WND
‘They out-negotiated leadership and changed the House in a serious way’
An essay in the conservative Federalist approvingly quotes a “senior congressional aide” who calls the concessions won by dissident House Freedom Caucus Members in the battle to elect the House Speaker the “most significant win for conservatives in a decade.”
“Everything that Republicans and conservatives say they hate — giant, thousand-page spending bills negotiated by a handful of people with little input from anyone else, plum committee assignments reserved for insiders, and a closed off amendment process — is addressed here,” the Republican aide told the Federalist culture editor Emily Jashinsky in her Jan. 9 piece.
“The real story of [California Rep. Kevin] McCarthy’s winding road to the speakership is bigger than he is, bigger than the GOP, and bigger than the 118th Congress,” reads a subhead for the article.
“While the political establishment preferred to focus on personalities and melodrama, the concessions that [House Freedom Caucus (HFC)] members managed to wring out of McCarthy are shockingly consequential. Without another speaker candidate waiting in the wings, serious negotiators like Rep. Chip Roy knew they had the upper hand and could push the GOP establishment much further than anyone imagined,” writes Jashinsky.
