American Carnage

by Tim Alberta

  They didn’t answer, slipping out of the chamber before things could escalate. Boehner wanted to chase them down, to wring their insubordinate necks. But he couldn’t afford to make any more enemies. In two days, the new Congress would convene and members of the House would vote on his reelection as Speaker. As he walked off the floor, Boehner spotted a cluster of young conservatives whispering feverishly to one another. It looked all too familiar. Fifteen years earlier, Boehner had declined to join an attempted coup against Speaker Gingrich. Now he was the one in the crosshairs.

  A JOLTING KNOCK ON THE DOOR SENT THEM SCRAMBLING LIKE TEENAGERS at a keg party. Who was it? Were they busted? Should anyone answer?

  It was January 2, the night after the tax-hike vote, the night before the new Congress, and a throng of some twenty House Republicans was huddled in the Capitol Hill apartment of Tennessee congressman Stephen Fincher. There was no drinking or socializing; the lawmakers carried themselves with an urgency rarely displayed in their day jobs. The next morning, members of the House of Representatives would elect a Speaker, and this particular faction had gathered at the eleventh hour with an extraordinary purpose: to plot a mutiny against Boehner.

  Many of the members felt affection for Boehner on a personal level, his brusque moxie rubbing off on them in ways that were often unconscious. But their tactical disagreements with him were elevated by the fact that his leadership team did not represent the conference. Boehner, Cantor, and McCarthy represented states (Ohio, Virginia, and California) that Obama had carried twice, and all three officials identified more with the party’s champagne-sipping managerial wing than its piss-and-vinegar populist sect.

  Boehner suffered the brunt of this frustration and did little to quell it. The Speaker’s approach had begun to grate on members—his sermonizing, his secretive negotiations with Obama, and most recently, his retaliation against Republican dissenters. In early December, the Speaker had authorized the removal of four uncooperative Republicans from key committees. After two years of brutal infighting, Boehner’s punitive strike was intended to send a message.

  It backfired. The members became right-wing martyrs, enlisting outside help to stir outrage against the GOP leadership. “This is not 1995, when nobody knew what was going on in Washington,” Tim Huelskamp, one of the conservative renegades, told Roll Call. “Since then we’ve got Fox News. We’ve got Twitter. We’ve got Facebook.”3

  Huelskamp, a Kansas congressman representing one of the biggest farming districts in America, had received the harshest sentence of them all: He was kicked off the Agriculture Committee. “He was just a born asshole,” Boehner says of his former colleague. “He didn’t even have to try.”

  Incensed, Huelskamp became one of the first to pledge opposition to Boehner and began recruiting others to join a revolt. It was this reputation that earned Huelskamp a phone call from Jim Bridenstine, a young Oklahoman who had just won a congressional seat in November 2012.

  Bridenstine had sworn publicly not to support Boehner for Speaker, a promise that energized the base in his conservative district. Once he was elected, however, the arm-twisting began. Tom Cole, the dean of the Oklahoma delegation and a close ally of Boehner’s, called Bridenstine repeatedly, urging him to reconsider. When Bridenstine wouldn’t budge, the talks got less friendly. Finally, on January 2, as Bridenstine was boarding his flight to Washington, Cole called with a closing threat: If Bridenstine didn’t vote for Boehner, he would lose his promised seat on the Armed Services Committee. Bridenstine, a former Navy fighter pilot, was outraged. Hearing his story, Huelskamp invited him to a top-secret meeting that night at a colleague’s apartment.

  Problem was, Huelskamp hadn’t mentioned this to anybody else. When Bridenstine banged on Fincher’s door, everyone froze. The room was already rife with tension; some of the attendees, everyone knew, were acting as eyes and ears for the leadership. By relaying updates to Boehner—or, in some instances, to Cantor—the spies would earn eternal goodwill from the men who could dictate everything from committee assignments to campaign contributions.

  It was Raúl Labrador, the Tea Party hard-liner from Idaho, who finally answered the door. Standing over six feet tall and weighing every bit of 250 pounds, Labrador decided to moonlight as a bouncer. “We don’t know who you are,” he told Bridenstine.

  “I’m Jim Bridenstine, a new member of Congress. Tim Huelskamp invited me.”

