Another Week in Review of House GOP Dysfunction, Obstruction & Distraction
The Hill – House Republican says he's victim of retaliation by GOP leaders
Freshman Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) says he's the latest GOP lawmaker to face retaliation for bucking leadership last month and opposing a procedural vote on major trade legislation.
In a letter obtained by The Hill, Mooney accused Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) of deliberately excluding him as a co-sponsor of a bill to help Medicare-eligible diabetes patients gain coverage for glucose monitors.
"I understand that you and other supporters of the [diabetes bill] are concerned about having me as a cosponsor because I voted against … the rule on the Trade Promotion Authority legislation last month," Mooney wrote Reed in the letter. "I think it is important that Members of Congress be allowed to vote with their conscience without it negatively impacting our ability to work together."
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) all received copies of the letter as well.
"Mr. Mooney's assertion is incorrect, as other members who voted against the rule have been added to the legislation. I'm disappointed, as I expressed directly to Mr. Mooney personally, that we needed to vet all co-sponsors of our legislation, which is something we do with any bill we submit," Reed said in his statement.
"He is still considering my request," Mooney said. "The point of the letter was to tell him why [the bill] is important to me and my district…
But Mooney's suspicion that he's been blacklisted isn't completely unfounded. Some conservative Republicans have complained that leaders have blocked their legislation from the floor after they challenged the top brass.
National Journal – Social Issue Headaches Continue for House GOP
Six months into the 114th Congress, Speaker John Boehner has made his strategy clear: He won't bring…social issues to the House floor if they're going to divide his conference, even if it means taking flack from the public and elements within his party.
When moderates and GOP women criticized a late-term-abortion bill, the leadership pulled it from the floor until compromise language could be drafted, despite conservatives urging a vote. When Democrats attached provisions barring the display of the Confederate flag in federal cemeteries to an Interior spending bill, leaders pulled that measure too and—at least for now—have stalled the entire appropriations process until it can be resolved.
Rep. Charlie Dent…said leadership should be reaching out to a wider electorate and these types of votes do not help. He said recent comments from presidential contender Donald Trump alienated Hispanics, the Confederate flag flap last week alienated African-Americans, and pursuing an overly broad response to the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling would alienate gay-rights voters.
POLITICO – GOP lawmaker: No cash for campaign arm because it backs gays
Closed committee meetings are typically wonkish, routine affairs. But Friday's session of Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee broke that pattern in spectacular fashion, laying bare the growing acrimony and sense of disorder within the House Republican Conference.
It started, according to multiple sources present, when Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told members that subcommittee chairmen are expected to pay their dues to the GOP's campaign arm and to side with leaders on procedural votes that are critical to their ability to control the party's legislative agenda.
Hensarling was complying with recent demands for such loyalty from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). But his message seemed squarely aimed at one lawmaker: New Jersey Rep. Scott Garrett. A Hensarling ally who chairs a prized Financial Services subcommittee, Garrett has angered GOP leaders and many members of the committee. He voted against Boehner's bid for another term as speaker, bucked leadership on a critical procedural vote and has refused to pay National Republican Congressional Committee dues.
Garrett first responded that his procedural vote against leadership was a matter of conscience. Then he stunned the room with this explanation: He had not supported the NRCC in the past, he said, because it actively recruited gay candidates and supported homosexuals in primaries.
Some lawmakers grew noticeably angry, pointing out that the NRCC does not get involved in primaries, nor does it care about the sexual orientation of candidates. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.)…said that Richard Tisei, a gay Republican…was "equally homosexual" when Garrett donated directly to him in 2012, according to a source present.
Roll Call – All Appropriations on Hold Until Confederate Flap Fixed
Don't expect any more appropriations bills to make it through the House chamber any time soon…
That was the message to members on Tuesday from Speaker John A. Boehner, according to Rep. John Fleming.
Boehner reportedly told Republicans during their weekly closed-door meeting there was a hold on all spending bills until they could figure something out on the Confederate flag.
Republicans are looking to avoid another floor situation like the one that occurred on July 9, when Democrats forced votes on the Confederate flag. The Democrats' action came after an exclusive CQ Roll Call report the night before on Republican efforts to roll back restrictions on the display and sale of the Confederate symbols in federal cemeteries.
