(Breitbart) – House Speaker Rep. John
Boehner (R-OH) had been planning to call up on the House floor last week a
measure from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) that would have removed him as
Speaker of the House if it succeeded—intending to embarrass Meadows—but
abandoned the plan after his entire leadership structure learned that they did
not have the votes to re-elect him as Speaker before the August recess.
“House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was
making phone calls—he was whipping it—and so was House Majority Whip Rep.
Steve Scalise (R-LA),” a senior conservative movement leader who’s had many
personal and direct discussions with various House GOP members about this told
Breitbart News in an interview last week.
“I know members personally who were called by
Steve Scalise. So they had the entire leadership whip team frantically making
phone calls to members to whip the vote because they wanted to attempt to embarrass
Meadows and call the vote on Wednesday last week so it’s not hanging over
Boehner’s head.
“What
they found out was the exact opposite. They found out bad things would happen,
that literally they would be calling the vote without knowing what would
happen. Therefore, they did not call the vote and now they have this issue
hanging over John Boehner’s head for the next five weeks.”
“Yes, I can confirm at least three members
were whipped: Two of whom voted against the Speaker and one of whom voted for
the Speaker on Jan. 6,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), one of the cosponsors
of Meadows’ measure, told Breitbart News in a phone interview. “I can confirm
three of them were whipped.”
“Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH) was calling
around, and Steve Scalise and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC),” a House GOP
member added. “All three of them were involved in the whipping process.
Whipping can be trying to convince somebody and whipping can be taking a whip
count. In this case, I think it was just a whip count—a sort of a barometer
reading.”
Boehner’s office, McCarthy’s office, Scalise’s
office and the offices of Reps. Steve Stivers (R-OH) and Patrick McHenry
(R-NC)—allies of leadership and members of the “whip team”—have not responded
to Breitbart News’ requests for comment in response to this matter.
Meadows, the public face of the rebellion,
told Breitbart News that while he can’t confirm personally whether whipping
occurred because leadership didn’t call him, he has heard the same from his
colleagues and conservative movement leaders.
“You hear all kinds of rumors in Washington,
D.C., but I can tell you I was not one of the members that they called to
whip,” Meadows said. “I can tell you that I did hear from a number of people
who had apparently gotten calls—the nature of that was from what I understand
was that should they bring up that resolution before we left, then ultimately
decided not to do that.
“I wasn’t privy to those conversations and all
I have to go on is what’s being reported. I have not seen that reported but I
have heard some of that in terms of the chatter. I do know much of the
frustration was more with ‘is this the right time? Is this the right tactic?’
“Most of the debate was not that the things in
the resolution were inaccurate. You have yet to hear anybody come out and say
that the things in that resolution were not factual.”
Boehner’s team was getting ready to move the
resolution to the floor—and their move actually backfired, because all of his
leadership team now knows he’s too weak to get re-elected unless somehow the
political dynamic changes between now and a vote. Of course, with politically
hungry people everywhere on Capitol Hill, that means that one of them could
turn on Boehner or that conservatives could muscle up the strength to get rid
of him.
“The parliamentarian confirmed that the Rules
Committee could have put this resolution on the floor the last day we were
there,” one GOP member told Breitbart News. “Then the motion to table it could
have been introduced as a motion to table it. Whether they intended on doing
that or not, I’m not sure. I can’t say what’s in their minds. But I bet they
were also concerned that any member might bring it up as a privileged
resolution—which can be done.”
The strategy from Meadows and his allies goes
something like this: They offered the resolution right before the August recess
and knew that there is enough dissatisfaction with Boehner that should he try
to bring it to the floor immediately–to shut it down as fast as it came up–he’d
walk away without his speakership.
There are 25 members who voted for a
Republican alternative at the beginning of this Congress, and now there are
plenty more who are disaffected with the tactics of Boehner and his allies in
leadership. More members, those who want to replace Boehner suspect, will, over
the course of the month of August, come out publicly against Boehner at
town hall events and in interviews with media. Unless Democrats bail Boehner
out in September or October, if and when such a vote for the speakership would
occur, by that point there would be enough members opposed to Boehner’s
re-election for him to lose his position.
When the August recess is over, if Meadows
wants to—or any other member wants to—they could offer the motion to vacate the
chair and remove Boehner as Speaker of the House as a privileged resolution,
which means it gets a floor vote in full without the consent of Boehner’s
leadership team. That means the Speaker is extraordinarily vulnerable, and his
conservative opposition could make a move whenever, wherever they want to—and
when they have the votes to remove him from office.
“It caught everybody by surprise. But that
doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea,” the conservative movement leader told
Breitbart News. “That’s the thing. Even though it caught everyone by surprise,
it’s a good idea. There are enough members to vote against him.
“You
look at the progression—look at a little over two years ago, how many members
voted against him two years ago or 30 months ago? Then you look at how may
voted against John Boehner six months ago. How many people voted against the
rule on Obamatrade, right? And you look at the punitive way they’ve tried to
deal with these members including guys like Rep. Alex Mooney
(R-WV) or Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) who voted for Boehner six months ago.
