Posted on 11/20/2012 8:51:24 AM PST by Qbert
Speaker John Boehner is tightening his grip on the House Republican Conference weeks before an anticipated vote on a deficit deal.
The Ohio Republican has smoothed over differences with Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), expanded his powers on the panel that doles out plum committee assignments, shot down a challenge to his earmark moratorium and worked behind the scenes to ensure that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) would win her leadership contest.
All of Boehner’s moves are aimed at shoring up his influence over the GOP conference, which in turn maximizes the Speaker’s leverage with President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Boehner can’t afford to waste any of that leverage, which took a major hit in the elections that delivered Obama a second term and increased the number of Democrats in both the House and Senate. Any bipartisan agreement on taxes and spending reached by the White House and Boehner will test GOP unity — a test House Republicans largely failed over the last two years.
Democrats seized on chaos in the House GOP ranks to divide and conquer Republicans at the negotiating table during the payroll tax extension debate earlier this year.
Administration officials and senior Democrats in Congress openly mused about tension between Boehner and Cantor, saying it played to their advantage.
However, the soap opera between Boehner and Cantor and their staffs, which dominated headlines in the summer of 2011 and into early 2012, has faded.
“There’s a very strong relationship [building] effort going on there,” a GOP lawmaker at the leadership table told The Hill, noting that Cantor last week delivered the speech nominating Boehner to be Speaker while Boehner nominated the Virginia Republican for majority leader.
Both Boehner and Cantor ran unopposed, but the symbol of the nominating speeches to the entire House Republican Conference was important and “clearly thought out,” the source said.
In 2010, Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) nominated Boehner to be Speaker; Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) nominated Cantor for majority leader.
Lawmakers and others close to Boehner say the Speaker has more sway than he did over House Republicans following the Tea Party wave of 2010. Others maintain the jury is still out.
Yet Boehner’s internal support was on display when McMorris Rodgers, his favored candidate, captured the No. 4-ranked GOP leadership post.
The battle to be the head of the House GOP conference was a hard-fought one between McMorris Rodgers and former Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (Ga.).
Boehner never officially endorsed McMorris Rodgers, but his support for her was well-known. Price, meanwhile, was backed by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
Boehner was quick to include Ryan, back from the presidential campaign trail, in a small group of key lawmakers advising him of strategies ahead of the fiscal-cliff negotiations with the White House.
The appointment was a shrewd one; if Ryan endorses a fiscal-cliff pact, many conservatives in the House will fall in line.
Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) also sit in on the fiscal-cliff meetings.
Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith told The Hill that House Republicans are “the last line of defense against a government that spends, taxes and borrows too much.”
Smith added that “taking on that responsibility demands that we field the strongest team possible and put members in a position where their talents and expertise can be fully utilized on behalf of the conference and its goals.”
Boehner rewards loyalty, and his power on the GOP Steering Committee — which selects panel chairmen and other committee slots — has been expanded.
Boehner now has five votes on the committee, up from four. Cantor has three and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has two, while everyone else registers one vote.
Boehner last week cut off a challenge to the earmark moratorium that he implemented in the conference years ago. After Boehner made his opposition clear, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) withdrew his amendment before it came to a roll-call vote.
A respected and affable Speaker, Boehner has nonetheless struggled to secure votes on high-profile bills in the 112th Congress.
He has needed Democratic votes to pass bills on averting a government shutdown and raising the debt limit.
Boehner is well-aware that there will be GOP defections on a potential fiscal-cliff deal, though he will seek to rally as much support as he can for whatever agreement is brokered.
In the wake of the GOP’s stinging losses in the election, Boehner acknowledged that his party would be willing to accept “new revenue” — code for tax increases — if the president were willing to cut spending and reform entitlement programs.
On Monday, Boehner attempted to play offense as his press office circulated an email titled “GOP open to revenue via tax reform; now let’s talk spending cuts.”
I thought the GOP gained House seats?
Understand this: HE DOES NOT CARE what we think. He is maneuvering his positions to exclude or weaken the TEA PARTY conservatives as much as possible. Which should make us more resolute in electing MORE TEA PARTY conservatives.
He’s a weeping little girl with Obama and the Dems, but he sprouts hair on his chest when he talks to even bigger weenies in the GOP caucus. Disgusting. They had every right to dump him and start with new leadership after this election. It appears they like to be screwed.
"But closing loopholes has been on the conservative wishlist (simplifying the tax code) for decades."
It's one thing to close loopholes- if you get reduced rates. But where are the reduced rates? We can't keep relying on nebulous promises in the future.
so now he’s house king boehner?
See post #18.
He really wants to be minority leader in 2014.
" Votes for what? No bill has been written yet."
Okay, I was unclear. I meant if they vote for tax increases on job creators, which is the direction things seem to be heading.
Shut it down - leave the debt ceiling right where it is.
Does he automatically get the majority leader position next term?
he said the party is open to “increased revenue . . . as the byproduct of a growing economy, energized by a simpler, cleaner, fairer tax code, with fewer loopholes, and lower rates for all.”
Now, I expect the GOP will bargain if Obama is open to any kind of meaningful entitlement reform. Don't know what form that will take. Will we get 100% of what we want? (which is of course what FR wants but of course negotiations don't usually work that way). We'll see.
Boehner and the likes of others need to be informed of their lack of standing even in their own states. What a sorry situation of unearned power/influence. Reminds me of the song connected to Evita Peron.
There is no other conclusion than to say any conservative that supports the republican party establishment in not conservative....
One - if nothing is done, the "Bush tax cuts" expire and taxes go up on everyone, including and especially the middle class and small business owners.
Two - we don't want that to happen. The president claims he doesn't want that to happen.
Three - I have here in my hand (he waves a single sheet of paper) a bill that will make the Bush tax Cuts permanent. He then reads the single sentence bill. And says he will bring it to the floor tomorrow and after it passes he will send it to the senate.
Four - he states if the senate refuses to consider it, then then the result will be the "Reid tax hikes"
No, the House members vote.
There is no challenge for him which mean the members (even the tea party members) are backing him contrary to the MSM reports which always tell us he is unpopular.
House members actually like and respect him. Let's pray God gives him strength for the upcoming fight.
It's a test they were elected to FAIL! If the voters wanted a rubber stamp Congress they would have returned nancy pelosi and her goons to power in 2010. That didn't happen then and didn't happen in 2012! I really hate the press jackals who refuse to acknowledge any reality contrary to their self designed narratives.
The media will simply call it a tax cut for the rich as they have been doing for the last year.
"Now, I expect the GOP will bargain if Obama is open to any kind of meaningful entitlement reform. Don't know what form that will take. Will we get 100% of what we want? (which is of course what FR wants but of course negotiations don't usually work that way). We'll see."
The Senate Dems have flat out said "No" to any entitlement reform. Obama has declared multiple times he wants to raise taxes on the "wealthy". So, what you're likely to be stuck with is a situation where loopholes are taken out, without reduced rates (which effectively is a tax increase)... all for a "binding" promise next year to work on entitlement reform. The Dems will then use that to demagogue Republicans for the mid-term elections. Just watch.
Say what you want, but without immediate entitlement reforms, the rest is meaningless. They will just keep kicking the can down the road.
I fear total capitulation.
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