The obstructionist & civil-war provoking HFC wants to tighten their grip on the House – and that’s terrible news for Paul Ryan
“As the Republican Party crumbles under the weight of Trump and Cruz, Republicans down-ballot stand to suffer the consequences. But instead of attempting to separate themselves from the dysfunctional, super-conservative presidential ticket, House Republicans are working to expand the most obstructionist and destructive wing of their party. At this point you just have to wonder if they all just like the chaos,” said Meredith Kelly of the DCCC.
Inside the Freedom Caucus’ expansion plans
Politico
By Theodoric Meyer
March 31, 2016
The House Freedom Caucus reshaped Congress in its first year when it drove out Speaker John Boehner. Now, the hardline conservative group is looking to cement its influence by recruiting and electing a new class of members in 2016.
The Freedom Caucus – a group of roughly three dozen conservative House Republicans formed last year to hold a conservative line against House leadership – is quietly meeting with prospective candidates to fill the seats of caucus members who are retiring or running for Senate. The group’s leaders are drawing up a target list of other Republican-leaning open seats that could elect new Freedom Caucus members. Its political arm is raising money for members facing difficult challenges. And it is even spending money on outside TV ads in a House primary, a rare and expensive move for a PAC controlled by members of Congress.
The strategy is designed to secure the group lasting, and growing, influence in the House of Representatives. Much as former Sen. Jim DeMint and his leadership PAC, Senate Conservatives Fund, helped populate the Senate with candidates initially opposed by Republican leadership in the tea party’s early years, the Freedom Caucus hopes to reshape the GOP conference by identifying new potential members and then helping them win House seats one at a time.
“The goal is to grow it by, and I think it’s realistic, to grow it by 20 to 30 members,” said Rep. Matt Salmon , one of the Freedom Caucus’ founding members. “All new members.”
The group has already notched its first victory: Warren Davidson, the Freedom Caucus’ chosen candidate, beat out more than a dozen other Republicans in the primary for Boehner’s old House seat in Ohio, a win laden with symbolism.
Rep. Jim Jordan, the Freedom Caucus’ chairman, says the group doesn’t have a formal growth target, but it’s casting a wide net after Davidson’s victory.
The Freedom Caucus doesn’t officially endorse candidates, Jordan said. Instead, members of the group meet with new candidates when they come to Washington to chat with the National Republican Congressional Committee and other conservative groups – about 20 so far, according to Salmon.
One of those candidates the caucus is backing: Jim Banks, who on Thursday will become the first beneficiary of TV ads run by the House Freedom Fund, which is both Jordan’s leadership PAC and the HFC’s unofficial political committee. Super PACs and nonprofits, not leadership PACs, typically dominate the realm of outside TV advertising. But Banks is running in a crowded open primary to replace Stutzman, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, and it’s another early chance for the group to set the tone for 2016.
“Typically, the template is more conservative districts,” Jordan said. “But not always.” Jordan has also had conversations in recent weeks about competing in swing seats in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
But there are a limited number of Republican-held open seats this cycle, and several of them seem more likely to swing Democratic than to elect someone who will join the Freedom Caucus. Voters in GOP Rep. John Kline ‘s suburban Minneapolis seat, for instance, backed President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Still, the House Freedom Caucus is also more likely than not to lose at least one of its two members facing competitive races in the general election.
Rep. Rod Blum has acknowledged that he’s one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House, and his membership in the Freedom Caucus may hurt his chances. “It doesn’t make his reelection any easier,” said Rep. Reid Ribble of Wisconsin, a former Freedom Caucus member who quit the group in October shortly after it helped drive out Boehner.
In a sign of the group’s influence, some Republican candidates have started touting their intentions to join the Freedom Caucus if elected, even if they haven’t met with the group yet. It’s become a touchstone for hard-line GOP primary candidates, much like voting against Boehner for speaker used to be.
“I will join the Freedom Caucus, because that’s the caucus that stands up for the Constitution and that’s the group of members that holds the leadership’s feet to the fire,” Mike Pape, one of three well-known Republicans running to fill GOP Rep. Ed Whitfield ‘s seat in Kentucky, said at the Casey County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner last month, according to a video obtained by POLITICO. Jason Batts, another candidate in the race, has also indicated that he’ll apply to join the Freedom Caucus.
Yet the group hasn’t been universally embraced in Republican primaries so far, even in deeply conservative districts.
Jamie Comer, the leading Republican in that Kentucky race, said he might vote in line with Freedom Caucus members at times. But Comer isn’t looking to join the group.
“I’m going to be a leader,” he said, “and I don’t need a group of politicians to tell me how to vote for the people of the 1st Congressional District.”