RYAN TOWN HALL FACT CHECK: Who's in Charge of the House GOP?

July 13, 2016
Blog Post
Speaker Ryan wants you to think that he's got the House Republican Conference under control – after all, restoring order to the dysfunctional, dangerous GOP Congress was the central promise of his Speakership.  The Speaker says, "I think we're doing much better" than Speaker Boehner, but here are the facts about how extreme, right-wing radicals continue to derail progress and run the show in the House GOP.

WHO'S IN CHARGE OF THE HOUSE GOP? NOT SPEAKER RYAN

  • Because of extreme House Republicans, Speaker Ryan couldn't pass a budget.  Speaker Ryan and House Republican Leaders proposed the most extreme Road-to-Ruin budget in history, and even that wasn't radical enough for the House Republican Conference.  Speaker Ryan's failed budget included "the sharpest cuts ever proposed by the [Budget] committee," but it wasn't enough to satisfy extremist Republicans.  [The Hill, 3/15]

  • House Republicans sunk their own appropriations bill because it was insufficiently bigoted against LGBT Americans. "House conservatives…blocked passage of a relatively uncontroversial energy and water spending measure after Democrats attached an amendment that would bar federal contractors from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people." [POLITICO, 5/26]

  • Speaker Ryan couldn't even muster a vote on an NRA-written gun bill – let alone meaningful gun violence legislation – thanks to right-wing opposition.  "House Republican infighting has forced GOP leaders to indefinitely postpone a vote on an "anti-terrorism package," leaving Congress with no legislative response to last month's massacre in Orlando. As Democrats are pushing Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for votes on their gun control proposals, taking to the House floor Thursday to read the names of victims of gun violence, Republicans can't agree among themselves on what they will support in a gun package." [POLITICO, 7/7]

  • Noting Republican extremism, Congressional Scholar Norm Ornstein called the 114th Congress under Speaker Ryan "the worst ever."  "… the barn's been soiled by the pesky Freedom Caucus, the right-most wing of the right-wing majority party…they have given [Speaker Ryan] the middle finger on spending bills…And that, of course, puts Ryan right where Boehner was for several agonizing years…" [The Atlantic, 5/17]

  • Republican Congressman says nothing's changed since John Boehner: "‘The underlying dynamics that drove out John Boehner remain,' [Rep. Charlie] Dent said of the former speaker. ‘Now you have Donald Trump and all his rhetoric, and he knows most of his members want him to support Trump while others like me want to keep their distance. Then, not being able to pass a budget may be one of the greatest frustrations for the speaker. A lot of members don't want anything to do with firearms or the budget. They want to cancel the session after the election. That is where we are.'" [New York Times, 7/12]