Chip Roy's Tea Party revival

[Elderberry]

Washington Examiner by Kerry Picket 3/18/2021

Just three months into his second term, Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy finds himself with a White House and Congress both under Democratic control, and with a divided Republican Party. Yet he hopes to bridge the gaps between differing factions and is willing to use all tools available to him to slow down the Democrats’ agenda.

Roy is a former federal prosecutor who worked his way up through the Texas Republican congressional staffer ranks. He served as chief of staff to Sen. Ted Cruz, staff director to Sen. John Cornyn’s leadership office, and senior counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Cruz, who won his Senate seat in 2012 as a Tea Party favorite, praised his former staffer, telling the Washington Examiner in a statement, "Chip is a friend and a conservative in his bones and we have fought together side by side. He's also a fierce patriot who defends the Constitution and fights for Texans each and every day."

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Roy talked about his roots in the Tea Party movement of the 2010s and how its goals and experiences still inform him today. He credits his political experience in Washington, and in Texas under Attorney General Ken Paxton and then-Gov. Rick Perry, with providing him insight into why the Republican Party base has become disenchanted with the GOP establishment over the last decade.

“When I was in Washington 12, 13 years ago, I was Sen. Cruz’s chief of staff,” he said. "You come in and you try to rock the boat, and the establishment pushes back. Whether that's on immigration, Obamacare repeal, spending earmarks.” Yet Republican voters continued to elect candidates they saw as going against that centrist party faction.

“Going all the way back to 2010,” he continued, “we chose Mike Lee over Bob Bennett. We chose Rand Paul over Trey Grayson. We chose Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist. Two years later, we chose Ted Cruz over David Dewhurst in the primary. The Freedom Caucus was established in 2014, and then in ‘16, President Trump is elected.”

He added, “The decade has been a rising battle against sort of the old guard in the mainline establishment, and that's taking root [now]. You have a bigger, broader House Freedom Caucus. You have a handful of senators that are not of the establishment.”

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