A friend e-mailed me some months ago to suggest that I
contribute money to a particular congressman’s campaign. My friend
is a Democrat of some national prominence, and I responded to him,
“You know I never give money to Democrats.”
He said, “No, this guy is a libertarian-leaning Republican, sort
of like a young, sane Ron Paul.” So I said I’d do some homework and
consider a contribution if the congressman would be willing to have
a phone conversation with me.
The next day, with the ringing of my cell phone, began my
introduction to Congressman Justin Amash (pronounced uh-mosh’),
the 32-year old representative of Michigan’s 3rd Congressional
District (Grand Rapids and surrounding areas).
We spoke for nearly half an hour, on topics ranging from
abortion to government spending to national defense and — this was
Justin’s topic — the idea of private enterprises issuing competing
currencies given the debasement being done to the U.S. dollar by
our Federal Reserve and Treasury. Clearly, no inside-the-box
thinker on my hands.
Of the many things to recommend Amash, who is the
second-youngest member of the 112th Congress, including graduating
magna cum laude with an economics degree from University
of Michgan, where he also received his JD (law degree), perhaps the
one that interested me the most was his Facebook page where
Congressman Amash to this day posts an explanation for every vote
he casts in Congress.
It is also worth noting that (at least according to his House
web
page), “Justin was one of only twelve Representatives to have
perfect attendance, not missing one of the 948 roll call votes,
during the First Session of the 112th Congress.”
Amash is nobody’s neo-con, aggressively criticizing “the
unconstitutional war in Libya, the indefinite detention provisions
in the National Defense Authorization Act, and the Stop Online
Piracy Act — SOPA.” And while he is somewhat toward the
conservative end of the spectrum on social issues, such as being
anti-abortion, he holds strong reservations about federal
involvement in our personal lives.
For this libertarian-leaning Republican, Justin Amash seemed
about as good as it gets.
Before donating to his campaign, I wanted a second opinion —
and a third. So I contacted my friend Matt Kibbe, president of
FreedomWorks, to ask his opinion of Amash, whom the FreedomWorks
PAC had
endorsed in 2010. Kibbe, who is not shy about changing his mind
when politicians get Potomac Fever, said, and I quote, “Justin
Amash is a rock star.” I then contacted a gentleman I know in the
leadership of the Club for Growth, a very large fiscal
issue-oriented conservative PAC, who told me, “On our issues, Amash
is probably the single best member of Congress.”
‘Nuf said.
Justin Amash thus became the only member of Congress to whom I
contributed in the 2012 election cycle. I have never regretted
it.
Amash votes his principles more consistently than most
politicians do, including being one of two Republicans to vote
against the House Budget Committee’s 2013 budget, aka the Ryan
Budget, while a member of that committee.
Fast forward to this week when we learned — before Justin Amash
did — that he had been removed from the Budget Committee along
with Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), who was the only other Republican to
vote against the Ryan budget in committee. Two other Republicans,
Dave Schweikert (R-AZ) and Walter Jones (R-NC), who along with
Amash and Huelskamp opposed the Budget
Control Act, were removed from the Financial Services
Committee.
On Wednesday, Rep. Huelskamp
quoted Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) as saying that
the leadership “punished four members” (remarkably attributing the
stark word “punished” to the Speaker) and that Boehner “warned GOP
lawmakers that there may be more folks that will be targeted …
‘we’re watching all your votes.’”
Not least because I thought we had a Congress rather than a
Politburo, and because I (perhaps naively) expected better behavior
from John Boehner than from Nancy Pelosi or Barack “Don’t think
we’re not keeping
score, brother” Obama, the news inspired my second long phone
conversation with Congressman Amash, this being an exclusive
interview of him for The American Spectator:
Q: Justin, how did this whole story develop for
you?
JA: On Monday morning, I heard about Schweikert
being removed from his committee. A couple of hours later, I heard
the same from Huelskamp, directly from him. I then started to
wonder “Who else are they going after?” That’s when I saw a news
report saying that I was being removed from the Budget Committee.
But the entire day I didn’t get a call from anyone about what my
committee assignments would be or why I might have been removed
from the Budget Committee.
By Tuesday afternoon, I still hadn’t received any word from
leadership. Wednesday was the first day I spoke with leadership
about my committee assignments, and I approached them.
Q: What was their explanation for why you were
removed from the committee?
JA: You get conflicting stories. They insist
that it’s not because of the votes, and not because of my
philosophy. But there is no clear, consistent message about why I
was removed from Budget.
Q: What’s your guess?
JA: I think it’s my votes, in general, when it
comes to fiscal issues.
(As of this interview, Amash does not believe anyone but
Huelskamp and he were removed from the Budget Committee. News
stories say that only four Republicans were moved off of committees
they wanted to be on, and Huelskamp and Amash are the only two in
those stories who are on Budget.)
Q: What do you believe is leadership’s
motivation?
JA: By going after a couple of us, they send a
message to all of us: Watch out!
Q: What has been the response from your
constituents and your fellow House Republicans?
