In San Angelo, Congressman Conaway Defends His Right Flank

Congressman Mike Conaway said that many challenges facing the U.S. government couldn’t be addressed without a Republican supermajority in the U.S. Senate or a Republican president. He made his remarks to a feisty crowd of about 60 San Angeloans, many of whom wanted to know why congress cannot solve much, such as the pressing problem of reducing the $18 trillion national debt, or even defunding the $500 million congress sends to Planned Parenthood every year, in light of the well-publicized undercover videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress.

Senator Ted Cruz from Texas co-sponsored a Senate bill to defund Planned Parenthood in August, but it stalled after a 53-46 vote fell short of the 60 ayes required to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

“If you’d been at my meetings in October of last year, you’d heard me say that we need a Republican-controlled senate and to work for it. We got 54 seats, which is more than we could have hoped for, but it’s not 60 votes,” he said. In the Senate, rules require 60 votes to bring a bill to the floor for a vote, preventing a filibuster.

To Senator Cruz, Conaway asked, “Where are your six Democrats you need to unclog [this] and to get it through the Senate?”

Conaway explained that the House can send to the Senate whatever legislation desired, but hot button issues, like defunding Planned Parenthood or stopping the nuclear agreement with Iran, have a difficult time getting voted upon in the Senate, much less passed, due to the upper chamber’s rules. And, even if the 400 or so bills the House has stalled in the Senate are passed, President Obama will veto them, creating a higher hurdle of two-thirds majority in both houses of congress to override.

 “We (Republicans) do not ‘control’ the Senate. The Senate is a different animal and you need 60 votes control the Senate,” Conaway explained.

Conaway defended House Speaker John Boehner. “Boehner’s the Speaker, and I think he should be the Speaker for the rest of his term,” Conaway said. The next election for Speaker will be in November 2016, “And we’ll have a vigorous contest who will be the next Speaker.” Conaway asked a constituent what Boehner has done to deserve his ouster. “It’s what he hasn’t done,” a constituent explained. Others in the crowd chimed in. “He sides with Obama,” another said. “He hasn’t repealed Obamacare.”

Conaway said that he works closely with Boehner daily and sees the fights in the House firsthand. “There are 435 independent contractors in the House of Representatives,” he said. “Boehner has no leverage, other than setting the rules…”

Tea Party Activist Lyleann McClellan-Thee suggested that Boehner punishes House members for failing to fall in line with the Speaker. “No one gets punished for voting on the substance of a bill,” Conaway answered. Conaway then explained the process of setting the House rules for how the Speaker runs the floor of the House. “If you’re in a leadership position, then you commit to the leadership’s position on the rules on the floor… As whip, if I vote against a rule, I am tossed off the whip team. That’s not punishment. That’s just a consequence that I knew as being a member of the whip team: That I was going to vote for the rules, motions to recommit, and all this other stuff.”

To take a rule down, Conaway said, you needed 188 Democrats to work with you.

Conaway warned that having a fight over the Speakership this year or next is not good Republican strategy because it is more important to forge more party unity in the 2016 election year in order to preserve or expand the House Republican majority. Finally, Conaway said, “not one [other] person has raised his hand saying that they wanted to be Speaker.”

Another constituent criticized the Republican-controlled House for giving President Obama fast-track trade agreement authority. Conaway voted in favor. He said that markets move very quickly and it is competitively advantageous for the president to have the benefit to fast-track trade agreements. Every trade deal gets an up-or-down vote from Congress, preserving the Congress’s oversight of fast-track treaties negotiated, Conaway said.