Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:42 pm
After last week’s border vote debacle, anxiety is growing among some Republicans that the House will doom the GOP’s 2014 election chances by shutting down the government next month.
Roll Call touched on the growing anxiety among moderate House Republicans:
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Newly installed House Majority Whip Steve Scalise helped resurrect the GOP’s border legislation last week, but his strategy for shoring up the votes has left some members and aides wondering whether he will be able to keep an unruly flock in line.
Worrying about making the rank and file happy, he assisted in salvaging a $694 million appropriations measure to bolster resources at the U.S.-Mexico border largely by giving in to the demands of the far-right contingent of the GOP conference — including Reps. Steve King of Iowa and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota — rather than bringing down the proverbial hammer.
There’s anxiety among more moderate parts of the party over how Scalise will help hold the conference together to avoid another government shutdown when the chamber reconvenes next month, and how his own desires to win re-election to the whip position in November could factor into how he does his job.
Scalise got the voters for the border bill by moving to the far right. He had to swap deporting 550,000 Dreamers for enough voters to get a tiny amount of funding to deal with the crisis on the border. The message that he sent to the extremists in his own ranks was that he could be bullied and pushed to the right.
Republicans should be scared, because the far right members of the House would be happy to go home and campaign for reelection on a government shutdown. Most of them have never forgiven Boehner and the House leadership for ending the government shutdown last year. The shutdown last fall was caused by the fact that the Ted Cruz caucus in the House dug in their heels and refused to pass the Senate’s continuing resolution to fund the government. An absurd situation unfolded where House Republicans keep passing the same bill and sending it back to the Senate over and over again.
The shutdown only ended when the popularity of the Republican Party plummeted to record lows, and they were in jeopardy of losing the House. Far right House Republicans have been seething for a year, and they could see next month as their chance for payback.
If the government shuts down again right before the mid-term elections, it will be a disaster for the Republican Party. They could kiss their hopes of winning the Senate goodbye. They would lose a large number of governor races, and it could be the one event that might place the House Republican majority in jeopardy.
Another shutdown is very unlikely, but Boehner and company were unable to prevent the government shutdown that they didn’t want last year, and the changed leadership has not shown any improvement in handling the fringe of their caucus. The border vote encouraged the far right to press harder.
John Boehner and his leadership team have to prevent a government shutdown, or the American people could hand the Speaker’s gavel back to Nancy Pelosi. It would be a fitting end to Boehner’s tenure as speaker if Republicans lost their majority through one final act of self-destruction.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
