Another Congress, another little plot to oust Speaker John Boehner. The revolts come and go, but frequent critics don’t think the latest one will amount to much.
It’s no secret that the Ohio Republican does not see eye to eye with some of his conference’s most conservative members. He has poked fun at the Tea Party faction in interviews and speeches.
But he has managed to address just enough of their concerns to tamp down any serious challenges to his leadership.
“I don’t see anybody going forward and mounting a challenge to the speaker,” Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, a frequent critic, said at event last week sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation. “I expect there won’t be a challenge.”
In fact, Boehner has grown more popular this year among many right-wing Republicans in the House, including Labrador, who had voted against him when he ran for a second term last year.
Labrador and others say the GOP leadership’s increased willingness to include the right wing in drafting legislation has quelled much of the desire to oust Boehner that came with the wave of Tea Party Republicans elected in 2010.
It’s true that some of them are still unhappy. A small group of conservatives has held meetings throughout the year in which ousting Boehner was the main topic of discussion.
“He’s just done too many things that have alienated too many individual members, and once that confidence is undermined it’s very difficult to get it back,” one GOP plotter told the Washington Examiner on condition of anonymity.
The Tea Party faction helped lead the House to gridlock over spending in October 2013, which resulted in a 16-day government shutdown that the public blamed primarily on Republicans.
But it also steered House GOP leadership and conservatives on a path to a truce that appears to be holding.
Boehner’s popularity among conservatives in his conference has been rising steadily this year and skyrocketed in July, when he acquiesced to conservatives who were unhappy with legislation aimed at dealing with a surge of illegal immigrant children pouring across the southern border.
The GOP leadership pulled the legislation from the floor and kept the House in session past a planned recess adjournment. The bill was rewritten to include conservative provisions such as tougher border security and a restriction on President Obama’s use of executive authority to change immigration laws.
Many of Republican lawmakers who normally clash with their leaders threw their support behind the plan and said they no longer felt excluded from the process.
“Leading by consensus rather than intimidation signals a new dawn in this place and I love it,” said Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., one of the most conservative members of the House, who frequently clashed with GOP leadership.
Boehner has also grown stronger just by serving as speaker.
“Who else is going to raise $100 million to defend the House in a presidential election year?” asked one GOP strategist close to Boehner. “Nobody.”
