California's Kevin McCarthy a virtual lock for House majority leader

California's Kevin McCarthy a virtual lock for House majority leader

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Reps. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield and Eric Cantor of Virginia speak to reporters on Capitol Hill in September 2013. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)


LISA MASCARO contact the reporter

California'sKevin McCarthy appears to have locked up the votes to be House majority leader

Californian McCarthy seems poised to edge out Texas rival in bid to be House majority leader Kevin McCarthy positioned to continue his rise through the ranks in Congress


Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) is all but assured of becoming the next House majority leader after a lawmaker considered to be a strong conservative challenger declined Thursday to run in the internal GOP race.

The affable McCarthy, now the No. 3 Republican in the House, is by no means the top choice among tea party lawmakers who believe the current leadership is tied too closely to the party's establishment wing. But the path for his ascent to the No. 2 spot seemed to clear Thursday as the potential challenger, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, said he would not seek the post.

The leadership race was triggered by the defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor in his primary in Virginia on Tuesday. Cantor announced Wednesday that he would step down from the majority leader's position at the end of July.

McCarthy will likely still face opposition from another Texan, Rep. Pete Sessions, but with Hensarling out, a potential regional showdown between the two largest state delegations in the House appears to be easing.

Sessions, a committee chairman and McCarthy rival, entered the race early, calling potential supporters on Tuesday night as Cantor was being defeated in his home-state election by a little-known conservative professor, Dave Brat.

It's also possible that another conservative could still enter the race, aides to House Republicans said, but McCarthy has moved quickly to lock down key votes.

Hensarling would have posed the most formidable challenge because of his stature among tea party lawmakers seeking to elevate one of their own.

In a statement Thursday morning, Hensarling said that after "prayerful reflection," he would not run for the post.

“Although I am humbled by the calls, emails, and conversations from my colleagues encouraging me to return to leadership for the remainder of the 113th Congress, I will not be a candidate for Majority Leader next week," he said.

"I have come to the conclusion that this is not the right office at the right time for me and my family."

After the decision was made, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the former GOP vice presidential nominee who is influential among his conservative peers, said he would back McCarthy.

The election, which is by secret ballot, is set for next Thursday.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politi...611-story.html

Jeb Hensarling, Tom Price Bow Out of House Majority Leader Race

http://online.wsj.com/articles/jeb-h...ace-1402585375

Kevin McCarthy is another illegal alien immigration reform amnesty supporter just like Eric Cantor and Pete Sessions!

W

http://www.alipac.us/f9/democrats-co...e-seat-304480/

• Eric Cantor throws his support behind Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield for next House Majority Leader
  
  1 HR AGO

http://www.alipac.us/f9/texan-sessio...ership-304548/

I never heard of Kevin McCarthy before this article.

How Will Eric Cantor's Potential Successor, Kevin McCarthy, Handle Immigration Reform?

By Elizabeth Llorente
Published June 13, 2014 Fox News Latino

• http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncsta....jpg?ve=1&tl=1
  Rep.Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., (AP)
  

With the upset on Tuesday in the Virginia GOP primary, where Rep. Eric Cantor lost to a Tea Party candidate, activists on both sides of the immigration debate are scrutinizing his potential successors as House Majority Leader and how they might handle the emotionally-charged issue.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is from California and whom Cantor is backing to succeed him, is widely expected to take the helm during the election, which is scheduled for June 19. McCarthy became the clear frontrunner after his strongest challenger, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, bowed out of the race late Thursday.

McCarthy has in the past expressed support for giving undocumented immigrants a path to legal status, although not full-blown citizenship.

McCarthy stressed earlier this year that his support for an opportunity to allow some undocumented immigrants to legalize their status was not tantamount to being in favor of amnesty, or rewarding people who break the law.

He said to KBFX Eyewitnesses News that he backed giving those who qualify “legal status that will allow you to work and pay your taxes.”

“If you want to become a citizen, you'll have to go through the path,” he said. “There won't be amnesty inside it.”

He added that the path to legal status was “a decision that every Republican will have to make.”

