Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell extended an olive branch to some of the GOP conservatives who have been most critical of his leadership by meeting with the House Freedom Caucus board members on Tuesday.
“I walked away from the meeting believing that it was a very generous and kind gesture for the leader of the Senate to meet with some of the conservative members and express his point of view and his stance on some issues,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the lawmaker who filed the motion to depose House Speaker John Boehner last summer, told the Washington Examiner.
Lawmakers did not discuss budget issues, even though the House Republicans are in the midst of an HFC-driven debate over whether to walk away from the spending deal that Boehner and McConnell negotiated last fall with Democrats. Instead, they spent most of their time discussing the upcoming fight over replacing the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. It’s not an area where HFC has any direct influence, but by giving them a hearing, McConnell might have taken the vinegar out of some of his harshest critics.
McConnell emphasized that he won’t allow Obama to name Scalia’s replacement. “A lot of the grassroots feel like we cave every single time when it comes to things that are important to them, and the leader indicated in no uncertain terms that he’s not going to cave,” Meadows said. “He wanted to let us know that many times the Senate can get blamed for a number of things but this is one of the things that is within his constitutional authority and mandate and I applaud him on his willingness to stand firm.”
McConnell’s visit might pay dividends for vulnerable Senate Republicans, if the HFC members relay his message to some of the dispirited or angry conservative activists Republicans need to turn out to hold the Senate majority. “If anything, it shows me the importance of having a Senate majority where we have a leader willing to show some backbone and stand up for what the vast majority of Americans want,” Meadows said.
That message could be helpful to a number of Senate Republicans, if it is taken up by Meadows’ colleagues. HFC chairman Jim Jordan, for instance, hails from the same state of Ohio as Sen. Rob Portman, who faces a difficult reelection bid. Retiring Rep. Reid Ribble shares constituents with Sen. Ron Johnson, who faces a rematch with the Democrat he unseated during the 2010 tea party wave election.
The meeting might also make it easier for McConnell to pass a change to campaign finance law that would increase the amount of money the political parties can spend in coordination with a candidate. Freedom Caucus members have been loud opponents of the change, fearing establishment Republicans would use it to unseat the conservative backbenchers who have troubled GOP leadership in recent years. McConnell suggested those fears were misguided, according to a source familiar with the conversation, by saying it was designed to help the National Republican Senatorial Committee to “compete on an even-playing field” with super PACs devoted to unseating GOP incumbents.
“There’s more of an incumbent protection plan in the Senate and not as much in the [House Republicans],” the source said of McConnell’s position.
