One of the hottest issues in Congress at the moment, apart from—though not unrelated to—defunding Planned Parenthood, is the growing movement among House Republicans to oust John Boehner from his position as Speaker. Multiple major news outlets have been covering this potential coup, and each is reporting a similar narrative: Tea Party and Freedom Caucus Republicans are pushing to remove Boehner while mainstream Republicans and Democrats are likely to keep him in place. The TP and HFC members are disgruntled over Boehner's lack of standing up to President Obama during his tenure as Speaker, and they view his recent attempts to quell the immediate defunding of Planned Parenthood to prevent another shutdown as further evidence that he is ceding too much to power to Democrats (The Hill, Roll Call). The Democrats have their own reason for backing Boehner as Speaker—if the chair is vacated, they face the potential of a more conservative Tea Party member taking his place, which would greatly disadvantage their party (as well as, likely, many members of the GOP) (CNN). Because many House Republicans still support Boehner, combining that with Democratic support will easily allow him to remain speaker, but it may come at a cost. Democrats will likely make certain demands of Boehner in return for their abstinence from a vote to remove him, and this could further damage his reputation among his fellow GOP Representatives (CNN). So, it seems, we will likely not be seeing a tearful Boehner watching as his Speakership fades away in the distance… at least not right now.
This development in the house is particularly fascinating because of the political divide it is creating, not only between the two parties but also within the GOP. First, members of the House Freedom Caucus, a very conservative and largely Tea-Party organization, are splitting away from mainstream Republicans in calling for the coup against Boehner. While many of these mainstream Republicans do not fully support Boehner, they acknowledge that he has been elected Speaker and that now is not the time for a political upset in House leadership (Roll Call). This divide reflects sentiments in the GOP regarding defunding Planned Parenthood—while many Republicans are in favor of doing so, only the most conservative fringes are willing to create a state of chaos to achieve this goal. The same applies to removing Boehner, with most of GOP House members recognizing that the budget is already creating enough madness in Congress that overthrowing the leadership would be too much upheaval. It is also important to note that not only is the HFC splitting the GOP over the Boehner coup, it is pushing the larger portion of the party toward agreeing with Democrats, who also have no express desire to remove the Speaker. By moving increasingly to the right, the HFC has brought Democrats and mainstream Republicans closer together on this decision, if for different reasons.
Interestingly, as a departure from this line of thinking, Boehner ally Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was quoted calling members of the HFC "right-wing Marxists" who "have teamed up with [Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi" to bring down the Republican party (The Hill). Nunes' view isn't that the HFC is pushing Democrats and Republicans closer together, but rather that they are helping the Democrats create turmoil within the GOP. Whether or not Nunes' remarks hold any merit, they certainly reveal the strong partisanship present in the contemporary House. Regardless of the whether it's along party lines or within parties, the issue of removing Boehner as House speaker is being framed in terms of partisan divides. While it seems unlikely that we should be expecting any dramatic change in leadership over the next few months, it will be interesting to see how members of the HFC proceed under Boehner's leadership.
---
http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/conservatives-consider-coalition-gambit-depose-boehner/?dcz=
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/254587-boehner-coup-talk-puts-house-gop-on-edge
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/21/politics/john-boehner-democrats/
No comments:
Post a Comment