Republicans delayed consideration of the Financial Services appropriations bill for this week, and they pulled the Interior-Environment spending bill in an attempt to avoid a politically divisive vote on a Confederate flag amendment. But a complete hold on appropriations bills at this point in July — only two weeks away from the August recess — could mean that the appropriations season is officially over.
National Journal – House GOP Pulls Another Bill From Floor Over Abortion
House Republican leaders pulled a commemorative coin bill supporting breast cancer from the floor Tuesday…
The bipartisan bill would have funneled some proceeds from the minting of commemorative coins to Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. But conservatives objected, noting that the Komen organization donates money to Planned Parenthood. Heritage Action announced a key vote against the bill, Rep. Justin Amash called for a recorded vote, and just before the House was scheduled to vote, GOP leaders removed the bill from the rotation.
Washington Post – Congress still paralyzed on transportation funding as another deadline looms
More than 30 times over the past six years, Congress has passed short-term extensions of transportation funding thanks to deep divisions about how to finance the needed investments. The last long-term bill, for the 2013 and 2014 fiscal years, lapsed nearly a year ago.
With another deadline approaching later this month and despite big talk of a long-term solution, lawmakers appear poised to again patch spending for a matter of months rather than years.
The House voted 312 to 119 Wednesday to pass an $8 billion stopgap measure that would fund highway construction through Dec. 18…
MSNBC – Benghazi committee goes off the rails
The existence of the House Select Committee on Benghazi has always been hard to explain, even for those who support it enthusiastically. It's only now that the panel's purpose is coming into sharper focus.
The trouble, of course, is that the committee is wholly unnecessary. Over the course of two years, the deadly 2012 terrorist attack in Libya was investigated by the independent State Department Accountability Review Board, the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. None of these probes uncovered evidence to substantiate right-wing conspiracy theories.
And yet, House Republican leaders decided what Congress really needs is another committee to re-do what the other committees have already done.
It's almost as if the House's Benghazi committee no longer has any interest in Benghazi.
The committee is now in its 434th day, having spent roughly $3.8 million in taxpayer money.
As we noted last month, if the committee continues its work past January 2016, which is a near certainty, it will be the longest congressional investigation in the history of the United States – longer than the investigation into the 9/11 attacks; longer than the Watergate probe; and longer than the Church Commission's investigation into intelligence-agency abuses.
Huffington Post – Boehner Ducks Offer To Negotiate A Way Around A Shutdown
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) declined Thursday to address Democratic offers to negotiate a budget that avoids the threat of a government shutdown in the fall.
[Democrats'] argument has been that it's better to hold talks now, before funding expires at the end of September, than to risk a government shutdown.
Asked at his weekly news conference if there was a downside to starting talks now, Boehner declined to answer directly, but insisted he would keep following the GOP's plan of passing bills that ignore Democrats' concerns about the GOP budget.
The House goes on vacation until after Labor Day at the end of the month. If no deal is in place, it will leave just three weeks to craft a budget compromise before funding for the government expires on Sept. 30.
Washington Post – Ted Cruz & Co. threaten war over Ex-Im Bank
The Export-Import Bank of the United States has been legally kaput for more than two weeks now, and Capitol Hill conservatives made clear this week that they will do whatever it takes to preserve a marquee victory -- even if it means possibly derailing a must-pass transportation bill.
Conservatives have made the demise of the Ex-Im Bank, which helps American companies by financing purchases by foreign buyers, a cornerstone of their agenda, calling it a corrupt symbol of Washington cronyism. But…Republicans and most Democrats want to see the bank regain the ability to issue new loans and lines of credit, warning that thousands of jobs are at risk.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and two prominent groups of House conservatives, egged on by major activist groups, are promising to pull out all the stops to block a reauthorization – including a Senate filibuster and possible procedural maneuvers in the House.
That leaves the decisive battle for the House, where it will likely be difficult for bank foes to defeat an amendment to strip out an Ex-Im authorization from a Senate-passed bill. But Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus, said, "we will do everything we can to continue to keep Ex-Im where it is today, and that's in wind-down mode."
While House Democrats offer Speaker Boehner and House Republicans commonsense proposals to move our country forward, the Republican gridlock and their misplaced priorities continue to hamper progress and threaten American job growth.