Something really interesting happened yesterday on the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill.
First some background summary: back in January I talked a lot about how conservatives were not organized…that we had no infrastructure or coordination. The Republican Study Committee — which had traditionally played that role — had morphed into a sort of mini-GOP conference, with lots of non-conservative influences. So a group of us got together and formed the House Freedom Caucus. Yesterday I think that group really came of age. Here is how:
The TPA bill had to clear a procedural hurdle in order to come up for a vote today. These “rule” votes are an abomination of modern government — the whole GOP gets together and votes to throw out all the parliamentary rules that have guided representative democracies for as long as there have been representative governments. These are the votes where we limit amendments, constrain debate, and just generally ram legislation to the floor for a final vote. We do this all the time. And voting against a rule is held out by GOP leadership as one of the true cardinal sins of being a “good team player.”
But yesterday 34 Republicans — the lions’ share of them Freedom Caucus Members — voted against the rule on TPA. And we did it for much more than just political reasons: the rule was an embarrassment. It not only denied all amendments — including mine — but it replaced spending cuts (that were necessary to “pay-for” some spending in the bill) with “more efficient tax collection.” Beyond that, it used a bunch a parliamentary gymnastics to essentially “deem” some parts of the bill to have “passed.”
To me, the rule reeked of the same shenanigans that Democrats used to pass Obamacare. It was perhaps the worst rule I have seen since I have been here.
At the end of the day, the rule passed, as Paul Ryan and the other folks pushing hard for TPA were able to get some Democrats to vote for the rule (something that almost never happens). As a result, the TPA came up for a vote today.
But I think that, some time on either in this Congress or the next, yesterday will be the day that we look back at as the day that conservatives finally started getting organized in the House. And I was proud to be a part of that.
-Mick Mulvaney
