Speaker John Boehner is finally putting that terrible episode of the bungled leadership vote behind him by replacing the insurgents that he booted from the all powerful House Rules Committee. Cristina Marcos
reports:
The Speaker is filling the two empty seats on the panel with Reps. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), the committee announced Tuesday.
The slots had been vacant since January, when Florida Republican Reps. Daniel Webster and Richard Nugent received notification that they had been kicked off the committee, apparently in retribution for voting against Boehner for Speaker.
Webster ran as a long-shot candidate for Speaker and won votes from 12 fellow Republicans, including from Nugent.
Sure hope those 12 votes felt good.
The 25 Republicans who voted against Boehner in January not only earned the speaker's enmity, they also significantly weakened his leadership capacity. Boehner suffered multiple vote failures early on and finally had to rely on Democrats for a crucial bid to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded.
Finally replacing Webster and Nugent may or may not mark a turning point for Boehner on whether he will continue to kowtow to the House crazies or rein them in. Since the Homeland Security fiasco, Boehner actually worked with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to end the perennial headache of having to vote to increase reimbursements for doctors who treat Medicare patients (the so-called "doc fix").
Not that we're expecting a series of great legislative wins from ol' water works. But the opportunity is there if he wants to take it to pass some things that might actually reach the president's desk and become law. Or Boehner can continue to wile away the hours on the taxpayer's dime voting on things like repealing the estate tax, which Obama will never sign.