House Speaker Paul Ryan was officially put on notice by House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows.
Chairman Meadows bluntly told Speaker Ryan that his leadership position would be in serious jeopardy if Ryan didn’t get immigration right on behalf of conservatives during this legislative session.
Meadows correctly described the immigration issue as a pivotal point for conservative legislators, and especially for Speaker Ryan — at it comes like a breathe of fresh air. Honestly, there have been very few Republicans that will admit that Speaker Ryan was elected largely on a platform of solving the immigration issue — even more than the budget or reducing the size of government.
Behind the leadership of Chairman Meadows, many other Republican legislators are beginning to speak up. One very important ally, Ohio representative Jim Jordan, criticized the Speaker for backing down from conservative principles to back a budget agreement just to keep the government from shutting down. The move was seen by many conservatives as a concession to liberal pressures, and bad for the overall trend of the country. Speaker Ryan, said the Ohio rep, was more looking out for his personal record than that of the party or the country. Ryan is very well-known for cutting budgets, though he did them in an era when that was actually the proper move for conservatives and for America as a whole.
As of late, Speaker Ryan has not been the go-to guy for conservatism in terms of fiscal responsibility. If the response of conservative legislators is to be considered, Ryan may actually be losing ground as a leader on this issue. Ryan was never seen as tough on immigration, and his views actually do not coincide with much of the mainstream House conservative viewpoint on the issue.
Rep. Jordan and Chairman Meadows are both in agreement that a vote needs to be taken very soon on the immigration proposal from Virginia representative Bob Goodlatte. Goodlatte also serves as the House Judiciary Committee Chairman. The general position of conservative representatives in the House is that the Senate debate is useless (it is), and that no agreement should be considered that comes from it.
The House discussion is really the only way that conservatives are going to get the right kind of immigration policy from Congress, and everyone, including Speaker Ryan, knows that.
There is real work on the floor of the Congress to determine if conservative plans on immigration can pass. Steve Scalise, the House GOP Whip, is currently auditing the vote in the House to see if Republicans have the appropriate amount of votes to secure passage of the Goodlatte plan. This audit has found that there is a bloc of moderate party members who have a number of concerns with the plan. Democrats, of course, have branded the plan as a complete non-starter, so conservatives will get no help from them.
In previous statements, Speaker Ryan has sided with the moderates on immigration. Ryan has said that the House will continue to work with the Senate on a plan, and that any proposal that gained the backing of the president would also receive his blessing.
Ryan also took a somewhat middle-of-the-road position in public statements. He stated that he wanted to start from “negotiations” without specifying exactly what those negotiations were or who they would include. However, it was clear from his comments that he was more concerned with the position of the White House than the position of the Senate. He stated that he only wanted to present President Trump with a bill that he would sign.
Meadows countered this rhetoric by saying that although there was not talk of a new Speaker, persay, there is definitely talk of new leadership. Meadows seems to be expressing a grave concern that the Senate is not working with the House GOP while the House is seemingly bending over backwards to work with the Senate.
Representative Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania, is another House rep who is looking for the Speaker to do more. It seems as though a growing contingent of conservatives are finding out that Ryan is not the man he said he was when he was lobbying for this position behind closed doors.
As of yet, Speaker Ryan’s office has not responded to the comments.
~ Liberty Planet
