Conservatives are up in arms this morning over reports that the House Republican Steering Committee have backd three moderate Congressmen for key chairmanships. In doing so, as the Daily Caller reported Wednesday, GOP leaders have bucked a number of key conservative groups who had cried foul over the three congressmen's spotty records on big issues.
The Republican Steering Committee backed Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan to head the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky to head the Appropriations Committee and Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama to head the Financial Services Committee...
Upton, 57, faced revolt from the Tea Party group FreedomWorks for a long record “full of votes for more regulation, more spending, and more taxes.”
Though he spent the past month sprinting to the right, Upton has for years often found himself among a small minority of Republicans siding with Democrats on key votes.
Rogers, 72, is a longtime champion of earmarks who just this past August was dubbed “Porker of the Month” by the group Citizens Against Government Waste for “sponsoring legislation that could give federal funding to his daughter’s nonprofit organization, which promotes overseas wildlife protection for cheetahs.”
Bachus, 62, negotiated the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailouts with Democrats on behalf House Republicans, but lost the confidence of many conservative members in the process. He was one of 59 Republicans who voted for President Obama’s “cash for clunkers” program which paid individuals to destroy their used cars and buy new ones instead.
By picking Bachus, the Steering Committee put itself at odds with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who blasted Bachus’s “bigger government agenda” in an exclusive statement to The Daily Caller.
You can see incoming Speaker John Boehner's defense of the picks here. Red State's Erick Erickson asks: "Did You Vote Republican For Nothing?" Is that a bit hyperbolic, or are Republican leaders betraying the principles that got them elected?