  “But we don’t know who you are,” Labrador replied. “We don’t know who you’re for.”

  Bridenstine was bewildered. He had campaigned on a refusal to back Boehner. And yet these professional politicians, these grown men playing Whodunit on a Wednesday night, couldn’t identify him. “I don’t have time for this,” he told Labrador. “Here’s my number. Call if you change your mind.”

  It was barely an hour later when the phone rang. “We need you,” Labrador told Bridenstine. “And we need other freshmen like you. Bring some buddies.”

  Bridenstine did as he was told. Before long he was back on Fincher’s doorstep, flanked by a pair of fellow newbies, Florida’s Ted Yoho and Texas’s Steve Stockman, who had also made noise about opposing Boehner. (Stockman had previously served a single congressional term in the 1990s.) Another rookie member, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who had been sworn in early after winning a special election, was waiting as they stepped inside.

  Massie made sure they knew the math: In a Speaker’s race, every member of the House is eligible to cast a vote, and Boehner would need an outright majority to win. If all 435 members voted, that meant Boehner needed 218. With 234 Republicans in the chamber, Boehner could lose only 16 of them. If the conservative rebels could collect 17 votes, Boehner would be denied a majority, and another round of balloting would commence. Not in nearly a century had a sitting Speaker been forced to a second ballot; if they could so humiliate Boehner, the thinking went, he would step aside—or be forced out in a subsequent round of voting.

  The incoming freshmen looked around the room with confusion. There had to be two dozen of them in total, more than enough to prevent Boehner from reaching his majority threshold. Why all the fuss?

  “You guys don’t get it,” Labrador told them. “We need thirty.”

  “That’s dumb. Why do we need thirty?”

  A hush fell over the mob. It was Bridenstine, the baby-faced door banger, challenging Labrador.

  “We need thirty to get to seventeen,” Labrador growled in response. “Because half of the people in this room are going to cave tomorrow.”

  Bridenstine glanced from side to side. “Okay. Who’s going to cave? Raise your hands.”

  Nervous laughter. No hands.

  “You still don’t get it,” Labrador said. “There are people in this room working for Boehner. We just don’t know who they are.”

  At this, the chuckling ceased. Bridenstine, the brave novice, glanced all around him, clearly expecting a chorus of vehement denial to Labrador’s allegation of espionage. Nothing but suspenseful stares. It was true. They all knew it. Now, so did Bridenstine.

  Boehner wasn’t the only one with moles. Cantor was keeping close tabs on the meeting, too, which made sense given that some of the rebels were prepared to elevate him to the speakership. At one point, Fincher’s phone beeped; he excitedly announced to his colleagues that Cantor was calling and scurried back into his bedroom to speak with the majority leader privately. Adding to the mystery, some Boehner spies were actually posing as Cantor spies, pledging fidelity to the number two in order to protect their cover. One of them, Lynn Westmoreland, a Georgia congressman and known ally of the Speaker’s, was eventually called out by one of his colleagues. “Why are you here, Lynn? Boehner already put you on good committees.”

  “Well,” Westmoreland said, smiling, “if Cantor’s the Speaker, maybe I’ll get even better committees.”

  As eyes rolled throughout the room, Huelskamp whipped out his iPad and tapped out a few words on the screen, showing it silently to the rookies: “Works for Boe
hner. Don’t trust him.”

  Bridenstine was growing impatient. “Okay,” he declared. “Let’s just sign our names. That way we’re all on the record. A pledge to vote against John Boehner.”

  This wasn’t a new idea; in fact, some of the members had already scribbled their autographs on scraps of paper in an envelope. (Labrador would keep these records for years to come, preserving the sacred text for indebted archivists.) But not everyone was ready to sign. Some were still on the fence about opposing Boehner; others found this ritual of an ink oath a tad ostentatious.

  Sensing their reluctance, Fincher, a religious man known to sprinkle his political rhetoric with Scripture, led the group in a rousing prayer. He then offered a fire-and-brimstone screed condemning Boehner’s “sins” against conservatism. “There must be atonement!” he cried.

  The Republicans exchanged smirks. Even the Speaker’s fiercest critics wondered if their daring adventure had turned into a sad sitcom.

