And So it Begins - Republican Leadership Making Plans to Hire Washington Insiders for New Congressional Members

Election day has not even happened yet and the RNC is already in full swing to keep the status quo.  The existing "leadership" and the RNC has already gone into it's resume bank to help the new members of congress hire their chiefs of staff.  While I understand that experience is important, this is really kicking the tea party in the teeth.


This effort is being led by none other than Congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor, the two top republicans in The House of Representatives.  Rumor has it that there is no real opposition to Boehner becoming The Speaker of the House and third in line to the presidency.  While I give a great deal of credit to both Cantor and Boehner for keeping the republican herd together over the past two years, I still question their commitment to a return to limited constitutional government. 

“You want to be sure that the newbies, when they hit town, do not necessarily bring their campaign staff to run their Congressional offices, because in some cases they are totally ill-equipped,” one veteran Republican lobbyist said. “Winning an election is one thing, running a Congressional operation is another. A lot of these folks are really, really new to politics.”


A Republican strategist agreed, saying Members who come from swing districts benefit from having a staffer who already “knows the ropes” on the Hill to keep them from making mistakes.


GOP leaders are also expected to take an active role in making sure incoming committee chairmen have acceptable staff directors leading the panels. With the potential for new leadership at the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Appropriations panel, the Steering Committee is expected to vet potential chairmen’s choices for the most senior staff level, according to several Republican lobbyists.


“Those are very important committees,” one former GOP leadership aide said. “They do the lion’s share of the work in the House. There’s no doubt leadership would have an interest in who would be the staff director.”

The Tea Party has spent the better part of the last two years protesting, writing letters, sending e-mails, and making phone calls to limit the power of the federal government.  We have stood firm on the subject of limited government.  Had the tea party not been as vocal as it has been we would have much more damaging legislation passed; card check, cap and tax, and heavens knows what else.  The republicans were unable to stop anything, the tea party stopped it. 


This is the same tactic that was used by the Democrats in 2006 and 2008, not a good sign of things to come.  It seems that The Republican Party wrongly believes that we wanted a change of leadership.  What we want is a change of the culture in Washington.  We want them to take their constitutional responsibilites seriously.  If they will not, we will just go through this process of cleaning them out again in two years.