The setting was ironically fitting Wednesday as a handful of conservative members of Congress gathered with a pile of petitions from a tea party group to urge Republicans not to go wobbly on their no-new-taxes pledge.
They were standing in the Capitol Hill Club, the posh members-only Republican hangout a block from the Capitol where House Speaker John Boehner is an institution.
The tea partiers were still very much in Boehner’s house.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Athens Republican Rep. Paul Broun declared “I will not cave in. I am going to vote against raising taxes on anyone. Period.”
This is not Boehner’s stance. He has offered to go along with some increase in tax revenue in negotiations with President Barack Obama regarding the fiscal cliff, acknowledging Republicans’ lack of leverage on the issue with a slew of taxes scheduled to rise Jan. 1.
This does not please many conservatives. Neither did the move by Boehner proxies to boot four members from their committee assignments.
But so far there is no real threat to Boehner. And his consolidation of strength has come in inverse proportion to the power of the Georgia delegation.
Last month Rep. Tom Price of Roswell and Rep. Tom Graves of Ranger both lost races for leadership posts within the House GOP to members who were viewed as closer to Boehner.
A National Review article posted Monday morning floated the idea that a dissatisfied Price could run for Speaker if the fiscal-cliff negotiations go sour. By afternoon, Price’s office had declared that he was not running for the post.
The statement did not explicitly close the door on a future run, but it was clear he does not yet view Boehner as vulnerable. Another member pushed by the right-wing blogosphere, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, told the Columbus Dispatch that a challenge to Boehner was “laughable.”
No posse has rallied to the deposed members’ side as was the case in 1995 when Newt Gingrich removed Mark Neumann from the Appropriations Committee. A gang of freshmen protested, and Neumann got his spot back – plus a new one on the Budget Committee.
Broun said Wednesday he knew of no such campaign in favor of the ousted Reps. Justin Amash, Tim Huelskamp, David Schweikert and Walter Jones.
“It’s certainly something that I’m interested in seeing how this plays out,” Broun said. “I think it’s wrong to punish somebody for standing on principle. If that’s what happened, then I’m going to be very much in favor of doing something about it.”
Those involved in the decision say it was not about principles. Coweta County Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, who had a hand in the committee moves as a member of the steering committee, said the expulsions did not occur because the members were too conservative — a moniker that could apply to Westmoreland and others. Instead, Westmoreland said it had to do with the “obstinate factor,” though that was the G-rated version he provided after using an indelicate term for a rear orifice, as first reported by Roll Call.
Conservatives did not appear mollified by this explanation, but a full-blown revolution is far off.
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert nominated Gingrich for Speaker as a kind of protest in a closed-door conference meeting last month. Asked at Wednesday’s news conference if he would do it again on the floor of the House in January, Gohmert demurred.
“You have to take elections as they come, so we’ll have to see where we are in January,” he said. “There are all kinds of scenarios.”
One thing about Gohmert’s Gingrich nomination: It was not seconded.
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