Will the new Tea Party-influenced, Republican-controlled House
live up to its potential? A big part of the answer to that question
will depend on the 87 freshmen elected last November, a substantial
infusion of young blood. It’s one of the larger freshman classes
and the most conservative since the last “Republican revolution” 16
years ago.
“I think we have a greater sense of urgency than the members who
have been here a while,” says Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) of his
fellow freshmen. The task they see before them is getting federal
spending under control and alleviating the debt burden on future
generations of Americans. Counting among their ranks such outspoken
conservatives as Reps. Allen West (R-FL), Justin Amash (R-MI), and
Tim Scott (R-SC), the group isn’t afraid to mix it up with the
Democrats who still control the Senate and the White House.
During the spring budget showdown, more than 30 Republican
freshmen sent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the recently
reelected Nevada Democrat, a strongly worded letter. Refusing to
take the blame for the stalemate, they pointed out that Reid’s
Senate failed to pass a budget last year — when the House was
still under Nancy Pelosi’s command — and had yet to approve a
long-term continuing resolution this year. “Mr. Reid, your record
on spending in the Senate is one of failure,” the freshmen wrote.
“We do not accept your failure as our own.” They continued: “The
House of Representatives is doing our job, Mr. Reid. The Senate
needs to start doing theirs.”
Sometimes, the freshmen make things difficult for their own
leadership as well. In February, the House Appropriations Committee
prepared a continuing resolution that would have cut $58 billion
from the president’s languishing 2011 budget proposal. But the
Pledge to America promised a full $100 billion in cuts, which many
new members had campaigned on. Veteran members replied that the
fiscal year was now half-finished, so the smaller number was
actually consistent with the Pledge.
Faster than George W. Bush could say “fuzzy math,” the freshmen
revolted. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that
the conference would stay true to the $100 billion promise. A
crisis was averted — temporarily. The House ultimately passed HR
1, which contained $61 billion in cuts. Democrats were balking at
much more than $30 billion, starting the fight all over again just
as House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) was getting
ready to release the 2012 budget, containing a longer-term spending
blueprint.
“Paul Ryan’s the moderate on the Budget Committee now,” quips
Huelskamp, who agrees with Ryan that entitlement reform is a top
priority. Yet despite the mainstream media coverage that suggests
major confrontations between the new members and the rest of the
conference, none of the freshmen TAS spoke to were particularly
critical of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and the rest of the
leadership.
“We may have different strategies for getting there,” says Rep.
Kristi Noem (R-SD), one of the stars of the freshman class. “But we
are united in our desire to cut spending.” Rep. Lou Barletta
(R-PA), who says “the freshmen have a place at the table,” concurs:
“Some of us want to throw a Hail Mary right into the end zone and
others want to take a few plays to get there, but we all have the
same goal.” Barletta, who was elected last November on his third
try for a House seat, had been mayor of the small city of Hazleton.
“We had to balance our budget every year,” he says. “That’s
something a lot of people in Washington don’t understand, making
spending equal revenues.”
Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) argues that he was able to effectively
run Indiana’s secretary of state office on a 1987 budget unadjusted
for inflation, so he has little sympathy for claims that federal
spending can’t be cut meaningfully. “I was in a meeting with an old
bull,” he says. “We discussed a very reasonable plan, one that
wouldn’t even have been aggressive enough for me, to reduce the
federal workforce. The old bull said, ‘No one at such and such a
military installation will go for it.’ Even though we were talking
about civilian employees!” Rokita says “there is definitely a line
of demarcation in the conference.”
That said, the initial dissents from the bipartisan stopgap
spending measures came mainly from longer-serving fiscal
conservatives like Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Ron Paul (R-TX),
Walter Jones (R-NC), and Steve King (R-IA). When the number of
Republican “no” votes exploded from six to 54 between short-term
continuing resolutions, forcing the House GOP leadership to rely on
Democratic votes to pass it, only 22 of those opponents were
freshmen.
STILL, as freshmen disquiet grows many Republicans point to
“cultural differences” between the newcomers and the rest of the
conference. “We have a large number of people who have never run
for office before,” says Noem. “They ran because they were
frustrated with government.” Barletta says, “I think we’re
different from a lot of other freshman classes because we were sent
here with specific instructions from the American people to cut
spending, reduce the size of government, and reduce regulations.
And that’s what we’re going to do.”
Rokita notes that the 1995-96 budget battles with the Clinton
administration and the government shutdowns “were seared into the
minds” of Republicans who were serving back then. “In 1995, I was
more interested in chasing girls than in what Newt Gingrich was
doing,” says Rokita. While he fears some freshmen are “peeling
off,” he thinks overall newly elected Republicans believe the times
are different and the fiscal stakes are even higher. “We bend over
backwards to work as a team,” Rokita continues. “But I didn’t leave
my one-year-old and three-year-old every week just to go along to
get along.”
Some non-freshmen agree that the new class is different. Rep.
Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the conservative Republican Study
Committee (RSC), calls it a “great freshman class” that has been
“tremendously helpful” in his efforts to cut spending. Jordan hopes
they will have significant influence in the upcoming spending
fights. “The only budget that was put together last year was the
RSC budget,” he says.
“What’s different about these freshmen is that they aren’t
concerned about the next election,” says Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA),
who came to Congress in a special election last June. “They are
concerned about the next generation.” Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX)
puts it another way. “The people who seem to be afraid of a
government shutdown…are worried about getting elected in two more
years,” the freshman told the Washington Post. “I’m
worried about having to go home and tell the folks that I grew up
with, and intend to spend the rest of my life with, that I’m a
liar.”
That particular battle was not resolved by the time this article
went to press. But there will be plenty more like it over the next
year and a half. “We are already changing the spending culture,”
Noem maintains. “We need a cutting-spending culture to give our
businesses an opportunity to thrive and create jobs.” Barletta
frames it in terms of simple arithmetic: “Every day we are spending
money that we don’t have.”
Rokita acknowledges that it is difficult with House Republicans
being “only one-third of the solution.” But he says there is no
alternative: “Leaders lead.”
