House committee purge may continue as Boehner tightens grip

Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner's purge of some dissident Republican congressmen from key committees may continue as he seeks to tighten control over his unruly caucus ahead of difficult votes on "fiscal cliff" issues.

House Republican lawmakers said on Wednesday that in addition to the four conservatives who were stripped of their committee assignments earlier this week, other unnamed lawmakers were warned that their votes need to be more in line with party leadership and committee chairmen.

In effect, these congressmen are not "team players" working constructively with committee colleagues and leadership, Representative Pat Tiberi, a close Republican ally of Boehner from his home state of Ohio, told Reuters. Gone are the days when a lawmaker could expect "to stay on a committee forever," Tiberi said.

"This is not golf. This is baseball. You're part of a team," he added.

The move after a November election in which Republicans ceded seats but maintained a majority, signals a stronger hand from Boehner, who took the speaker's gavel two years ago and has repeatedly struggled to get his caucus behind him.

It's too soon to tell if the discharges are a temporary, tactical move by Republican leadership to get a deficit reduction deal passed or a more fundamental shift that reflects the waning influence of the more extreme Tea Party movement, which lost several vocal members in November's elections."

This is strictly chat from the Democratic Underground, gossip if you will, consider the source, but the idea that some from the far right consider Ryan's budget (the early versions) not extreme enough has been reported in other places: "The #FireBoehner hashtag really took off last night on Twitter. No, it wasn’t started by evil liberals – it was the conservatives at American Majority Action (AMA) who started it. The gang smelled blood and the sharks are circling. The Daily Caller was promoting their version of online activism to “dispose” Boehner of his speakership. They’re mad at a “secret list” they think Boehner used to purge several “real conservatives” from House committees. Republican Reps. David Schweikert, Justin Amash and Tim Huelskamp come up often in these circles, with Freedom Works urging members to call Boehner’s office in order to instruct him to stop kicking real conservatives, such as the above three, from committees. 

Conservatives suspect that Speaker Boehner (R-OH) was behind The Republican Steering Committee (Boehner chairs it) voting to remove Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) from the House Budget Committee. Who is going to tell these angry conservatives that it is reasonable to assume that Amash and Huelskamp were kicked off at the request or at least mention of Paul Ryan (R-WI), their hero at large? Ryan was after all kept on by the very same Steering Committee as budget chairman, in spite of his inability to do math on the campaign trail. 

See, Amash and Huelskamp voted against Paul Ryan’s budget because it did not cut spending enough. Yes, that budget — the one the nuns protested for immorally cutting funding to needy Americans. These two are quite literally destroying the Republican Party’s image (as if that was hard to do at this point). Party leadership must feel they had to be cut off from having the ability to obstruct the GOP from making deals they need to make in order to spare their reputation more damage (read: fiscal cliff deal). No doubt Boehner agrees that these guys have to go if the Republican Party is going to have a fighting chance of not taking the total blame for yet another fiscal cliff/debt ceiling debacle. Boehner is not stupid. He has been, however, ineffective as a Speaker, but he’s also been placed in a horrible position by theTea Party and he waited too long to grab the reins. He knows his career is on the line, and that’s why he’s threatening panel assignments and reminding his party that leadership is watching their votes."