Thread: Flood of anti-Boehner calls rattles leadership

POLITICS: CONGRESS
Flood of anti-Boehner calls rattles leadership

BY SUSAN FERRECHIO | JANUARY 7, 2015 | 7:03 PM

Speaker Boehner arrives at a press conference following the House GOP conference meeting on...It wasn’t the Republican votes against House Speaker John Boehner that truly rattled the GOP leadership, it was the phone calls.

There were hundreds of them, jamming the phone lines of the district and Capitol offices of dozens of House GOP lawmakers.
The callers were not angry about legislation. Nor were they asking for help with a local matter. They were demanding their representative vote against Boehner Tuesday in his bid to win election to a third term as speaker.

For the GOP leadership, the flood of calls was a game changer. It thrusted the leadership into triage mode as it scrambled to heal the growing rift among House Republicans.

“We’ve never been lobbied quite like that,” House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “We yesterday began a new era of circumstances, and one is that we have members who are going to solicit the outside in ways that they have not previously.”

Boehner was so agitated by the phone calls that he raised the issue to his rank and file in a private meeting Wednesday morning, those in the room reported.

Boehner was defensive, according to witnesses. He told GOP lawmakers he has long espoused the Tea Party principles that the callers accused him of abandoning.

But he was also conciliatory to conservatives who are dissatisfied with him.

After the meeting, he told reporters he may reverse the punishment against two lawmakers who ran against him Tuesday.
“We're going to have a family conversation, which we had this morning, about bringing our team together,” Boehner said. “And I expect that those conversations over the next couple of days will continue and we'll come to a decision about how we go forward.”
Twenty-four Republicans voted against Boehner Tuesday, including many who specifically pointed to the phone calls as influencing their decision.

“After hearing from the fine people of N.C. with the desire to change the status quo, I cast my vote for a new direction in leadership,” Rep. Mark Meadows tweeted after voting for Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida for speaker.

Other Republicans who voted for Boehner put out statements qualifying their support for him. Their messages were aimed specifically at the constituents who jammed the phone lines in opposition.

“Many constituents from Idaho contacted me to let me know that I should not support him,” Rep. Raul Labrador said in a statement after voting for Boehner. “I want them to know that I did not make this decision lightly. I share the view of the majority of my constituents who are deeply frustrated by the way the House has run the last four years.”

Jammed phone lines on Capitol Hill are not uncommon, particularly if a high-profile or controversial bill is nearing a vote. Tea Party groups in December called Congress en masse to protest the $1.1 trillion government spending bill, for example.

But this time, the callers were opposed to the leaders, not legislation.

Anger from conservatives stems from years of clashes between the mainstream GOP and its sizable Tea Party faction, comprised of dozens of the most conservative lawmakers.

Their most recent gripe is the hastily-passed government spending bill, which they believe the GOP leadership rushed to the floor for a vote, despite opposition from conservatives.

Many conservatives also believe Republican House leaders are not moving aggressively enough to curb President Obama’s recent executive actions on the environment and immigration.

Earlier this week, Tea Party groups rallied their base to call the Capitol, listing the switchboard phone number on Twitter. Some popular conservative talk show hosts joined in, too.

“Want to fire John Boehner as speaker?” Tea Party Patriots tweeted. “Call your Republican representative now and tell them to vote against Boehner for speaker.”

In the end, the effort was disorganized and fell far short of succeeding, but 24 lawmakers voted against him, the biggest opposition since the Civil War.

“They learned a lesson,” Sessions said. “And we did, too.”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/an...ampaign=buffer

Jammed phone lines on Capitol Hill are not uncommon, particularly if a high-profile or controversial bill is nearing a vote. Tea Party groups in December called Congress en masse to protest the $1.1 trillion government spending bill, for example.

The thing that jumped out at me is that this article attributes everyone that opposed Boehner as part of the "TEA Party" a term demonized by the GOP as a group that obstructs their agenda. A fringe so to speak and therefore ignored.

Point made - it is the propaganda of the soros funded Republican Main Street Partnership.
Self-proclaimed 'governing wing' of GOP prepares to counter Tea Party

BY DAVID M. DRUCKER |
JANUARY 8, 2015 | 8:31 AM



Republican Main Street Partnership, led by former Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, now boasts a...A group of GOP lawmakers that bills itself as the “governing wing” of the party was set Thursday to hold its opening forum of the 114th Congress on the heels of an insurgent uprising that marred Rep. John Boehner’s re-election as speaker.

The Republican Main Street Partnership, previously identified with socially liberal or moderate Republicans but refashioned as an organization focused on fiscal issues, added 14 new members in the 2014 midterm elections.

The organization, led by former Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, a Boehner ally, now boasts a roster of 62 Republicans in the House and four in the Senate.

