House Republicans will look petty and make Michigan’s Justin Amash look like a martyr if they strip Amash of his committee assignments in retaliation for his declaring independence from the Republican Party. They will also hurt Amash’s constituents for no good reason.
In other words, they will be behaving exactly like the party hacks Amash says they are.
Amash has done nothing dishonorable, unethical, or immoral. Unlike Iowa Republican Steve King, whose committee assignments were stripped earlier this year because of his newfound affinity for white nationalism, Amash did not repeatedly air bigoted remarks. He didn’t do anything to violate of his principles or for political gain. Indeed, there can be no doubt, looking at Amash’s record, that his abdication of his party affiliation was entirely consonant with consistent principles, and much to his political detriment.
Amash had already put his own political future on the line by taking a lonely stand against President Trump from within the GOP, against what he describes as hackish party allegiance. Now that he’s quit the party, Republicans have every reason to try to defeat him if he runs for reelection. They have good reasons to strongly defend themselves from his criticism and to criticize him back.
But Amash was duly elected, and he represents some 733,000 people. Those constituents have done nothing to deserve punishment by Republican leaders. Amash is their voice, for now, and they have done nothing to deserve being made voiceless.
If Republicans in Congress show their pique at Amash’s criticism of them, they make themselves look thin-skinned. Meanwhile, they risk driving Amash even further away while he is in office, making it even less likely to secure his vote if any close votes do arise.
Meanwhile, they confirm Amash’s complaints. In explaining why he left the party, he wrote that he objects to “a mind-set among the political class that loyalty to party is more important than serving the American people or protecting our governing institutions. The parties value winning for its own sake, and at whatever cost.”
Tellingly, and with predictive accuracy, he continued: “In this hyperpartisan environment, congressional leaders use every tool to compel party members to stick with the team, dangling chairmanships, committee assignments, bill sponsorships, endorsements and campaign resources.”
Amash described this system as corrupt. Sure enough, as if to prove their own corruption, his colleagues are now using the withdrawal of those same committee assignments as punishment for his apostasy.
Democrats have a wiser policy. Two independents in the Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, vote leftward and in turn enjoy Democratic committee assignments despite their official independence. Amash obviously will not stop voting rightward, so why should Republicans not ignore his party label for 18 months and allow him to remain in place within Congress until they can defeat him fair and square in the next election?
When New Hampshire Republican Sen. Bob Smith left the Republican Party briefly to run for president in 1999, his colleagues did not boot him from his committees. When Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman lost his own party primary in 2006 and ran for reelection as an independent, and when Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski lost her party primary in 2010 and ran as a write-in, both were reelected anyway and both were allowed by their parties to keep their seniority and committee assignments. Of course, all of these circumstances are slightly different from each other, but the point remains: Why punish constituents for something other than a matter of ethics or morals?
Amash does Republicans no harm by continuing to serve on committees to which he is assigned. He does their reputation harm, though, if they evict him. Americans are sick of politics practiced only through a partisan lens. Republicans do themselves no favors if that’s how they continue to practice it.
