An intra-party power struggle for the chairmanship of one of Capitol Hill’s most influential committees is brewing, as Rep. Frank Lucas is considering a challenge to incumbent and fellow Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling to lead the House Financial Services panel.
Lucas, a 10-term lawmaker from Oklahoma, has suggested the committee’s members have lost faith in Hensarling’s leadership. Allies of Hensarling, a Texan, have shot back, privately accusing Lucas of falling far short of his fundraising goals for the House GOP’s mid-term election efforts.
Squabbles within the House GOP ranks are nothing new, particularly since a wave of Tea Partiers rushed into the chamber after the 2010 elections. But Lucas’ threat, while a long shot if he follows through, represents an unusually public breach of party unity.
“Chairman Lucas has been approached by members who are concerned about the direction of the House Financial Services Committee,” Lucas spokesman Andrew Witmer. “They have expressed a desire to see things change. Chairman Lucas is listening to his colleagues and taking their frustrations into consideration.”
Lucas, who, as House Agriculture Committee chairman this summer passed a long-delayed farm bill — one of the few major legislative bright spots on Capitol Hill this year — is term-limited from leading the panel after early January. He is a senior member of the Financial Services Committee but isn’t next in line to succeed Hensarling.
Hensarling’s chief of staff says he’s baffled by Lucas’ potential challenge but adds his boss has the necessary support to secure another term in charge of the committee.
“Certainly any member of a committee has a right to run or think about a run for the chairmanship. But frankly, at a critical moment when so many are working so hard to grow and unify our Republican majority in the House and win the Senate, it’s a puzzling time for this type of speculation on future leadership races,” Andrew Duke said.
The House Republican Steering Committee, which includes senior party leaders, will meet behind closed doors after the Nov. 4 midterm elections to pick committee chairmen. Self-imposed Republican rules limit chairmen to three consecutive 2-year terms. And with Hensarling winding down his first term as head of the Financial Services panel, he has no plans to step down.
“We can say that Chairman Hensarling has already secured the support and votes on the steering committee to continue serving as the Financial Services Committee chairman in the 114th Congress,” Duke said.
As head of the Financial Services Committee, he has helped oversee the banking, housing and securities industries since taking the gavel in January 2013. The panel was a central player in the 2008 Wall Street bailout.
Hensarling’s fundraising prowess for the party will go a long way toward helping secure his second term as chairman. The fifth-term Texan had raised more than $2 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee through the first 18 months of the 2014 election cycle, which began in January 2013, according to Federal Election Commission records. And while the FEC hasn’t released itemized financial reports for the three-month period running through September, Hensarling’s total is now believed to be close to $3 million — almost three times the goal party leaders set for him to contribute.
Lucas, meanwhile, has raised far less than $1 million, which typically is a ballpark fundraising goal for committee chairmen.
“If you are not meeting your fundraising goals, the chances of gathering steering committee votes is slim to none,” said a former senior House GOP aide familiar with the situation.
A Lucas spokesman declined to comment about the lawmaker’s fundraising efforts.
While Hensarling is far from the most polarizing House Republican, he has ruffled feathers with party colleagues, including leadership, since his days as chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee from 2007 to 2009.
Hensarling has received some flak for struggling to pass bills that only die in the Democratic-controlled Senate. And House GOP leaders bypassed him on legislation to reauthorize flood insurance. He also accepted leadership’s plea to pass legislation to temporarily extend authorization of the Export-Import Bank, an institution he has opposed.
But the no-nonsense Texan is admired by staunch House conservatives. And House Republican leaders have no great cause to strip him of his chairmanship — particularly since he has helped fill GOP campaign coffers.