Dear John Boehner: It is the bunch of irresponsible renegades that handed you the majority and is keeping this country in tact. You'd be wise to join them.
U.S. Rep Clawson not making life easy for BoehnerWASHINGTON – John Boehner has a headache. His name is Curt Clawson.
The Southwest Florida lawmaker is among about 40 House Republicans who are increasingly willing, even eager, to buck Boehner on key issues.
Most recently, those conservatives were among GOP lawmakers demanding that a Homeland Security Department spending bill include provisions to undo President Barack Obama's executive order on immigration. When Boehner brought up a Senate-passed bill that didn't include undoing the executive order, Clawson and 166 other Republicans voted against it. The bill passed only because it was backed by Democrats.
A former CEO who won a special election last year in Florida's 19th District, Clawson embodies the hard-right wing of a legislative body increasingly split between mainstream Republicans and a vocal bloc of tea party-backed lawmakers...
Still, Boehner, who owns a condo in Clawson's district on Marco Island, was less than pleased when Clawson and 24 other GOP House members opposed his re-election as speaker in January. That was the largest number of votes against a sitting speaker's re-election by members of his own party since 1923.
On CBS' Face the Nation Sunday, Boehner downplayed the difficulties of trying to herd a caucus containing so many strong-willed individuals.
"The House is a rambunctious place," he said. "We have 435 members. A lot of members have a lot of different ideas about what we should and shouldn't be doing."
More occasions for intraparty discord may be on the way. Upcoming votes on a highway bill, the fiscal 2016 budget and raising the debt ceiling figure to divide Republicans again.
Former GOP Rep. Steve LaTourette, a Ohio moderate and Boehner confidante who now chairs the moderate-Republican Main Street Partnership, dismisses Clawson and his allies as "this bunch" of irresponsible renegades unwilling to seek reasonable solutions...
http://www.news-press.com/story/news/2015/03/04/us-rep-clawson-making-life-easy-boehner/24393155/
