered through by an unplanned voice vote.
The most conservative faction of the House GOP is also the group that feels the most neglected. These lawmakers, many of whom are relative newcomers backed by the Tea Party, surged to relevancy last year when the House leadership endorsed their proposal to strip funding for Obamacare from the 2014 government spending bill.
The move resulted in a government shutdown that the public blamed on the GOP.
Republican leaders, burned by the shutdown, began circumventing their most conservative wing, who they feel led the House GOP into an historic dive in the polls.
A deal to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling and restore budget cuts, for example, was hashed out privately by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., which angered conservative members.
House GOP leaders shut out members on smaller bills, too.
In March, House leaders angered their rank and file by voice-voting an expensive patch to prevent Medicare payment rates from dropping, a procedure that blocked conservative opponents from defeating the legislation.
“I think there was an agreement across the board that we are very, very frustrated,” Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., a Labrador supporter, told the Washington Examiner. “A lot of us ran for office wanting to be relevant and most of us feel really irrelevant because a handful of leadership and staff that call all the decisions around here. Members who have been duly elected don’t have much of a choice.”
Longtime members were less critical of the top-down approach and several of them told the Examiner that McCarthy would likely prevail because lawmakers are seeking stability in the GOP leadership after the sudden loss of Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who is stepping down after losing his Virginia primary.
“McCarthy is ready to hit the ground running,” Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., told the Examiner. “You’re not going to have a learning curve. And I think we need some continuity with this disruption that has occurred.”
Because they choose to be... it’s one of the many downsides of being a limp-wristed and gutless candy asses.
“The move resulted in a government shutdown that the public blamed on the GOP.”
The move resulted in a government shutdown that the GOPe blamed on the GOPC.
Being spineless does that to you
awwww......poor babies
Its your own fault for surrendering to Obama and keeping the Boehner “leadership”.
Gee, go figure.
They feel alienated? Tough crap - they alienated their base first by acting like hand-wringing pu$$ies and cow-towing to the Dems.
This is BS. They are johnny-come-alongs. They don’t want to “rock the boat”. Soon after arriving in WDC, they succumb to wanting to attend Georgetown parties. They elect come-along “leaders”. If there lot is so bad, why don’t they quit?
Of course they are irrelevant.
Everything they pass gets killed in the Senate.
Should the GOP take back the Senate this Fall, everything they pass will get vetoed by BHO.
They should go to their districts and campaign for the most coservative senate candidate, get 61, and feel relevant again.
Yes, and we feel like we have no representation.
as an aside:
In our world, when you don’t do your job, you get fired.
As well they should.
Too bad, so sad.
Yeah, what you said!!!
These are the same folks that during the obamessiah’s state of the union, applauded when he said he would go around congress to get stuff done. The voted themselves out of relevancy!
Now they know how patriots feel these days.
Maybe the poor dears should GROW SOME TESTICLES!
While I can convincingly argue that there are far too many laws being enacted – many of which (like obamacare) are most often not even read before they vote on them – the problem is that for decades, the cadre of career politicians and a largely uninformed or dependent electorate keep sending back to Washington have shipped so much of their constitutional authority to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that they have made themselves largely irrelevant – and obozo knows that!
When his Democrat congressional lackeys — and some Pubbies — stood and applauded his SOTU remark that he’ll act without their approval, a cold chill should have run up the back of anyone who has read and understands the constitutional structure dictating a SEPARATION OF POWERS!
That begs the question why!
The business of governing within the Constitution is fraught with political risks as every act carries the risk of making some part of the electorate angry. And voter inattention to our national affairs has permitted too many of them to remain in office for multiple decades. They prefer to let the guy in the Spite House take the hits because they don’t want to lose the best job most of them have ever had.
And just what’s up with most of these guys leaving office far wealthier than when they came in??
Just askin’
Because they are...
irrelevent = spineless
That’s what happens when they are constantly bending over. Stand up. Do the job you were sent to do.
Oddly enough, I remember back in the days when the GOP had both the House and Senate and a friendly GOP president to rubber-stamp everything they passed.
They did nothing of lasting positive value, but did manage to do a few things with lasting negative value.
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