McCarthy’s district is 35 percent Latino, starkly different than that of Cantor, whose district is only 2 percent Latino.

Last June, the U.S. Senate, where Democrats have a majority, passed a sweeping bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that, among other things, bolstered border security, expanded foreign worker visa programs, and provided a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants who meet a strict set of criteria.

But the effort stalled in the House, where Republicans have the majority, and where some of the most conservative members fought against taking up any immigration measure that provided a path to legal status to people who are here illegally.

Some House Republicans who favor a strict approach to immigration are resisting McCarthy’s candidacy for Majority Leader, and want the June 19 leadership election pushed back in the hope that a candidate with a harder line on the issue can be put in the running for the position.

Two of those conservatives are Reps. Steve King, of Iowa, and Michele Bachmann, of Minnesota, who said they want a candidate who does not support "amnesty,” according to The Hill.

"We don't have the lineup of conservative rule of law candidates in place,” said King, who is one of the staunchest opponents in the House of any proposal that would give a break to undocumented immigrants.

“So we're asking for a delay in this vote so there's time for the conference to come to its senses and evaluate all of the opportunities that we have going forward.”

Activists who favor strict immigration enforcement aren’t satisfied with McCarthy.

“Pro-enforcement Americans should be extremely cautious about McCarthy and his admitted willingness to repeat the failed legalization of 1986,” said Georgia-based conservative leader D.A. King, who is of no relation to Steve King. “He is an unrepentant legalization advocate. Kevin McCarthy is another illustration of the depth of establishment Republican’s ‘amnesty or bust’ team.”

“McCarthy hopes that America can be convinced that legalization and a work permit for people who escaped capture at our borders or laughed at the fact that we don’t control visa departures like Mexico does isn’t ‘amnesty,’” King told Fox News Latino.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, a national group that favors strict immigration enforcement, said that the successor to Cantor will not have much of an impact on what Congress does or doesn’t do about immigration.

“What happened to Cantor is going to put a lot of Republican House members on notice,” Mehlman said to Fox News Latino. “It’s going to show them that this not something they want to deal with before the election.”

The child migrant influx on the U.S.-Mexico border, he said, is shifting the national focus back on the need for more border control.

“Dealing with an amnesty bill is not something their constituents will want to see them dealing with right now.”

Before dealing with a bill, he said, Congress will have to hold the president accountable for what he said has been lax enforcement.

Elizabeth Llorente can be reached elizabeth.llorente@foxnewslatino.com

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/pol...e-immigration/

For tea party Republicans, House leadership hopes turn into disappointment

When Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was 19, he won $5,000 in the California lottery. Here are three other facts you probably didn't know about the frontrunner for House majority leader. (Pamela Kirkland / The Washington Post)

BY ROBERT COSTA June 13 at 2:12 PM

Longtime conservative activist L. Brent Bozell called several reporters late Tuesday to boast about the tea party’s stunning upset of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. When asked what he would do next, Bozell laughed and said he was going to have some more lasagna with the conservative operatives who happened to be dining at his house.
Across the Potomac River in his first-floor suite at the Capitol, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) started making calls, too — but not to the press. McCarthy instead began dialing his fellow members, reassuring them that in spite of the shocking news, their caucus was not imploding. If they were worried about what happens next, he was happy to help.

Those precious first few hours of celebration — in Northern Virginia, on Fox News and across Capitol Hill — would come to haunt conservatives over the next two days, when their political machinery proved woefully unable to match their excitement. The only conservative to jump in the race is Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), a long-shot candidate who waited until Friday afternoon to announce a bid.

McCarthy’s easy ascent as unrest swirled around him underscores how the tea party, even with its strong pull in congressional primaries and ability to dictate the Republican agenda, remains a limited force in the insular and relationship-driven sphere of House Republican politics. Though sizable in number, they lack the organization and preparation, the battle-tested aides and the Machiavellian instincts to take over.

That has left the tea party in the paradoxical position of being powerful enough to take out a majority leader in historic fashion, but powerless to replace him. As a result, a blue state Republican more moderate than the one he replaced — McCarthy supports giving legal status to undocumented immigrants, for instance — was set to take over.

