Houston Chronicle by Bill Lambrecht June 14, 2019
In his first months in office, Texas U.S. Rep. Chip Roy has rivaled the early version of his former boss, Sen. Ted Cruz, in becoming a disrupter on Capitol Hill.
Cruz earned his reputation in 2013 when he engineered a government shutdown in a futile gesture to starve the Affordable Care Act of money. Cruz 2.0, still an unbending conservative, has emerged as more of a team player.
Two weeks ago, Roy, R-Dripping Springs, drew the ire of victims of tornadoes, flooding and wildfires, kindling a fire around himself by standing alone on the House floor to block passage of billions of dollars for disaster relief.
Wording in the bill to speed release of $4.4 billion for Texas to prepare for the next hurricane didn’t give Roy pause or stop him from voting no when the package finally passed.
This week, Roy lobbed a procedural monkey wrench into a series of spending votes, contributing to a 4:01 a.m. adjournment on Thursday and embellishing his profile as a politician unafraid to poke his finger in the eye of the institution.
Roy’s latest tactic drew praise from allies but triggered grousing from Republicans and Democrats alike, some of it on Twitter. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ken., tweeted at the time that Roy “is catching hell from colleagues right now†who were complaining that they were missing fundraisers and asking him, “Just exactly what do you think this will accomplish?†and “Are we getting paid overtime?â€
Roy tweeted that he heard “a glossary of swamp rhetoric, and that his favorite comments were “Pick your battles,†“Making lots of friends†and “What’s our strategy?â€
His motivation for both recent stands, he says, is an urgent need to redirect $4.5 billion for the Southwest border to deal with the crush of asylum-seekers arriving from Central America.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas_legislature/article/Texas-Rep-Chip-Roy-again-pushes-House-into-OT-13998326.php
