Boehner Tries To Curb Tea Party Influence

by Stuart Shapiro

Committee assignments are valuable tools that the Speaker of the House has to reward and punish members of his party.  Speaker Boehner is sending a clear signal with his assignments:

The moves appear in line with Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) effort to tighten his grip on his unruly conference. However, the decisions are already sparking outcry from Republican lawmakers and conservatives off Capitol Hill.

 Reps. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.) lost spots on the House Financial Services Committee, which is widely seen as a fundraising power for its oversight of the deep-pocketed financial sector.  Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) lost spots on the House Budget Committee, according to an aide. The Hill listed Amash earlier this year as one of the House GOP’s most frequent defectors.

The demoted representatives are all conservative darlings.  In his second term as Speaker, it is clear that Boehner is trying to control his caucus rather than have it control him.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.