Mississippi's June 24th GOP runoff is the next test of the tea party's clout. Mississippi's Sen. Thad Cochran is facing a challenge from tea party-backed State Sen. Chris McDaniel. (  / AP)

“Before Cantor resigned, McCarthy had 35 deputy whips he could call and say, ‘Hey guys, I’m running,’ and probably 32 of them said, ‘I’m for you.’ That got him started and gave him momentum,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

McCarthy quickly started to fill the vacuum of power on Tuesday night, signaling to his closest allies and deputy whips that he was planning to run for majority leader once Cantor formally decided to step down.

McCarthy’s office — led by chief of staff Tim Berry, who served in the same role for former House majority leader Tom Delay (R-Tex.) — methodically built their count with a numerical ranking system that DeLay had mastered. That gave McCarthy critical intelligence on who might need extra attention. And McCarthy’s top deputy whips weren’t his closest friends, but rather committee chairmen, a sign he understood how best to reach members — through their bosses.

Meanwhile, the rabble-rousing conservatives who led a poorly executed coup attempt against House Speaker John A. Boehner in January 2013 spent Wednesday searching for a strategy, appearing distressed as they entered a meeting in the Capitol basement. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said he was hoping Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) would jump in, but he was not sure about the state of play. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said the same, as did Labrador, who was wondering whether he should step up if no one else did.

Things didn’t get any better by Thursday morning, when many conservatives gathered for a well-attended closed-door meeting of House Republicans from the South. When it became clear that Hensarling wouldn’t be whipping votes or announcing a bid, conservatives began to grumble that things were falling apart. McCarthy arrived soon after the meeting started to make a direct pitch to many of the members who might be skeptical of him, and was received respectfully. Sessions arrived later, coming alone and struggling to find votes.

In the early afternoon, other conservatives began to get word that Hensarling was out and Sessions was treading water. They had no playbook of what to do next. Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Paul Ryan (Wis.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio) — three popular House conservatives — had already made clear they weren’t interested. Labrador was still thinking it through. ​

On the House floor, Sessions took a short walk through the aisles but didn’t find much encouragement to run. He soon decided to drop his bid.

McCarthy also made his way around the floor. He was ebullient, patting backs and shaking hands as his green tie flopped over his dark jacket, with the knowing smile of a man in control. By that afternoon, he privately told his associates that he had secured enough votes to win.

On Twitter and elsewhere, conservative activists were in disbelief, wondering how McCarthy had so quickly become the presumptive victor.

The people at Bozell’s dinner party — Michael Needham of Heritage Action and Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots, among others — along with the combative titans of talk radio who helped raise the profile of Cantor opponent David Brat, had also failed to move swiftly to back a consensus hard-line candidate.

By Friday, conservatives were scrambling to salvage something before the election for majority leader on Thursday.

FreedomWorks, a group that organizes tea party activists, released a statement Friday morning urging Labrador to announce a run, although they were one of the few outfits agitating for an alternative to McCarthy.

“Americans deserve a choice in leadership, and Republicans should have learned by now that ‘the next guy in line’ isn’t entitled to the next rung on the ladder,” said FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe. “Raúl Labrador is the perfect leadership choice for constitutional conservatives who are ready to shake things up in Congress. He has an authentic commitment to rejecting special interests, and defending limited government.”

Labrador finally made his move early Friday afternoon, declaring in a statement that the Cantor defeat showed “Americans are looking for a change in the status quo.”

But much of the attention has already turned to the race to replace McCarthy as whip, with three members — Reps. Steve Scalise (La.), Peter Roskam (Ill.) and Marlin A. Stutzman (Ind.) — competing for the third-ranking job.

Behind the scenes, Scalise, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, and his boosters were making the argument that the right needed to get behind a southern conservative and not let the House’s current establishment control all three top positions.

Roskam, a dutiful member of the current leadership team as chief deputy whip, was finding some support, but he was also having trouble countering Scalise’s case with many members who are frustrated with how things have played out.

