Bloodless Coup

Expecting Duncan Hunter (R-CA) to Favor Free Trade

One section of Bob Novak's column this weekend really hit home to me (again) how intensely partisan and devoid of principled action Washington has become. Apparently the House Republican leadership is extremely angry with the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, because he voted against CAFTA. They are of the view that if someone holds a committee chairmanship party loyalty should come above all else in determining how that member of the House should vote. Now they should have known better. Hunter has voted against most everything resembling free trade during his 20+ years in Congress. They might as well have asked him to vote for federal tax credits for recently-married, Communist gay couples. But the thing is, according to the leadership's position, he should have voted for that too if they'd asked him to do it. Or for a five trillion dollar ladder to the moon. Their idea is that whatever they say, a member of Congress is expected to vote for it if that member is to have any role in the leadership, or really any voice at all on the Hill. They don't have any interest in you (or apparently your constituents) unless you provide them with unquestioned loyalty. You are to do as you are told 100% of the time, or you (and those you represent apparently) are dead to them. To a degree, this has always been the case. But when we've hit a point that the leadership is outraged because a member refuses to sign on to what it's been clear for decades is something he strongly thinks is wrong and abhorrent, it does lead one to wonder what room there is for serious consideration of the issues and principled behavior - especially in this case when we are talking about outrage against a man who votes with the leadership something like 95% or 99% of the time, and has taken the lead for years on a wide variety of issues near and dear to the hearts of the far right. Is there no room for principled dissent left in Washington?

And of course this is yet another example of how the classic accounts of the organization of Congress that generations of Americans grew up learning in school are hopelessly out of date. Since Republicans took over the House the committee structure isn't nearly as firm as it once was. The power of committee chairmen has been greatly reduced, chairmen aren't selected on the basis of seniority - essentially, a vareity of institutional checks that limited the power of the party leadership have been dispensed with.