http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/boehner-may-let-dissenters-off-the-hook-114062.htmlBoehner may let dissenters off the hook
A day after he took swift action to punish two allies who crossed him in Tuesday’s vote for speaker, it looks like he might backtrack.
By Jake Sherman
1/7/15 7:15 PM EST
Updated 1/7/15 8:06 PM EST
Some of the House conservatives who betrayed Speaker John Boehner might escape immediate retribution after all.
Boehner is in a familiar jam: Many of his closest allies want him to pummel members who defy him. The rank and file think retribution is a step too far. And Boehner’s style deters him from punishing people, even when they publicly embarrass him.
His allies could be disappointed again this time, even after more than two dozen House members crossed Boehner in Tuesday’s speaker election.
Some lawmakers and aides close to Boehner say Rep. Richard Nugent (R-Fla.) might win back his prized seat on the elite, speaker-appointed Rules Committee, and Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) may even get to chair subcommittees on other panels, even though all three voted against Boehner. Senior GOP leadership aides say no final decisions have been made, but the prospect of letting the dissenters off easy is galling to some of the speaker’s closest allies, who want blood — and seem angry he isn’t willing to spill it.
“We need to get to the bottom of the guys who voted against [procedural motions], and we need to understand why they voted against that, and then we need to know why people voted against the speaker yesterday,” said Rep. Devin Nunes, the California Republican whom Boehner installed as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “Name calling — saying ‘RINO’ and ‘establishment’ – that’s name calling,” Nunes said. “We need to understand why they voted the way they did.”
Nunes wants the panel that chooses committee assignments to reconvene and take action against the dissenters, and he’s planning to draft a Republican resolution that would forbid people who vote against the speaker from leading subcommittees.
For now, Boehner has empowered his committee chairs to decide on the subcommittee gavels, and Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sounds like he will allow Meadows to slide into a prized chairmanship, despite having voted for Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) for speaker. Chaffetz made clear to his subcommittee chairs before the vote that he expected them to be “team players.”
Chaffetz said he is “just still mulling it over,” although he does not believe a vote for Boehner is a prerequisite for being named for a chairmanship. He said he probably would come to a decision about Meadows by Thursday.
“I think he’ll be fine,” Chaffetz said. “It’s his personal decision that he made about who to vote for, but I like Mark Meadows. He works hard. He earned that spot in many ways. I don’t think there should be a litmus test to his participation as a subcommittee chairman on Oversight. That’s far different than some of the other situations.”
Similarly, Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) is likely to keep Garrett as chairman of the capital markets subcommittee, an aide said. Garrett voted for Webster, as well.
“Yes he does,” Hensarling spokesman David Popp wrote in an email, when asked if the chairman believes Garrett should keep the gavel.
And lawmakers and aides close to the speaker believe Boehner is considering placing Nugent back on the Rules Committee, even though the third-term lawmaker had voted for Webster. Just one day after removing both Nugent and Webster from the panel, Boehner said he is going to talk to them both and dubbed the move temporary.
Officially, Boehner and his staff say they are having a “family conversation” over how to handle disloyalty.
“We had a situation yesterday where we had to constitute the Rules Committee but because of some of the activities on the floor, two of our members weren’t put back on the committee immediately,” Boehner told reporters Wednesday. “I have not had a chance to talk to them, I have not had a chance to talk to our members. But this morning, I told the members the same thing I’m saying here. We’re going to have a family conversation, which we had this morning, about bringing our team together.”
Of course, the election was just one day ago, and Boehner could still decide to take permanent action against any or all of the people who opposed him. One top Republican aide said retribution could very well come later in the year: If one of those members wants a vote on an amendment, the leadership could shut them down. If they’d like a bill brought to the floor, it could get stopped in its tracks. Campaign money could quickly dry up. Phone calls could go unanswered and favors unfulfilled.
Boehner has a 24-year history of watching what works in the Capitol. People close to the speaker say he thinks retribution doesn’t always work. Other Republican leadership aides say punishment creates a permanent set of disaffected lawmakers who will never vote with “the team” no matter what.
But that’s hardly a uniform theory, and there are those who want Boehner to act — and swiftly. They say the gaggle of 25 Republicans who opposed Boehner — and those who voted against party-line procedural measures in the past — will never cozy up to or line up with the speaker, no matter what he does. People respect forceful action, some of his closest friends say, and if they see Boehner waffle, they’ll recognize there’s no fallout from crossing him.
But Boehner has a record of backing off of tough action. In 2007, then-Minority Leader Boehner wanted the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman — at the time, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole — to fire his top two aides. An angry Cole refused and threatened to resign his position. Boehner backed down, and the staffers stayed in place. Cole finished out the term.
This isn’t just inside-the-Beltway drama — it has major consequences. Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have ambitions to govern in 2015, and the speaker will need to find 218 lawmakers to vote for his bills. He can afford to lose only 28 on any given day, so he has a treacherous climate to navigate.
The speaker vote dominated the discussion in a closed House Republican Conference meeting Wednesday morning. Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) said he will have a primary challenger because he voted for Boehner. Several members were incensed at a POLITICO story that quoted a GOP aide dismissing Republican “fringe guys” as irrelevant. But a line of several Republicans — including Cole — approached the microphone during the end of the session and had one message: Division makes us seem weak.
