JOE SKIPPER/REUTERS - U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL) speaks prior to property magnate and reality TV star Donald Trump's speech at a South Florida Tea Party rally in Boca Raton, Florida, April 16, 2011.
For the House’s famous class of Republican freshmen, the first four months in office have brought a frustrating surprise. The divided, mistrustful bent of American politics — which brought them to power last fall — is now making that power maddeningly difficult to use.
On Capitol Hill, the Democrats they bashed have turned the Senate into a black hole for GOP ideas. So the freshmen are left with political theater, voting for bills the Senate will ignore.
And back home, the same hoarse-throat tactics that helped them bring down incumbents last year — attacks on a health-care plan, town-hall heckling — have been used against them.
On Tuesday in western New York, the freshmen saw what Democrats saw a year ago.
These tactics work.
In a special election to fill a vacated House seat, Democrat Kathy Hochul defeated Republican Jane Corwin and a third-party candidate to fill a seat long in Republican hands. The election turned on the same allegations that are haunting the freshmen at town-hall meetings: that a House budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would “destroy” Medicare by shifting new recipients to private insurance plans, paid for with government subsidies, in a decade.
“Do we have an issue? Of course we do. There is a lot of fog getting thrown out, and I have people coming up and saying, ‘I don’t know who to believe,’ ” freshman Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) said Wednesday.
Huizenga, however, rejected the idea that the Democrats were simply reusing the tactics that Republicans used to attack President Obama’s health-care law.
“They are lying,” Huizenga said. In contrast, he said, “we’ve got facts.”
The Washington Post interviewed 18 of the 87 Republican freshmen, representing all corners of the country and a range of political beliefs. Many of the freshmen said they still felt the happy rush of taking office and were proud that they had made a significant shift in Washington’s conversation about spending.
The best sign of that was the 2011 federal budget, agreed to just minutes before the government was going to shut down. Under pressure from tea-party-influenced freshmen, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) won about $38 billion in potential savings.
“That is what we’re talking about,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of public affairs at Princeton University. “We’re talking about cutting things. And in that respect, [the freshmen] were victorious, even if they don’t feel that way.”
And often, they don’t.
“There’s a lot of spinning wheels,” said Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.). “You at least want to know that you’re solving problems. And there can be moments when you wonder if we are.”
Under Republican control, the House has passed dozens of new bills and resolutions. But fewer than 10 have made it through the Senate. Bills to repeal the health-care law, extend offshore drilling and rein in the Environmental Protection Agency have all stalled.
“ ‘Hey, Dad, I’m wondering . . . Harry Reid says he’s not going to pass [one of the House bills], and the president said he’s going to veto it. So why are you guys going to do it anyway?’ ” Huizenga recalled his 13-year-old son asking in an e-mail. “ ‘And — oh, by the way — I scored a goal in floor hockey.’ ”
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