Mulvaney played role in Boehner’s decision

U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, apparently played a role in House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to resign early. Mulvaney and other members of the House Freedom Caucus left no doubt that they are pleased to see Boehner go, but the news might not be so welcome to many other Americans, including more moderate Republicans.

Mulvaney, whose district encompasses York, Chester and Lancaster counties, and four of his cohorts met Sept. 24 with Boehner to tell him that they had lost confidence in his leadership and that they would work to unseat him as speaker. The next day, Boehner said he would resign at the end of this month, ending a 25-year career in Congress.

Boehner had told friends that he planned to resign at the end of the year. But the prospect of a bloody re-election fight with the ultraconservatives in his caucus no doubt helped convince him to make an early exit.

Mulvaney stressed that his opposition to the speaker was nothing personal, and that he and his group did not expressly ask Boehner to quit. But, he said, he believes that Boehner “had ceased to be a leader.”

“This is a principles disagreement, not personal,” said Mulvaney.

But Bohner was no weak-kneed moderate always seeking ways to compromise with Democrats, as some critics seem to imply. While he occasionally gave lip service to working with Democrats on major policy issues, in the end he usually presided over manufactured crises and stalemates fomented by an extremist minority in his party.

He allowed scores of meaningless votes to defund Obamacare. He stood by as the extremists engineered one government shutdown and the disastrous sequestration spending caps. And, just as he announced his resignation, he narrowly avoided another shutdown over federal funding for Planned Parenthood – but only with the last-minute passage of another continuing resolution that will keep the government funded until Dec. 11, when the threat of a shutdown will arise again.

Mulvaney, by the way, offered an amendment to the continuing resolution to strip Planned Parenthood funding, but it was not brought to the House floor for a vote. He called this “the latest in a series of disappointments regarding the handling of Planned Parenthood by Republicans.”

Under Boehner’s leadership, House Republicans have pursued an obstructionist agenda, preferring to use their clout to block President Barack Obama’s agenda rather than build coalitions to further their own initiatives. For example, the Senate had passed a compromise immigration bill last year that Boehner could have brought to the House floor at any time, where it stood a good chance of passing with Democratic and moderate Republican support.

But Boehner never did that. The extremists wouldn’t let him.

Mulvaney and like-minded Republicans appear to be playing the long game. As Mulvaney noted, it’s about principles, not pragmatism.

If those principles ultimately prevail and more moderate Republicans are unseated, more tea party conservatives are elected and a Republican wins the White House, then the tea party will be in a position to call the shots. But until that happens, we are likely to see more obstructionism, more threats of shutdowns, more attempts to leverage the power of the minority within the Republican Party to further its agenda.

Boehner apparently had had enough of that. And conservatives cheered the announcement of his resignation as a victory for them.

But whoever his successor is will face the same challenges within the party. Sadly, that probably means more gridlock and dysfunction ahead.

Boehner’s departure is symptomatic of the frustration that prevails in Congress – not to mention the disdain with which many Americans regard that institution right now. Our elected officials seem to have forgotten how to govern.

Too bad a new speaker probably won’t make much difference.

This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Mulvaney played role in Boehner’s decision."