SALON

Wednesday, Dec 5, 2012 2:02 PM UTC

The right turns on Boehner after committee “purge”

The House speaker removed four conservatives from their committee seats for bucking party leadership

By

Topics: John Boehner, Michelle Malkin, Tim Huelskamp, Budget Showdown, Conservatives, Erick Erickson,

The right turns on Boehner after committee (Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The right is outraged with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, for “purging” four conservatives from their prime committee posts because they bucked party leadership in key votes.

Reps. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., and Justin Amash, R-Mich., lost their positions on the House Budget Committee for the next session. And Walter Jones, R-N.C., and  David Schweikert, R-Ariz., were booted from the House Financial Services Committee.

From the AP:

All four lawmakers had voted against the summer 2011 deal negotiated between Republican leaders and President Barack Obama for extending the government’s ability to borrow money in exchange for $1 trillion in spending cuts and the promise of another $1 trillion in reduced deficits. Three of the four, the exception being Schweikert, voted against the Ryan-written GOP budget blueprint that the House passed last March.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the move was “based on a range of factors,” but a Schweikert spokesman said that the congressman had been told that he had voted  “against the team” too often. In a statement, Huelskamp said that “The GOP leadership might think they have silenced conservatives, but removing me and others from key committees only confirms our conservative convictions. This is clearly a vindictive move, and a sure sign that the GOP Establishment cannot handle disagreement.”

And Amash wrote on his Facebook page: “What message does leadership’s heavy-handedness send? It says that independent thinking won’t be tolerated, not even 5% of the time. It says that voting your conscience won’t be respected.”

Conservatives were furious with Boehner, and the Tea Party group FreedomWorks told supporters they should  get Boehner to “stop purging fiscal conservatives.” FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe said in a statement that “[t]his is a clear attempt on the part of Republican leadership to punish those in Washington who vote the way they promised their constituents they would – on principle – instead of mindlessly rubber-stamping trillion dollar deficits and the bankrupting of America.”

The right also took to Twitter to express their outrage, and tried to get #PurgeBoehner to trend:

“As the sun rises this morning we can look at John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy and know the opposition is not just across the aisle, but in charge of our own side in the House of Representatives,” wrote Erick Erickson on RedState. “All the time and energy I would otherwise have to spend to convince conservatives that these gentlemen would be a problem for the GOP has been spared. They’ve proven it themselves.”

The anger over the committee posts adds to the tension between House leadership, which has been trying to cut a deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” and conservatives, who have so far been pressuring Boehner over the proposal he put forward earlier this week.

“One party proposes 800 billion in tax increases,” wrote Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on his Facebook page. “In an effort to counter them and continue to be the ‘low tax, small government’ party, the other party’s leadership proposes …. wait for it … 800 billion in tax increases. As my good friend Jim DeMint says, if you are speeding toward a cliff at 80mph, putting on the cruise control is not really a viable solution.”

And Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., tweeted:

Conservative activist Brent Bozell said in a statement that any Republicans who vote for the plan will become targets: “It would be impossible to count the times and ways Boehner, [Rep. Eric] Cantor, [Rep. Kevin] McCarthy and so many others have told America that tax hikes would kill jobs and cripple the economy. Lo and behold, that’s just what they’ve proposed, $800 billion of them.”

Continue Reading Close

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 12 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations