Tea Party Loses Ground On Spending Bill Vote

On Friday BO signed into law the 1,582 page $1,100 billion Omnibus Spending Bill that will keep the government open through September 30.  The bill, which was based on the December Ryan-Murray budget deal, had been passed by both Chambers of Congress earlier in the week.

The Republican truce seemed to hold in that there were no recriminations by either side for members of the Team A establishment Republicans voting for the measure & the Team B Tea Party Republicans voting against it.  The benefit of this restraint is that the government will not shut down so both Teams will not suffer more disfavor in this election year.  We know what each Team stands for & there is no point bludgeoning each side which only benefits the Democrats. 

The December votes on the Ryan-Murray budget deal in both the House and Senate clearly produced two GOP teams that fell in line with their members overall voting records—the establishment Republican Team A consisting of 164 House members and nine senators for a total of 173 centrist moderate politicians, & the Tea Party Republican Team B consisting of 62 House members & 36 senators for a total of 98. Click on Truce - The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend & Senate Budget Vote Completes Formation Of Republican Teams to see the original Team members based on this criterion. 

Based on this latest vote the establishment Republican Team A consisted of 166 House members & 17 senators for a total of 183 centrist moderate politicians, & the Tea Party Republican Team B consisted of 64 House members & 26 senators for a total of 90 meaning that the Tea Party lost ground. 

The actual Tea Party voters on this occasion are listed below (i.e., if you don't see your congressman or senator listed below they voted for the spending bill).  But there will be other votes on the fiscal year 2015 budget & the debt ceiling so the Team members can shift until the congressional primaries when @ least readers of RTE will know how their elected representatives voted. 

Highlights this time - voting with Boehner, Cantor, & McCarthy were Gus Bilirakis, Diane Black, Marsha Blackburn, Dave Camp, Trey Gowdy, Jeb Hensarling, Darrell Issa, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price (GA), Mike Rogers (MI), Paul Ryan (WI), Joe Wilson (SC), & Rob Woodall.  From the Senate Jerry Moran switched from a Tea Partier last vote & Johnny Isackson voted for the establishment measure each time.  Please let me know of any other highlights you see.

 

In the meantime Americans For Prosperity (AFP) has issued their latest Scorecard that ranks members of Congress based on their votes in favor of economic freedom, taxes, healthcare, federal spending, & energy.  You can quickly find that Congressman Tom McClintock of CA has a lifetime grade of 100% & Democrat House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also from CA has a lifetime grade of 4% – & Pelosi's side has gotten stronger on the first major vote as shown above.  Don't know how to tell you clearer than that – there is more @ play in America than meets the eye of the unsuspecting public.

 

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Republican	166	64		3
Democratic	193	3		4
Independent
TOTALS	359	67		7

 

---- NAYS    67 ---

Amash Bachmann Barton Bentivolio Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Broun (GA) Burgess Byrne Chabot Coffman Cotton Crawford Daines DeSantis DesJarlais Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Franks (AZ) Gardner Garrett Gingrey (GA) Gohmert

Gosar Grijalva Hall Holding Holt Huelskamp Johnson, Sam Jordan King (IA) Kingston Labrador LaMalfa Lamborn Lankford Long Lummis Marchant Massie McClintock McIntyre Meadows Mullin Neugebauer

Nugent Pearce Petri Poe (TX) Pompeo Posey Ribble Rohrabacher Salmon Sanford Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Terry Tipton Weber (TX) Wenstrup Williams

---- NOT VOTING    7 ---

Buchanan Cleaver Gabbard

Jones McCarthy (NY) Rush

 

Measure Title:

An act making consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other purposes.

Vote Counts:	YEAs	72
	NAYs	26
	Not Voting	2

 

NAYs ---26
Barrasso (R-WY) Burr (R-NC) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) Cruz (R-TX) Enzi (R-WY) Fischer (R-NE) Flake (R-AZ)	Grassley (R-IA) Heller (R-NV) Inhofe (R-OK) Johanns (R-NE) Johnson (R-WI) Lee (R-UT) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Paul (R-KY)	Portman (R-OH) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Rubio (R-FL) Scott (R-SC) Sessions (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Toomey (R-PA)

Not Voting - 2
Chambliss (R-GA)	Coburn (R-OK)