John Boehner is on his way out His surprise departure not only from the Speaker’s chair, but also from Congress was obviously hastened by his inability to control the rowdy Tea Party Representatives in the House who now refer to themselves as the Freedom Caucus. Their moniker obviously refers to their apparent freedom to cause absolute havoc for their party and the entire country.
The Republicans hold a hefty 247 to 188 majority in the House (their largest in the last 84 years) and the forty or so members of the Freedom Caucus represent only about 9% of the 435 house members. However, if the Freedom Caucus decides to not support legislation sponsored by the House Republican leadership, the Republicans cannot muster the 218 votes needed to pass the bill without the help of House Democrats. Given the extreme partisanship currently enveloping US politics, seeking help from the Democrats to pass legislation does not make mainstream Republican House members very popular with the voters back home.
Into the breach, very reluctantly, walks Paul Ryan. After House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Boehner’s Number 2 and heir apparent, wisely chose to bow out, Ryan literally became the last and only hope to unite House Republicans behind a single leader. At first Ryan set out some preconditions for taking the job. One of those conditions was the support of all three House Republican caucuses, including the Freedom Caucus. Another was the scrapping of rules which currently allows fellow Republicans to easily call for a vote to overthrow the Speaker. While agreeing that many of their caucus would support at Ryan for Speaker, the Freedom Caucus failed to agree, at least initially, to both of the conditions. However, Ryan finally decided to take the job anyway.
Ryan’s first tests on whether he can control his contingent are fast approaching. There is November 3rd deadline for raising the federal borrowing limit. Tremendous pressure is being placed on House Republicans to include spending cuts in that legislation, preferably on government benefits, but such additions would have no chance of passing the Senate and would certainly face a Presidential veto. December will again bring the deadline for passing the yearly spending appropriations bill, yet another opportunity to shut down the government. The Freedom Caucus may have supported Ryan’s elevation to Speaker of the House, but I am betting that they will not be able to pass on these two excellent opportunities to demonstrate to their home districts what big, bad conservatives they are.
Mainstream House Republicans fully understand that they will almost certainly be blamed if country defaults on its debt for the first time in history and/or if the government were to be shut down yet again. Congressional approval ratings, which now hovering about 13%, would take yet another hit. They also understand that creating such crises might well be devastating to Republican prospectives in the upcoming Presidential and Congressional elections. On the other hand members of the Freedom Caucus know that they will be cheered rather than blamed for creating government chaos in their highly conservative House districts back home.
Unless Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is in much firmer control of his wayward Republican colleagues than it appears, he is no more equipped than John Boehner to take on the challenges of the Freedom Caucus. Yet I see a way forward in which Ryan can not only successfully navigate around the pending disasters that he and his fellow Republican House members face, but also at the same time restore some of the country’s lost faith in Congress and the federal government in general. However, it requires the unthinkable – actually cooperating with the Democrats in the House to get essential legislation passed.
If Ryan could convince the majority of 207 or so the moderate and mainstream conservative House Republicans to agree be open to the possibility of joining with moderate House Democrats to raise the debt ceiling and avoid another government shutdown, he could break the death grip of the Freedom Caucus. The Caucus would then be faced with the choice of becoming irrelevant on the issues or joining with their fellow Republicans in passing the necessary legislation.
One would normally assume that the Tea Party House members would refuse the offer and resort to accusing their Republican colleagues of consorting with the enemy, but that choice may not be simple as it seems. If moderate and mainstream conservative House Republicans join with moderate Democrats, that coalition might endure beyond the passing of bills to increase the debt ceiling and fund the government. They might be able to forge the compromises necessary to pass other critical legislation.
I know that it is probably wishful thinking to even hope for something that strange to occur. However, if it did, the benefits to both political parties and to the country as a whole would be enormous. Imagine if you will the federal government operating as the founding fathers intended and the Freedom Caucus banished to the obscurity it so richly deserves.
Cajun 10/25/15