Not-Darrell-Issa Rep. Jason Chaffetz, seen here investigating BENGHAZI! with
fellow Not-Darrell-Issa Rep. Troy Gowdy
Perpetual investibator Darrell Issa will be losing his chairmanship of the House Oversight Committee, a less-than-satisfying denouement to his transformation of the group from an "oversight" committee into the go-to stop for every half-baked conspiracy theory ever to cross House Republicans' doorsteps. But who will get that gavel, and how wingnutty will they have to be
to get it?
Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who is trying to leapfrog five more-senior members, and Ohio Rep. Mike Turner, who is No. 3 in seniority, have spent months furiously lobbying the members of the House Republican Steering Committee, which will meet next week to consider their cases.
But all the lobbying may not matter. Boehner has five votes, his leadership team will follow him and vote in a bloc and the speaker has sway over most of the remaining votes, many of whom are his allies. He has, thus far, refused to weigh in even privately with his leadership team or closest allies.
The problem is that Boehner holds the keys, and as usual it's not clear how far he's willing to go in mollifying far-right members while balancing the need to make the overall party not look like raving lunatics. A new face may allow a few years of the same base-pleasing but ineffectual muckraking without Issa's accumulated baggage, or a new face might seek to put on the back burner the various conspiracy theories about
Benghazi! et al as part of the two-year push to tone down House Republican rhetoric ahead of the next presidential race.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz is perhaps the most Issa-like of the contenders, and he's lobbying hard for the job. He's tying his bid to his past history of being in the middle of all the things Darrell Issa ever sunk his teeth into while still not being Darrell Issa:
“Everything from the Secret Service [scandal] to Benghazi to the IRS, Fast and Furious, I’ve been right in the heart of the major investigations of the committee,” Chaffetz said.
If I'm John Boehner, I'd be running away from a pitch like that as fast as my legs would go. (Then again, if I was John Boehner I wouldn't drink before noon or allow Louie Gohmert to appear in public without a ball gag in his mouth, so what do I know about it.)
We'll see. This single chairmanship may set the planned tone for the entire House Republican caucus leading into 2016, and it'll be interesting to see which path they take. If you're asking me to guess I'd say the conspiracy theorists are in a strong position because Boehner has proven (most recently by stripping Issa of the Benghazi! investigation while keeping said investigation firmly in the hands of people just as conspiracy minded as Issa) that he's willing to give the far-right what they want so long as the optics can be managed. A fresh new face on the exact same behavior may be exactly what he and the rest of his team are eager for.