When newly-elected Speaker John Boehner promised a more open House of Representatives allowing members to freely introduce and debate issues, inside-the-beltway smart guys all smiled. Every new Speaker over the last century had promised the same – and proceeded to run everything tightly by himself. The promise lasted only until the first controversial bill hit the floor for his predecessor Nancy Pelosi.
But here was the Continuing Resolution appropriations bill for 2011 on the House floor with an unprecedented 403 amendments – from restricting abortion subsidies to Planned Parenthood, to delaying ObamaCare, to voiding Environmental Protection Agency overreaching carbon rules, to overruling Federal Communications Commission regulations, to defunding National Public Radio – which were introduced and adopted with a commitment from the Speaker to keep the Floor open for his whole tenure. Of course, there were limits. Members, especially the opposition “will not have the right to willfully disrupt the proceedings of the peoples’ House but you will always have the right to a robust debate in an open process that allows you to represent your constituents, to make your case, offer alternatives and be heard.”
What a difference from last minute midnight votes held open against the rules for hours on leadership bills that no one had had time to read. Even highly partisan Democrats like Rep. Henry Waxman called Boehner’s approach “generally a good idea,” welcoming it as a “move in the right direction.” It was not merely the right direction but the Constitutional direction. The Founders never envisioned the tight party organizational approach to House leadership that requires buying votes by spending on many little programs to build a coalition for a large ideological program that would end by bankrupting the nation in the name of the general welfare. Past Speakers won the votes but at the cost of fiscal sanity.
Mr. Boehner’s approach is not only constitutionally and financially sound it is also good politics. He knows that whatever he can accomplish can be undone by a Democratic Senate and a presidential veto. Even in the House with an impressive 241 Republicans, he can only lose 23 from left or right before he has to rely on Democratic support. On the last appropriations extension vote 55 conservatives voted against the bill requiring 85 Democrats’ support to avoid shutting down the government. More have threatened to desert when the new extension expires this Friday. Rather than being associated with a failed or unprincipled strategy or closing the government, if the Speaker continues to allow the principled votes, he can correctly say even to the most ideological supporter that he did his best and was simply voted down by a majority in the peoples’ House.
Speaker Boehner likewise exercised good Constitutionalism and good politics by holding President Barack Obama’s feet to the fire on committing U.S. air forces to bomb and contain Moammar Gaddafi in Libya. With the rest of the nation and Republican leaders confused and silent, the Speaker sent what the media called a “hard-hitting” letter to the president respecting “your authority as Commander-in-Chief” but “troubled that U.S. military resources were committed to war without clearly defining for the American people, the Congress, and our troops what the mission in Libya is and what America’s role is in achieving that mission.” For in fact, Article I Section 8 of the Constitution gives the power to go to war to the Congress.
This Constitutional demand received surprising support from the mainline media and even from very partisan Democrats. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown conceded on television the following weekend: “I think the questions Speaker Boehner asked were generally legitimate questions—I think they were the right questions” and the president relented a few days later and gave a speech to the nation explaining himself. While the Speaker said some of his questions were answered, “others were not.” A limited mission to stop the slaughter would receive Congressional support, he conceded, but “if Gaddafi doesn’t leave how long will NATO be there to enforce the no-fly zone? That’s a very troubling question.”
Neoconservative Weekly Standard editor William Kristol responded by complaining about “delay” in committing U.S. troops and demanded the president send American “boots on the ground” and ultimately create an American “peacekeeping and nation-stabilizing force.” From the more realist right, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour asked why the American military was involved at all considering that Syria’s suppression of its opposition was as bad on humanitarian grounds as Libya’s and the White House said it would not act there. While conservatives were split on the matter, few disagreed there was a Constitutional obligation to consult seriously with Congress, as George W. Bush had done, and the absolute necessity of a debate before U.S. troops were placed in harm’s way.
Among the leaders in Washington, Mr. Boehner seems to be one of a very few who actually pay some attention to Constitutional provisions when they act. The House was designed to be the peoples’ House where members could express local constituent opinion. Congress was created to be involved in foreign policy decision-making, not ignored. Requiring such Constitutional responsibility simply would not have been raised without Mr. Boehner’s leadership. The strange thing is that few if any conservatives have rallied to him or even noticed. Where else could they look? The number two and three House leaders are super-pragmatists trained by that capo dei capi of Machiavellianism, former Ways and Means chairman Bill Thomas, one of whom worked directly for him over 15 years. Unlike their mentor, they have learned to cover their actions with conservative language and votes but their skills are fully devoted to “winning votes” no matter the substantive composition.
John Boehner has had his own flirtations with pragmatism but he has had flourishes of principled leadership too. He started as one of the freshman “Gang of Seven” reformers in the 1990s who exposed the House bank scandal, fought the establishment leadership to advance ideologically conservative domestic programs such as school vouchers and agricultural reform, and was one of the authors of the principled Contract With America. After rising swiftly in the House leadership to the key policy role of Conference Chairman as a result of his reforming ways, he was defeated for re-election in 1998 after large GOP losses. From 1998 until he won election as Majority Leader in 2006, he reinvented himself as a pragmatic committee chairman, even winning the mixed blessing of support from Rep. Thomas.
Now Mr. Boehner is back as a reformist Speaker. Whether he acts more in the mode of his early Gang of Seven idealism or his chairmanship pragmatism will largely decide the future of conservative reform and the fortunes of the Republican Party. If he has the courage to take the principled votes and not be concerned whether he “wins or loses” personally he can become a great Constitutional leader and as virtue’s reward will arrive at the only possible winning strategy for the long term in the process.
Somehow, I am optimistic that conservatives will be pleasantly surprised.