  NOT EVERYONE AT FINCHER’S APARTMENT SIGNED HIS NAME. BUT THE core conspirators—Labrador, Massie, Huelskamp, among others—awoke the next morning believing they would overthrow Boehner.

  By their count, 21 members had either signed the document or sworn their allegiance to the effort, and several more were thought to be considering it. When they huddled inside the Capitol, just before the vote, only one of them announced his defection: South Carolina’s Jeff Duncan. Everyone else reiterated their commitment. Whomever they voted for didn’t matter; as long as seventeen Republicans rejected Boehner, they would force a second ballot and thrust the House into chaos.

  The roll call commenced in alphabetical order. Justin Amash, the first dissident called upon, voted for Labrador. But when the clerk called on Michele Bachmann, a rumored sympathizer, she chose to remain silent. This was the first sign of trouble; members are allowed to skip their turn, but by doing so, they broadcast uncertainty about the outcome. Bachmann wanted to see how the numbers stacked up against Boehner. So, too, did the next rebel called upon, Marsha Blackburn, who suddenly announced, “I have a nosebleed!” and rushed off the House floor.

  And so it went: As the clerk worked through the alphabet, only a handful of the sworn anti-Boehner revolutionaries voted against him. One voted “present,” hurting the Speaker’s vote total without rejecting him explicitly, while many passed on their turn, buying time to decide whether striking at the king was worth incurring his wrath.

  When it became clear that the scheme was failing, that too many members had gotten cold feet, Labrador circulated around the chamber advising some of the undecideds that their votes would no longer make a difference. Around this time, Blackburn, a Tennessean who had slyly floated her own name as a possible dark horse candidate for Speaker, reemerged onto the House floor and declared, “I proudly cast my vote for John Boehner.” A profile in courage.

  When the roll call concluded, 12 House Republicans had refused to back Boehner. Labrador cast no vote at all, nor did Mulvaney, their way of admonishing Boehner without insulting him unduly. Massie voted for Amash. Three of the rebels voted for Cantor, eliciting a rehearsed look of disgust from the majority leader. (“Well,” Massie told Cantor afterward, “we threw our support to a Jew, a Puerto Rican, and an Arab, but the white man still won.” Cantor did not laugh.)

  As for Fincher, the seeker of “atonement!”—he voted for Boehner, explaining to colleagues that he had prayed that morning and felt moved to show mercy. He wasn’t alone: Florida congressman Steve Southerland, another pledged mutineer, would later tell friends that he had been reading the Old Testament story of David sparing King Saul’s life despite having the chance to kill him. After praying on the House floor, he decided to do the same for the Speaker.

  Boehner had survived—bruised, humbled, and fretful. The wounds opened in the previous Congress were bleeding into the new one, and if they weren’t bandaged quickly, another uprising was imminent. With the House GOP’s annual retreat just weeks away, in Williamsburg, Virginia, the Speaker privately reached out to five of his most respected conservatives: Ryan, Jordan, Hensarling, Price, and Scalise. (The first four had convened a weekly breakfast for years, and invited Scalise to join after his RSC victory.)

  Boehner felt a special contempt for Price, the Georgia congressman and medical doctor who carried himself with mannered arrogance. Word had gotten back to the Speaker’s office that Price was offering his services to the rebellion, proposing that he become their alternative to Boehner; when they rejected his offer, he voted for the Speaker and slapped his back with a hearty congratulation. “That two-faced prick,” Boehner snorts.

  Still, this was no time for recriminations. If Republicans were to unite, Boehner needed help from this group (which I dubbed the “Conservative Jedi Council” in National Journal magazine, a nickname that somehow stuck). The sequester cuts would soon take effect, and another debt-ceiling deadline was just around the corner. In a series of covert meetings with the Jedi Council, Boehner pledged to champion their priorities for the coming year: rejecting new tax revenues, endorsing a ten-year balanced budget, and upholding the automatic cuts, save for reprioritization to protect the military. In return, Boehner wanted one thing: enough votes to raise the debt ceiling until fall, giving the party some breathing room to notch wins, gain some momentum, and return to the debt fight with a renewed sense of unity.