Not wanting to repeat the mistakes made by conservatives in the race for majority leader, Scalise canceled an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” “so that he can be 100 percent focused on his members,” said a source close to the congressman who was not authorized to speak publicly.

If Scalise ends up beating Roskam and the little-known Stutzman, it will be a notable, though limited, win for the embattled right. Even Scalise has his critics — knocked by some conservatives as being too cozy with leadership and reluctant to be a bomb-thrower on the national scene.

Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele predicted that the conservative base outside Congress could soon revolt, potentially lashing out against McCarthy as the latest example of hubris by a leadership team that should have been more humbled by Cantor’s defeat.

“The grass-roots conservatives aren’t going to sit back and let this moment pass them by,” Steele said. “Whether that happens next week or in the next few months is the question.”

Regardless of how the grass-roots react or how the whip race plays out, the lingering question for conservatives in the House will be why they weren’t ready for an opening they’ve been fighting for since they helped Republicans regain power in the tea party wave of 2010.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...2d4_story.html

House Republicans Elect Leaders

DAVID ESPO, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
POSTED: Thursday, June 19, 2014, 12:32 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans set out to shuffle their leadership lineup on Thursday in elections that highlighted a wider struggle inside a party divided between the establishment and red-state, tea party forces.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a fourth-term lawmaker from California, expressed confidence he would win his race to become majority leader, and not even his rival disputed the prediction.

The day's second election, to succeed McCarthy as party whip, remained an unpredictable three-way competition among Reps. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Peter Roskam of Illinois and Marlin Stutzman of Indiana.

The elections followed a brief, one-week campaign set in motion a week ago, after the current majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor, lost a primary election to little-known, underfunded tea party-backed challenger David Brat.

In setting quick elections, Speaker John Boehner and other leaders hoped to avoid a drawn-out, divisive struggle that might complicate the party's drive to retain its majority in midterm balloting on Nov. 4.

Yet the timing of the day's events made it unclear whether the winners - or perhaps Boehner, himself - might face fresh challenges when the rank and file gathers in the fall after national elections.

McCarthy, 49, moved quickly to line up the votes for majority leader in the wake of Cantor's defeat at the polls in Virginia, deploying an organization developed since he became whip more than three years ago when Republicans took control of the House.

One potential rival, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, decided against joining the race, while another, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, deferred to a second Texan, Rep. Pete Sessions. Sessions quickly dropped out, though, saying it was obvious that a successful campaign would have created painful divisions within the party.

Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho jumped in, but by then, the California front-runner had amassed support from across the rank and file.

He was aided not only by personal ties, but by the fundraising prowess he has displayed since joining the leadership.

His Majority Committee PAC gave nearly $1.2 million to Republican House candidates and organizations during the two-year election cycle of 2011-2012, and an additional $480,000 to candidates so far in advance of this fall's balloting.

If McCarthy's ascension seemed a foregone conclusion, the battle to take his whip's spot was anything but - so much so that there was speculation that a second ballot might be required to settle the contest.

Congressional leadership races are traditionally contests that turn on personal relationships, geographical considerations, ideology and more. Inside the current GOP rank-and-file, moderates needed not apply. Instead, the various candidates stressed their conservative credentials.

Roskam, 52, a fourth-termer who is currently chief deputy whip, sought to move up the leadership ladder among a group of politicians that often prefers breaking precedent rather than following it. Additionally, his rivals cited a need to install a red-state Republican in the top tier of leadership that so far lacks one.
Scalise, 48, who won his seat in a special election in 2008, fit the bill, and campaigned as head of the Republican Study Conference, a group of that sometimes serves as a conservative thorn in the side of leadership.

Stutzman, 37, a second-term lawmaker, also reached out to tea party-backed lawmakers. He joined the race at a time it appeared that Scalise was having trouble gaining enough votes to defeat Roskam.


Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20140619_ap_2859ddb0a9304ea1aab3f162a9f6ccde.html# t8bHS6qoYjuFm4Yl.99

http://www.alipac.us/f9/mccarthy-sel...leader-305069/

Same old, same old.

http://american-rattlesnake.org/2014...atus-quo-ante/