The Tea Party has gained a scalp — a big one. And early in the leadership shuffle to replace Speaker John Boehner, it also looks like the insurgent conservatives could get a seat at the leadership table.
House Speaker John Boehner’s resignation, together with the seeming peace between his heir apparent Kevin McCarthy and the Tea Partiers, marks a new era in the House Republican Party. The conservative, anti-establishment backbenchers aren’t running the show (though conservative Tom Price could become House Majority Leader), but they seem to be full partners in power now. This could shake out to be a very healthy party, as long as all sides — the moderate members, the leadership and the Tea Partiers — can adapt and mature.
Tea Partiers were always going to be a difficult fit in Washington. They ran against Congress, and in office many of them continued to be an anti-Congress. After many years in which Republican leaders advanced a K Street agenda, pretending it was just a tactical difference from conservatives, Tea Partiers came to see every tactical difference as a difference of principle or even a lack of character.
Both the Tea Party members and the outside groups called names, threatened primaries and undercut the leadership on moves that used to be solid areas of party unity, such as speaker elections on the House floor, and supporting motions to proceed to legislation.
At times, it seemed there was no middle ground between voting “correctly,” even on a thorny tactical matter, and being a complete sellout who deserves to lose his or her job.
A mature Tea Party will embrace the idea of negotiation and (gasp) compromise, while never ceasing to pull on the right end of the rope. On some level, this is what happened in the 2011 budget battle. Democrats pulled hard to the Left, Republican leadership considered some options and the Tea Partiers pulled hard to the Right. In the end, this pulling got us serious spending cuts through the Budget Control Act.
But if you remember that fight, you probably remember the acrimony, name-calling and threats that accompanied it. Today, many conservative insurgents take credit for the BCA, and point out Boehner wouldn’t have pushed it if the “wingers” hadn’t forced him to do so.
In a functioning party, where the leadership has adapted to a new world and where the Tea Party has matured, these negotiations, tugs and pushes can happen with both conviction and collegiality.
The best way for the new GOP leadership to civilize the Tea Partiers is to behave as if conservatives, rather than K Street, are the party’s base. Neither backbench conservatives nor outside conservative groups saw Boehner as an ally. Instead, he represented to them the previous breed of Republican who sought solely to implement the Chamber of Commerce’s agenda, and who saw conservatives as children to be controlled.
McCarthy, though no Tea Partier, has far better personal relationships with the insurgents. If he is elected speaker, it will not be his job to make the GOP march in lockstep, as they often did in years past, and as the Democrats nearly do today. Instead, the next speaker will need to create an environment where the different factions can debate tactics and policies, and members may always vote their conscience.
To earn and keep the goodwill of the Tea Partiers, the next speaker will need to publicly and firmly fight for the tough policy wins the GOP claims it wants, such as cutting taxpayer subsidies to tainted abortion giant Planned Parenthood. If, after days and weeks of fighting and expenditure of political capital, the GOP leadership finds no way through to a conservative win, Tea Partiers will need to engage in a debate over second-best approaches, as opposed than taking their ball and going home.
One of the biggest tasks of the next speaker may not involve doing war with Senate Democrats or President Obama or Clinton, but providing conservative resistance to a Republican president.
The Bush era, particularly his first term, was defined by a GOP congressional leadership that blindly and relentlessly tried to do the White House’s bidding. One aide to GOP strongman Tom DeLay told me, “DeLay’s job is to pass the president’s agenda.”
Under a President Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, the speaker would need to pull the White House to the Right. If a Rubio White House wants the sugar program, the speaker should lead the party’s rebellion. If a Bush White House wants spending hikes, the speaker shouldn’t be Bush’s man on Capitol Hill, but the conservatives’ lobbyist to the White House.
Politics has changed since the Tea Party. The old rules don’t apply — earmarks are gone, party primaries are a more real threat, K Street no longer has a monopoly on the agenda. The Republican establishment hasn’t adapted its policymaking apparatus to this new reality. The next speaker will have a chance to do so. He’ll have to do so.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