  The Jedi Council agreed, and Boehner presented the agreement in Williamsburg. Most of the members were receptive. Covered by endorsements from the likes of Jordan and Ryan, they felt good about getting everyone back on the same page after two years of dysfunction. But not everyone was sold. Huelskamp and a handful of other malcontents voiced objections, if not to the agreement itself then to the notion of trusting Boehner to follow through. So wary were they of the Speaker’s intentions that Huelskamp drafted a document itemizing the precise covenants. (“The Williamsburg Accord” was scrawled across the top in Old English font, a testament to its seriousness and to the social awkwardness of the people we send to Congress.)

  Four months later, to the shock of many in the conference, both Boehner and the Jedi Council had delivered. Consistent with the Williamsburg Accord, the sequester cuts went into effect; the short-term “continuing resolution” funding the government was passed with lower spending levels; and the House passed a budget that would balance in ten years. Meanwhile, House conservatives stomached a debt ceiling increase by attaching a provision called “No Budget, No Pay,” which forced Senate Democrats to produce their first budget in four years.

  There were bumps in the road. Boehner had selectively violated the so-called Hastert Rule, named for the former Speaker, which says a bill can be brought to the floor only if it has majority support from the majority party. The leadership had allowed votes on relief for Superstorm Sandy and a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, both of which passed on the strength of Democratic votes, angering conservatives. But on the whole, Boehner had kept his word to the conference, fostering a newfound sense of cohesion.

  “God bless the Speaker,” Jordan said that May. “He’s done exactly what he promised.”

  It was a fragile truce. And that spring, as House Republicans watched what was unfolding on the other side of the Capitol, Boehner knew how easily it could shatter.

  MARCO RUBIO WALKED INTO THE LION’S DEN WEARING A TENDERLOIN necktie.

  It was January 29, 2013. One day earlier, the Florida senator had joined seven of his colleagues (three Republicans and four Democrats) in unveiling the framework of a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The wind was at their backs. Conservative pundits were running out of ink to spill on the GOP’s need for a softer image. The national party was writing its “autopsy” as cover for elected officials to take meaningful steps toward reaching new voters. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, a rising Republican star, captured the zeitgeist poignantly during a speech to the RNC in January: “We’ve got to stop being the stupid party!”4

  The so-called Gang of Eight
refused to let this moment go to waste. Their proposal was a compromise. Republicans would get enhanced border security and tougher interior enforcement, including mandatory E-Verify (an internet-based system that checks applicants’ eligibility, to prevent businesses from hiring illegals). Democrats would get a long, winding path to citizenship for the estimated eleven million undocumented residents, provided those residents paid back taxes and had committed no crimes.

  Many leading conservatives had, in the months since Mitt Romney’s defeat, come around to this approach. Rush Limbaugh was not one of them. He recoiled at the Gang’s plan. Obama had never been interested in finding common ground with Republicans, Limbaugh told his listeners; having wielded immigration as a political club, the president had beaten them into submission. “I don’t know that there’s any stopping this,” Limbaugh said. “It’s up to me and Fox News, and I don’t think Fox News is that invested in this.”5

  It was no small act of political courage, then, when Rubio called into Limbaugh’s show the day after announcing the Gang’s framework, ready to duel with the right’s ruling agitator. Limbaugh didn’t waste time on niceties. “Why are we doing this?” he asked. Sixteen minutes later, having met with the full force of Rubio’s rhetorical prowess, the talk radio bully was blushing with adulation for the freshman senator. “What you are doing is admirable and noteworthy,” he told Rubio, wishing him luck with the immigration push. When the interview wrapped, Limbaugh sounded thunderstruck. “Is that guy good or what?”6

  This was exactly why the Gang had recruited Rubio. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, its two senior Republicans, were known moderates on immigration. And the third Senate Republican, the newly promoted Jeff Flake, was also soft on the issue, even though he had tacked right during his Senate run in 2012, denouncing a comprehensive approach and advocating for border security to be achieved before the undocumented population was dealt with. What the Gang needed was someone with conservative star power to sell the proposal to the base. Rubio, the Tea Party flame of 2010, had it in spades—not to mention policy chops and a straight-from-Hollywood story of living the American dream.