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Redstate...
Message to
RSC Members: Get in or Get
Out
Posted by Russ Vought
Wednesday, July 27th
Rep.
Jim Jordan, the Chairman of the
Republican Study Committee (RSC), is taking massive heat from many of
his own
colleagues within the RSC for his public opposition to the Boehner debt
deal.
RSC staff is being called out by name for doing their job effectively.
Calls
are coming from all Leadershipistas to fire the RSC staff.
These
members—such as Rep. Renee
Ellmers (NC)—don’t like the fact that they are perceived on the wrong
side of
where the conservative movement ended up. Some are threatening to quit
their
membership in the House of Representative’s predominant conservative
caucus.
If
that’s what they think, they should
submit their resignation—today.
I’d
like to give everyone a brief
understanding of what the RSC’s role is in Congress. I know because I
worked
there for over four years, served under three different RSC chairmen,
with a
two-year stint as its staff director.
The
RSC is the conservative movement
in the House of Representatives. It is not an arm of the elected House
Leadership. It is not a cheerleader of everything that Leadership is
doing. In
fact, its job is to push Leadership as far to the right as is possible
and flat
out oppose it when necessary. As a result, Leadership often has a rocky
relationship with whoever is the Chairman of the RSC because he or she
is a
political counterweight on whatever they are trying to do.
Now
let me add a dynamic to the
picture. A lot of—let’s be generous here—casually conservative Members
of
Congress like to join the RSC in order to be perceived back home as a
100%
winger, but in reality, these Members are in the “Just Happy to Be
Here”
Caucus. They don’t fight, they often take bad votes if their Leadership
wants
them to, and when the RSC Chairman decides to fight, they often make
his or her
life absolutely miserable. Some threaten to quit the RSC. It is part of
the
territory.
In
spite of all that abuse, and in
spite of being from Ohio as Speaker Boehner is, Jim Jordan is proving
to be one
of the most effective Chairman in the history of the RSC. I know
because I’ve
worked for some of the others. Instead of being raked over the coals,
he should
be honored as a patriot.
Message
to RSC Members who don’t like
how the RSC is being managed: Get out.
Read
it at Redstate
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