Freedom Caucus stiffs GOP on campaign cash. House Republicans already struggling to protect their historic majority this fall are confronting a multimillion-dollar shortfall in their campaign budget — driven partly by Freedom Caucus members and other hard-line conservatives who are boycotting the GOP’s campaign arm.
A bloc of conservatives is refusing to transfer cash to the National Republican Congressional Committee, convinced the committee is favoring moderate candidates over hard-line conservatives. Dozens of other Republican lawmakers also haven’t paid their expected party “dues,” including several in tough primaries or general election races who figure they need the money for themselves. Story Continued Below Several GOP sources told Politico that 3 in 10 members of the House Republican Conference are delinquent on their dues.
And multiple senior Republicans said the shortfall exceeds $10 million. Freedom Caucus members consider leaving the RSC. Some members of the hard-line Freedom Caucus are considering leaving the Republican Study Committee in the next Congress, potentially creating a split between two influential groups of House conservatives.
The House Freedom Caucus and its roughly 40 members have long clashed with the RSC over what tactics to use when pushing for conservative legislation. “Certainly there are some HFC members who will not join RSC in the new Congress,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, told The Hill on Monday. “I don't plan to join again. I respect the work Bill Flores Bill FloresFreedom Caucus members consider leaving the RSC Moulitsas: Stuck with Trump Top conservative calls for 'less trash talk' from Trump MORE has done, but I just have not been as active with the group this Congress.”
The GOP establishment strikes back. The tea party has spent six years causing trouble for establishment Republicans in primaries, and Donald Trump mopped the floor with them on his way to the party’s presidential nomination.
But suddenly, with the 2016 primary season winding down, the establishment is going on offense, pushing back hard against candidates backed by the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, including defeated GOP Rep. Tim Huelskamp — setting the stage for a titanic intra-Republican fight during the next Congress. A collection of Republican donors and operatives loosely organized around several super PACs decided this summer to adopt newly aggressive tactics against GOP “obstructionists” — or as John Hart, a former aide to ex-Sen.
Tom Coburn, calls them: “Rebels In Name Only” — after years of growing tea-party influence in Republican primaries and the halls of Congress. Story Continued Below “Who are these people?” “The establishment’s position was always ... “You have to get beyond saying only ‘no.’ The Fall of the Heritage Foundation and the Death of Republican Ideas. During the 1980 election, an up-and-coming Washington think tank called the Heritage Foundation undertook a massive task: to examine the federal government from top to bottom and produce a detailed, practical conservative policy vision.
The result, called Mandate for Leadership, epitomized the intellectual ambition of the then-rising conservative movement. Its 20 volumes, totaling more than 3,000 pages, included such proposals as income-tax cuts, inner-city “enterprise zones,” a presidential line-item veto, and a new Air Force bomber. Despite the publication's academic prose and mind-boggling level of detail, it caused a sensation.
A condensed version -- still more than 1,000 pages -- became a paperback bestseller in Washington. The newly elected Ronald Reagan passed out copies at his first Cabinet meeting, and it quickly became his administration’s blueprint. These days, Heritage has a different crusade. Today, prominent Republicans publicly worry they're becoming the "stupid party. " Meet the Right-Wing Rebels Who Overthrew John Boehner. The Republican civil war has claimed its biggest casualty yet.
‘Supermajority’ of House Freedom Caucus to back Paul Ryan’s speaker bid. Hard-line conservatives cleared a path Wednesday for Rep.
Paul Ryan to become House speaker when some of his most disgruntled fellow Republicans signaled that they would support his bid for the top job. The decision to back Ryan by the House Freedom Caucus, a group of nearly 40 lawmakers that has risen in power and stature since its founding this year, came after the Ways and Means Committee chairman spent much of his day courting its support. House Republican Hard-Liners Drafting 'Contract With America II' U.S.
House Republican hard-liners who helped force out former Speaker John Boehner are readying their next act: a multi-point manifesto demanding quick action on long-time conservative priorities. Members of the House Freedom Caucus are preparing a "Contract With America II" that would call for House votes in the first 100 days of 2016 on replacing Obamacare, overhauling entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and repealing the estate tax. An early draft of the plan obtained by Bloomberg News also calls for legislation to slash government regulations by 20 percent, cut corporate tax rates and expand offshore oil drilling.
Efforts are still under way to finalize contents of the "contract," which lawmakers say they hope will become the basis of House Republicans’ 2016 agenda. Two decades later, members of the Freedom Caucus have been waging war on a Republican establishment they say has gone astray. Holding to Account Balancing Budget ‘More Strategic’ Highway Spending. House Freedom Caucus: What is it, and who's in it?