“They've moved away from social issues and are focused on fiscally-conservative, kitchen table and common-sense type issues,” a GOP source said. “The forum [Thursday] is trying to shine a light on some of the proposals their members will try to pass this Congress. They view themselves as the governing wing of the Republican Party — the folks who want to get things done as opposed to say the hell no caucus.”

Several senior and freshman Republicans were expected at Thursday’s morning’s kick-off forum, according to organizers, among them House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan and Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina. The freshmen Republicans who have joined the group include Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York, Barbara Comstock of Virginia and Ryan Zinke of Montana.

Main Street actually consists of multiple entities, with a political action committee, a super PAC and a nonprofit arm. In the 2014 election cycle, Main Street invested more than $500,000 each in Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, both of whom held off primary challengers from the Right. The group employs about a half-dozen staffers, recently adding a policy director and events coordinator.

On Tuesday, Boehner was elected to a third term as speaker.

The outcome was never in doubt, but a disorganized coup attempt by mostly Tea Party affiliated lawmakers has left some lingering bad blood — both among disgruntled conservatives and the majority of rank-and-file House Republicans who believed Boehner's challengers were acting in self-interest.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/se...rticle/2558350

Beware the Left-Wing-Funded "Main Street" Republicans

Michelle Malkin | Jan 10, 2014



What do George Soros, labor unions and money-grubbing former GOP Rep. Steven LaTourette all have in common?
They're control freaks. They're power hounds. They're united against tea party conservatives. And they all have operated under the umbrella of D.C. groups masquerading as "Main Street" Republicans.

LaTourette heads up the so-called "Main Street Partnership," which claims to represent "thoughtful," "pragmatic," "common sense" and "centrist" Republican leadership. Reality check: The pro-bailout, pro-debt, pro-amnesty, anti-drilling group founded by former liberal New York GOP Congressman Amory Houghton includes three liberal Senate Republicans (John McCain, Mark Kirk and Susan Collins) and 52 center-left House Republicans. LaTourette himself is a self-serving Beltway barnacle who held office for nearly two decades. Now he's leveraging his new tea party-bashing platform to benefit a family-operated lobbying business.

The New York Times shed light on LaTourette's tangled web of GOP establishment outfits last week. But that story just scratched the surface. As the paper reported, the Main Street Partnership is a nonprofit group that charges members up to $25,000 per year to rub elbows with Washington's rich and powerful. The Main Street Advocacy Fund and the Defending Main Street SuperPAC are political satellites planning to amass $8 million to bolster Republican liberals and moderates facing tea party challengers in 2014. McDonald Hopkins Government Strategies is LaTourette's lobbying firm.

The Times notes that "corporations and lobbyists" fund the Main Street Partnership. But far-left donors provided seed money for these affiliated K Street fronts. Who's behind the Defending Main Street SuperPAC? Big Labor. National Journal's Scott Bland reported last month that "two labor organizations, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Laborers' International Union of North America, directed a combined $400,000 to the Republican group in September and October.Main Street says it has raised roughly $2 million total between its super PAC and an affiliated nonprofit group so far -- and that means labor has supplied at least 20 percent of those funds."

Along with the anti-tea party U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the "Main Street" fat cats and union leaders have banded together to help President Obama push through illegal alien amnesty. The payoff: cheap labor for big business, cheap votes for the Democratic Party.

Main Street Partnership's chief operating and financial officer is Sarah Chamberlain Resnick. She also serves on thepartnership's board of directors and previously served as an officer of the soft-money-raising Main Street Individual Fund. The MSIF is yet another spinoff group that received $50,000 from progressive billionaire George Soros in 2002 soon after it was created. Soros also dangled a "seven-figure contribution" in front of the Main Street Partnership, but Resnick said the group declined that one. The MSIF accepted a separate $50,000 Soros donation during the 2004 election cycle. It was mysteriously returned in November 2005 after I called attention to it.

These various groups are legally independent entities on paper, but have shared staff and legal resources. When I reported on the "Main Street" farce eight years ago, the partnership's counsel sent me a threatening letter baselessly claiming I had made "libelous" statements about its network. My sin? Exposing the radical environmental funders of "MainStreet" Republicans who had sabotaged House conservative efforts to open up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The "Main Street" Republicans back then gloated over their successful campaign to force squishy GOP leaders in D.C. to cave in to the left. There's nothing principled about their agenda. It's not about "common sense." It's about the Benjamins. These statists in populist clothing are running a Washington incumbency protection racket. Same as it ever was.

http://townhall.com/columnists/miche...1775795/page/2

http://www.alipac.us/f12/beware-left...licans-295354/

good stuff, please make sure all these important articles are out in the open!

W