The problem children in House Speaker John Boehner's Republican conference got themselves a win last month when they helped force the expiration of the Export-Import Bank. The so-called "Freedom Caucus" is now
feeling its oats, envisioning a future in which a cowed Boehner gives them everything they want. What they're leaving out in those calculations is, well, reality.
Long known as the "Hell No" Caucus, the conservatives are looking for ways to turn their chest-thumping opposition into real legislative gains. In some ways, the Freedom Caucus is growing more sophisticated. It built an internal whip counter that informs the cardinals of the group how each member plans to vote. Members are drafting the policy platform, expected to be issued in the coming weeks. And they are trying to change their reputation as a bunch of yellers who don’t actually want to get anything done. […]
"The average person is going to scratch their head and say, 'What in the heck is going on up there?'" Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) said of the political agenda of the Republican Party. "Our group has the intent of getting to yes with leadership … there is stuff being spun" that it is anti-Boehner. "That's all false."
The real question, added Brat—who came out of nowhere to upset then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last year—is why leadership doesn't listen more often to "35 to 40 members who have solid principled objections that match our philosophy."
It might have something to do with the aforementioned reality. The demands of the problem children are extreme, extreme enough to draw veto threats from the White House and extreme enough that Senate Republicans reject them. What works in a carefully gerrymandered House seat, designed to maximum wingnut demographics, won't work statewide for many vulnerable Republican senators eyeing re-election. That could be yet another Obamacare repeal vote, or maybe another endorsement of the Confederate flag.
If the House is to accomplish anything, it has to do stuff that has a chance of getting to the floor—and passing—the Senate and not being vetoed by President Obama. That's what the problem children don't seem to grasp yet. They are operating in the vacuum of the House and with an extremely permissive parent in Boehner, who just adds to his own headaches in how he deals with them. Consider one recent mess his leadership team created when they stripped Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), one of the Freedom Caucus, of his subcommittee chairmanship. The problem was that the rules of that committee allowed a majority vote on the committee to overrule leadership, which they did because the committee is stacked with Freedom Caucus members. As Politico says, this "episode made conservatives look stronger and Boehner and his leadership team appear feckless and unable to manage the conference."
Feckless and unable to manage is an understatement. And Boehner is bringing it all on himself.