It is time Speaker John Boehner flex the muscle of his speakership. Speaker Boehner is the kid who keeps getting his lunch money stolen at recess. From the failed farm bill vote to the inability to cajole his caucus to pass a comprehensive budget resolution in conjunction with senate Democrats to Tea Party Republicans bullying him into including a clause to defund Obamacare in the resolution the House passed the other day to stop the government from shutting down, Boehner is running out of money and so is the government.
I believe Mr. Boehner truly wants to pass a comprehensive and bipartisan budget, which addresses the deficit and ensures we do not have to worry about a debt-ceiling vote in the near future. I believe Mr. Boehner agrees with Minority Leader Pelosi that a government shutdown would be disastrous for the recovering economy.
Yet, Mr. Boehner seems helpless over these issues. Over one shoulder is Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who is eyeing the Speakership and on the other is Minority Leader Pelosi who is eyeing a return to the Speakership. What makes the current Speaker so helpless are the forty to fifty Tea Party Republicans in the House. While less than a quarter of his caucus, the Speaker has found it excruciating to pass legislation without that part of his caucus.
The Tea Party folk have been saying consistently (particularly when it comes to reducing the size of government and defunding Obamacare), “I am voting this way because my constituents want me to.” While I always roll my eyes at this kick-the-can-down-the-road remark, there may be some truth to that statement.
In the 2012 election, the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan organization, found despite Democrats winning 50.59 percent of the two-party vote, the Democratic Party only holds 46.21 percent of House, leaving the GOP with a thirty-three-seat advantage. To put this in perspective, only twice in the last seventy years has the party that gained a higher percentage of the two-party vote not held a majority of House seats.
The redistricting that took place as a result of the 2010 elections drew districts so undemocratically skewed that the only threat to GOP House members today is the GOP themselves. So when many Tea Party members give that line, “my constituents want it,” some of their bases truly want the government to shutdown should Obamacare not be defunded although a CNBC poll found 59 percent of Americans believe the opposite. This type of redistricting threatens our very democracy and the livelihood America.
So what does this mean for the very ineffective Speaker? First, the GOP may be in for a rude awakening in 2014 should the government shut down over attempting to defund Obamacare. Second, the GOP redistricting that occurred after the 2010 elections has created such safe seats that for many Republican legislators, a majority or at least significant number of their constituents do indeed want the government to shutdown if Obamacare is not defunded; this makes it quite difficult for the Speaker to build coalitions with his broad ranging party. Third, more moderate Republicans who would normally side with where I believe the Speaker wants to be are scared to find “common ground” therefore putting our country at great risk.
Perhaps, the only way for the Speaker to regain his speakership is to revolt against the very GOP who revolted against his leadership time and again. Surely the moderate and even some more conservative GOP House members would support the Speaker. The tactics of appeasing the far right have had little success to date. This begs for a new strategy. Mr. Boehner could lose his speakership over such a strategy, but history would view his Speakership in much better light than where it is currently heading.
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