“They have alienated an enormous number of
members and they have only increased that number. That number is now greater
than the number who voted against the rule and that’s the danger John Boehner
is in.”
A moment later, that conservative movement
leader added that Americans who want new Republican leadership can pressure
their congressmen and congresswomen to issue public statements pledging to vote
against Boehner if and when a vote comes up.
“Over the next five weeks if enough grassroots
conservatives can voice their frustration with a failed status quo and failed
leadership of John Boehner—as members attend town hall meetings after town hall
meetings—and when they come back it will be more difficult for John Boehner to
keep his Speaker’s gavel,” he said.
“Secondarily, there’s a second element to
this—let’s say when they get back, Meadows may not call it up right away
because there a series of major legislative issues that will be coming to the
fore including the budget, including the potential for the Ex-Im Bank,
including immigration reform—which John Boehner desperately wants to make a
deal with Barack Obama on.
“So there could be a pivotal moment that John
Boehner creates at which point Mark Meadows calls the vote. I believe this
sitting out there strengthens the conservative movement because it keeps John
Boehner honest.”
Meadows, in his interview with Breitbart News,
explained that the measure he put forward outlines several different
points—“whereases”—that lay out clearly why the Republican conference is so
disaffected with leadership.
“We outlined several different issues we’ve
been struggling with within the House like deadlines that make members take
uninformed or difficult votes with very little information and the legislative
calendar is used that way,” Meadows said. “We lurch from crisis to crisis. We
have just a few people that are controlling not only the legislative
calendar—which is certainly their right—but really any legislation that comes
up has to originate with just a few ideas that originate with just a select few
within the conference.
“It’s not the way that our Founding Fathers
set it up and it’s really that all members should have a voice in the process
and represent whether it’s the 750,000 people I represent in North Carolina or
anywhere across the country.
“The majority of Americans believe that
Washington, D.C., is broken, and it’s time if we can’t fix it with a majority
in both the House and Senate that we look at leadership and either one of two
things needs to happen: We either need to change the leader, or the leader
needs to change the way that in this case does business. That’s really why we
took this step, to have this discussion.”
Massie, who along with Rep. Ted Yoho
(R-FL) has cosponsored the Meadows measure, told Breitbart News he agrees
with all the clauses contained within Meadows’ measure.
“I agree with all of the eight ‘whereases’ in
the resolution,” Massie said in a phone interview. “In the House of Representatives,
we have 434 members who tend to work for the Speaker instead of the Speaker
working for the representatives at this point. It’s devolved into a top-down
organization and power is being used in ways that’s not conducive to a
representative democracy.”
With conservative groups like FreedomWorks and
Citizens United, among others, backing the play, that means that members
nationwide will likely feel the heat for the next month plus throughout the
August recess. There will undoubtedly be videotaped questions of congressmen
and congresswomen at town halls across America.
“You got just about 30 members of the house
who are doing exactly what they said they’d do,” FreedomWorks’ Adam Brandon
told Breitbart News in a phone interview. He said the rest aren’t pursuing the
conservative ideals such as spending cuts, real reform, addressing the IRS
targeting. “That conservative agenda is getting stifled and ignored,” said
Brandon.
According to Brandon, it was the CRomnibus
spending bill that really frustrated true conservatives.
“There’s absolutely zero spending reform,” he
added. Brandon said what is being discussed in the House is moving is repealing
the medical device tax and the Keystone Pipeline.
“This stuff sounds like it’s been written off
on K street by K street lobbyists – where’s the stuff the activists want?”
Brandon said.
Citizens United’s David Bossie is similarly
outraged, writing for Breitbart News in a late July column that he’s furious
with Boehner.
“It was grassroots conservatives who put John
Boehner in power, and we haven’t seen a positive conservative agenda for
America as promised in the last several elections,” Bossiewrote. “Because of
Boehner’s failure of leadership and a track record of broken promises,
conservatives are ready for new leadership in the U.S. House now. Maybe newly
empowered conservatives like Congressman Meadows will lead a revolt and finally
take back the people’s House.”
http://www.teaparty.org/whip-team-couldnt-find-votes-boehner-111138/
Comments
Republicans recognize that Boehner and
McConnell are liabilities to Republicans in 2016. The brand is tarnished by bribes,
double-dealing and the worst betrayal of the voters in history. Republican
elites may throw them under the bus and declare themselves as “reformers”. But this won’t really work, because Karl
Rove, Jeb Bush and several other presidential candidates are seen as the same
kind of RINOs as Boehner and McConnell. Republicans
will need to choose between BIG MONEY and the Republican base and tell BIG
MONEY, the party’s over.
Conservatives know this federal government is
a zombie government supported by zombie banks and corporations. We are amazed they weren’t pronounced dead
when the national debt hit 100% of GDP and excess money printing hit 450%.
Maybe it’s because the zombie Fed has been artificially inflating the stock
market.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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