[Above, House Republicans during happier times. -- eds.]
This time they really mean it, swing district House Republicans tell Punchbowl News. They’re ready to start working on bipartisan issues and legislation and beat back the extremist Freedom Caucus so they don’t have to keep taking miserable, unpopular votes that will hurt them.
“There’s a lot of opportunities for bipartisanship,” said Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Garcia of California said his group can have real leverage. “The majority is only five seats, so really every faction has the same amount of power, it’s just a matter of strategy and tactics we choose to deploy as a result of that,” the Republican said. “At some point, we need to ease up some of our positions to get to solutions.”
Both are among the 18 Republicans representing districts where a majority voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.
Moderate House Democrats will believe it when they see it.
“For 11 years I have worked in a bipartisan way on bipartisan bills on important issues,” Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster of New Hampshire, told Punchbowl News. “Now, I find it very difficult because if I try to approach them on a bill that I know we’ve worked on together for years, we get to committee and someone wants to throw a [controversial] amendment on there,” Kuster added.
The part she didn’t say is that the so-called moderate Republicans don’t fight to keep those amendments out of bills—and worse: They vote for them.
Consider the traditionally bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act that passed in the House last month. It includes amendments to: ban books in military base school libraries; end the Pentagon’s policy of allowing service members leave to obtain abortions; ban gender-affirming health care for people serving in the military and their families; and ban race, gender, religion, political affiliations, or "any other ideological concepts" as the basis for personnel decisions. Those amendments all passed, with votes from most of these same GOP moderates, known as the Biden 18.
Moderates are also apparently shocked that the Freedom Caucus, the extremist Republican group currently running the show, is “selfish and short-sighted and only care about pushing their own agenda in the media instead of working with us to govern.” That quote is from Republican Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia. He’s mad that the extremists are “taking advantage” of the small Republican House majority to force their will on the rest of the conference.
And it only took him seven months to figure that out. By the time we get through August and Congress is back in session, he might have done the math to figure out 18 is bigger than five, so his team can do the same thing.
He and the rest of the Republican moderates will have a chance to put all that tough talk into action when they return in September. If they really want to help themselves and act like real representatives, they’ll figure out how to leverage that bipartisanship they long for and keep the government from shutting down.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
