Speaker Boehner & Majority Leader McConnell
The 114th Congress has already begun, just yesterday Congressman John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, was reelected as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Speaker Boehner needed 205 votes to win the speakership and won with 216 votes. For the past years Speaker Boehner has had to hold a possible revolt from the more Conservative elements of the GOP, namely the Tea Party. This year only twenty-four conservative Republican representatives went against the party line and voted not to elect Congressman Boehner as Speaker of the House.
Luckily for Speaker Boehner, the Republican Party, and the rest of the country Tea Party influence has been waning the past few years. The Republican National Committee during the 2014 midterm election cycle heavily vetted its congressional candidates and poured massive amounts of money into congressional primary campaigns to squash Tea Party backed upstarts whom threaten to taint the Republican Party with insensitive, ridiculous rhetoric and policy.
With that said I fear that this division within the Republican caucus right at the beginning of the 114th Congress may be, as it has been in past years, a preview of things to come. The Republican mainstream has had to take a decidedly right turn as ultra conservatives have routinely attacked any GOP members (including the congressional Republican leadership) whom sought compromise with the Democrats and to a greater extent President Barack Obama’s agenda.
Although the fire of the Tea Party may be dying down, grassroots conservative groups are still a forced to be reckoned with for the GOP. Speaker Boehner, along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, may reject compromise in order to whip up conservative support for Republican’s in 2016 and retain the loyalty of rank and file members.
Speaker Boehner
With the Republican’s controlling the House and the Senate by good majorities the burden of legislating now fall upon the shoulders of Republican representatives. There still exists ultra conservatives in both the House and the Senate whom will force party leaders such as Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader McConnell to reject common sense legislation proposed by Democrats in order to whip up their conservative base. Though the threat of a loss to Democrats in the 2016 Presidential elections looms I fear that again the 114th Congress will be a do nothing Congress and that the Republican Party will remain the obstructionist party.
Demos Rhino 