As the country heads into an election where control of both Congress and the White House hangs in the balance, reporter Emmarie Huetteman wrote a “three act” comedy in loosey-goosey style mocking conservatives, for Friday’s New York Times: “What the House Spends Time On, Before Its Recess.” Paul Ryan can't find his agenda, "Democrats are thrilled" at the prospect of being penalized for June's sit-in, and a defeated conservative representative is compared to a "recalcitrant student trashing the principal’s office after he learns he’s been expelled."
These are the final days of this pre-election Congress, the last chance to make an impression for Americans to carry to the voting booth...
Huetteman ensured Times readers got the worst possible impression of House conservatives as they make their way home to campaign.
Peddling pamphlets
Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin has a six-part plan to address some of the nation’s most pressing problems. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: the “Better Way.”
Mr. Ryan has spent the summer pitching his House Republican agenda on issues like poverty and health care (including a long-promised replacement for the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which left out such details as its cost). Here was his answer to the dearth of policy prescriptions in this election cycle, a buoy for his members to cling to, outlined in a slim brochure, tucked in the interior pocket of his dark suits for months and brandished like a talisman against the braying news media.
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But with Election Day drawing near, it seems Mr. Ryan’s stash of the 20,000 pamphlets he had printed up may be running low.
“If you go to our Better Way agenda at betterway.gop. …” Mr. Ryan started during a briefing Thursday, reaching into his pocket.
“I’ve heard of it,” a reporter interjected, to chuckles.
Then she delivered some more anti-GOP snark, baiting them to discipline Democrats for violating House decorum with an opportunistic, immature publicity stunt last summer, a failed attempt to move the gun-control debate after the Orlando massacre.
Remember that sit-in?
Republican leaders still might (just wait, it’s coming, they promise) introduce sanctions against the Democrats who seized the House floor for 25 hours in June. Democrats have greeted that threatened punishment with all the false horror of Br’er Rabbit at the briar patch.
Republicans are dangling the prospect of penalties for alleged violations of House decorum -- including sitting on the floor, using cellphones to record and, more seriously, fund-raising with images from the protest -- and Democrats are thrilled.
They know sanctions would remind voters of the sit-in led by Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights leader, that went viral on social media, energizing their base as thousands tuned into livestreams broadcast from lawmakers’ cellphones. It might also remind those voters that the House has not acted on gun control legislation since then.
Republicans know that, too -- which seems to be why those sanctions have not materialized since leaders met with the sergeant-at-arms office before the seven-week summer recess. With some of their members still outraged by what they consider egregious violations of House rules, leaders are content to bring it up every so often while the rank-and-file wait, the Godot of legislative wrist-slaps.
Finally, Heutteman kicked out the door combative conservative Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, who was defeated in his Republican primary race.
Thanks for nothing
Representative Tim Huelskamp, Republican of Kansas, sat near the back of the chamber on Tuesday afternoon, away from the House’s cameras, as he demanded one time-consuming roll call vote after another on a succession of uncontroversial bills.
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Enter Mr. Huelskamp, with a parting gift for the leaders of his own party who did nothing to save him in the primary he lost last month. He was like a recalcitrant student trashing the principal’s office after he learns he’s been expelled.
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Since his defeat, Mr. Huelskamp has shown no interest in changing his storied history of rubbing his own party the wrong way. Last week he threatened to force an impeachment vote on the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, rejecting an agreement brokered by the House Freedom Caucus -- of which he is a member....
Even the photo caption writer got it on the mockery: “Representative Tim Huelskamp lost his Republican primary in Kansas last month. He is not going gentle into that good night.”
