Ryan lacks strength to unify House GOP

The Charlotte Observer

BY LEroy GOLDMAN

Special to the Observer

October 28, 2015

John Boehner’s Zip-a-dee-doo-dah exit as Speaker of the House of Representatives has triggered a remarkable and chaotic process among House Republicans. It quickly became apparent that there was no obvious successor who was capable of leading, and who could command the overwhelming support of the entire GOP Caucus.

Out of that chaos, attention began to focus on Paul Ryan, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, and a man who had never aspired to a House leadership position and who said he did not want to be Speaker.

Ryan is a man of substance, a policy wonk, a Republican who, unlike virtually all of the rest of the 246 Republicans in the House, understands that in order to govern, the GOP must demonstrate to the American people that it has workable alternatives to the programs and policies put forth by President Obama and the Democrats. Just voting to repeal Obamacare 50+ times doesn’t cut it.

As the former Chair of the House Budget Committee and the current Chair of Ways and Means, Ryan has been perfectly positioned to offer legislation to address big issues like the debt and the deficit, health care, immigration reform and comprehensive tax reform.

But the pressure on Ryan to fill the Speaker void quickly became irresistible. It was at that point Ryan set forth his conditions. But Ryan blundered badly, sold himself short, and has set the stage for his own demise as Speaker.

He did not take full advantage of the position of strength he occupied as the one person virtually all House members were willing to rally around as the new Speaker. As such, he should have insisted upon a set of conditions that would have brought order out of the chaos among House Republicans. He could have turned the tables on the House Freedom Caucus by saying to them from now on it will be my way or the highway, not yours.

Here’s how Ryan blew it. He first insisted on the support of all three of the caucuses that make up the House Republicans. But then he backtracked when some members of the hysterical Freedom Caucus would not support him. The message his backtracking sent will be lethal going forward. It tells the Freedom Caucus that they will be able to jerk him around just as they jerked John Boehner’s chain whenever they wished.

Then Ryan said he would support the continued use of the Hastert Rule, the mechanism that the radicals in the Freedom Caucus have used to stymie the House legislatively and prevent legislative accommodation with House Democrats, the Senate and the president. Ryan should have reserved the right to abandon the slavish use of the Hastert Rule.

Ryan should have insisted that both Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise be replaced with fresh blood of Ryan’s choosing. He didn’t, and he will regret it.

Finally, Ryan agreed to give up the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee. He should have retained that post so that he could continue to shape vital legislation, and so that he had an avenue of retreat if being Speaker went south.

Had Ryan insisted on these conditions, a new and better day would have dawned in the House or, failing that, Ryan could have walked away from a rendezvous with oblivion.

Instead Ryan has trapped himself. Unwittingly, he has become Don Quixote, The Man Of La Mancha. He dreams the impossible dream; he fights the unbeatable foe; he reaches for the unreachable star; and he cannot right the unrightable wrong.

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Boehner and Meadows: A tale of failed leadership

By

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Asheville Citizen-Times

October 2, 2015

House Speaker John Boehner has packed it in. At the same time one of his principal tormentors, Congressman Mark Meadows, has kept a low profile. Thus far he has had the decency to not dance on Boehner’s grave.

Boehner’s demise and Meadows’ role in bringing him down have significance that goes way beyond the bad blood between a 25-year House veteran and an upstart back-bencher. The real significance that their dispute throws into sharp relief is that the House of Representatives no longer functions. It has paralyzed itself with the help and assistance of state legislatures that can’t resist drawing congressional district lines in ways that enable members of Congress from both parties to pick their voters. It’s called gerrymandering, and it has run amok with devastating and unpredictable consequences.

Speakers of the House have become an endangered species. Five of the last six Speakers, dating back to Democrat Jim Wright in 1989, have been ousted. In addition to Wright the list includes Democrat Tom Foley, and Republicans Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert and now Boehner.

Boehner says he had decided to announce his retirement on his 66th birthday, Nov. 17. But he abruptly advanced the timetable when he sensed rising conservative opposition to his leadership as Congress was about to consider stopgap funding for the government.

Boehner knew that the most intransigent members of his caucus, the 40 or so ideologues who comprise the Freedom Caucus, were planning to force another shutdown of the government if they could not defund Planned Parenthood. Boehner knew their effort would fail because the president would veto any bill that defunded Planned Parenthood. He also knew the GOP would be blamed by the voters if the government shut down again as it had in 2013. And he knew that the Freedom Caucus didn’t care.

And all of this was in addition to the resolution that Congressman Meadows, a member of the Freedom Caucus, had introduced in the House just two months ago. Meadows’ resolution contained a motion to vacate the chair. Such a motion, if brought to a vote and approved, would have ousted Boehner.

Meadows, tongue in cheek, simply said he wanted to start a “family conversation on the course of congressional leadership.” Family conversations are typically unproductive when one member of the family has the barrel of a gun in the face of another family member.

Mark Meadows found himself in the right place at the right time in 2012 when he first sought election to the 11th Congressional District. Widespread voter revulsion to Obama, and especially the way he and the Democrats had rammed through Obamacare in 2009-10, gave the GOP control of the House in 2010, and, more importantly, gave them control of many state legislatures and governor’s mansions. All of this came just in time for the required redrawing of congressional district lines based upon the 2010 census.

Here in North Carolina the GOP had gained control of all of the levers of power in Raleigh for the first time in over a century. Not surprisingly, the Republicans in Raleigh went on a gerrymandering orgy. A state which heretofore had seven Democrats and six Republicans in the House, now has ten Republicans and only three Democrats.

Meadows coasted to victory in 2012 with 57.4 percent of the vote, and was re-elected in 2014 with 62.9 percent of the vote. The district has been gerrymandered by removing thousands of voters who live in Asheville.

Therefore, Mark Meadows, like hundreds of other members of Congress from both parties, is congressman for life. His only real threat is if he challenged from the right in a Republican primary election by an opponent more extreme than he. Thus his incentive and the incentive of his GOP colleagues is to move as far right as possible in order to forestall such a challenge. Democratic House members do the same thing, though they race far to the left.

And that process produces two groups of zealots in the House who refuse to work with one another. They don’t care. It’s the system that keeps them in power.

In their own different ways, both Boehner and Meadows have failed. Both are casualties of a process they support — gerrymandering. Both applauded with all the rest of their colleagues when Pope Francis addressed Congress recently and urged Congress to practice the Golden Rule.

Hypocrisy is rampant on Capitol Hill. It’s also bipartisan. A subsequent column will propose ways to curtail gerrymandering.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock. He was a member of the federal government’s senior executive service for many years, he can be reached at:

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