These lawmakers defected on an immigration vote last week, and this week they forced GOP leaders to water down abortion legislation. With the new, fully Republican-led Congress three weeks old, they are serving notice they will no longer keep quiet as their more ideological colleagues seek votes on social issues and court government shutdowns to try to block President Barack Obama.
“There’s a growing sense in the conference that we need to get things done here, not just make political statements,” said Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, a freshmen lawmaker. “We should be focused on the agenda of the American people and not on taking an infinite amount of symbolic votes that aren’t going to get anything done.”
Most of these lawmakers are self-described conservatives themselves, but do not share their colleages’ devotion to ideological purity. Some, like Curbelo, were elected in districts Obama previously won as Republicans posted dramatic midterm gains in November. They are looking to seek re-election in 2016 in a presidential election year when turnout of Democrats could be higher.
With the Senate now under GOP control, House-passed legislation actually has a shot at making it to Obama’s desk — unlike in past years, when Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rarely allowed it to come to a vote. And pragmatists among the Republicans say that means the stakes are higher.
“Much of the legislation we passed in the past we knew wasn’t going to go anywhere in the Senate,” said Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., who led this week’s revolt over the abortion bill. “Now everything we do has got to be so careful, we have to be so careful about the legislation we put forward, because now we have that opportunity for it to pass in the Senate.”
As the new Congress got underway at the beginning of this month, conservatives appeared poised to maintain a confrontational stance, with two dozen voting against House Speaker John Boehner in his leadership election. Then, as Republicans sought to use a Department of Homeland Security spending bill to oppose executive actions by Obama on immigration, the conservatives pushed for an amendment to unravel protections Obama had granted immigrants brought illegally to the country as children.
It passed last week, but with 26 Republicans opposed, exposing deep unease among some lawmakers over measures they worry could prevent the party from expanding its appeal to traditionally Democratic voters. On Wednesday, those concerns burst into the open as lawmakers rebelled against the initial version of the abortion bill, forcing House leaders to beat a retreat and setting up a new, ongoing challenge for a leadership that has previously worried mostly about its right flank.
“Week one we had a speaker’s election that didn’t go as well as a lot of us would have liked. Week two we got in a big fight over deporting children, again something that a lot of us didn’t want to have a discussion about. Week three we’re now talking about rape and incest and reportable rapes, incest for minors but not for women of the age of majority. I just can’t wait for week four,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. “My own view on this stuff is I prefer we as a Republican conference avoid these very contentious social issues.”
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