JA: My constituents have been extremely
supportive. We’ve been receiving calls, as well as Facebook and
Twitter messages around the clock. Virtually all of them are
supportive. It’s no surprise because I ran as an independent
thinker who would work to reduce our debt.
From my colleagues, I’ve heard very encouraging words of
support. It’s pretty clear to me that leadership has upset quite a
few members of the Republican conference with their actions.
Q: So what is really going on here?
JA: Unbeknownst to us, leadership has been
keeping some kind of scorecard. We don’t know the details of it. We
don’t know which votes they’re including. It seems to me that
voting in a conservative way is marked as a negative score, and
voting in a big-government way is marked as a positive score. You
don’t see people being targeted who are a problem from the left
flank of the party.
Q: How will these events impact your behavior
and votes going forward?
JA: It’s important for me to stick to my
principles. If anything it emboldens me to get this message out
there that we have a problem on our own side in terms of living up
to the promises we make to our constituents and trying to reduce
our debt. Members like me are going to be empowered by these
actions.
Q: So how will leadership react to your being
“empowered”?
JA: Leadership’s concern is much bigger than
just Justin Amash. They are concerned about a growing number of
conservative- and libertarian-minded Republicans who have a very
different approach to policy and politics. The attempt was made by
leadership to punish a few of us to send a message to the larger
group. But it undermines their credibility and makes it more
difficult to get independent-minded Republicans to toe the
establishment line because members don’t trust leadership’s
intentions anymore. If they tell you that they’re fighting for
conservative values and then they punish conservative members for
conservative votes which are somehow marked as negatives on their
scorecard, they send the message that they’re not really fighting
for these same ideals.
Q: Instead they’re fighting for what?
JA: That’s a good question.
(Discretion better part of valor in not continuing, Rep.
Amash did not elaborate on this question, though I can imagine what
he was thinking. After all, don’t most politicians from time
immemorial care about their own power first and foremost?)
Q: Clearly you made news voting against the
Ryan budget earlier this year. What else might you have said that
would make leadership want to punish you?
JA: One of the aspects that unites the four of
us is that we’ve been more open to looking at the Pentagon budget
as part of any compromise with the Democrats. That’s also true of
this larger group of conservative-libertarians who are new members
over the past two years. Maybe they’re also sending a message that
that’s not something we (leadership) are willing to cut or reform
as part of any budget deal.
Q: So Spectator readers can understand
some of the important background, why did you vote against the Ryan
budget in 2012 (technically the 2013 Budget Resolution)?
JA: Three main reasons. First, it didn’t comply
with the Budget Control Act. The Act included reductions in
government spending, which is where we get the sequester from. The
2013 Budget Resolution acts as if the BCA doesn’t exist by assuming
spending levels higher than the BCA called for. Spending levels
were actually higher than the levels that Republicans and Democrats
agreed to in the BCA, and therefore the budget included more
spending than the law actually allows.
Another reason was that the Committee refused to put military
spending on the table as an area of the budget that would be
reduced. And the third reason was that it doesn’t balance for
nearly thirty years.
But, it was a close call for me, and the BCA issue was the most
important aspect. After all, I did vote for the 2012 budget which
had the same problems I mentioned in my second and third reasons
for voting against the 2013 budget. I voted for the budget the
previous time because I thought it was important for Republicans
who were elected in 2010 to show unity in shifting our budget
priorities, even if the shift weren’t as far as I’d like. In the
2013 budget, I felt as if we’d had an important further year to
deal with the issues, but that they were not taken in a serious way
or even looked at. Adding the BCA issue pushed me past my tipping
point, though it remained a very difficult vote.
Q: So are you always a thorn in the side of
Paul Ryan and John Boehner?
JA: On the Budget Committee, I voted with the
Chairman 58 out of 61 times, which is over 95 percent of the time.
People should understand that when they (leadership) are concerned
that I am not a “team player” they are talking about a very small
percentage of my votes. And still we don’t know what they really
mean by “team player” since they haven’t released their
criteria.
Q: Any final thoughts today?
JA: If leadership is getting as many calls as
we are, they may be realizing the support they are creating for
us.
***********
Epilogue: If the response to Rep.
Amash’s Tuesday Facebook post
about his removal from the Budget Committee is any measure, with
well over 5,000 “likes” and 1,700 “shares” so far, the congressman
is if anything underestimating the boomerang soon to hit Republican
leadership based on their Soviet-style purge. (Boehner and others
suggest that the issue is not ideology, but rather loyalty.
They point to other Republican House members who have criticized
their own party from time to time. For me, in the vast majority of
situations, adherence to principle is more important than party
discipline. Boehner’s moves look like those of a petty tyrant.)
Much as Justin Amash reached his tipping point regarding the
Republican budget, I have reached my tipping point with the GOP.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but this Sunday, during my
radio show, I will publicly drop my Republican Party registration.
And although I very rarely donate money to Republican Party
organizations (as opposed to PACs or directly to candidates), that
will now become “never again until I believe they have come to
value principle and support those who vote in accordance with the
Constitution.”
If enough people react similarly, perhaps John Boehner will
realize the self-destructive folly of punishing the principled.
