Image Credit: Congressman Andy Ogles / Twitter
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
U.S. House Representative-elect Andy Ogles (R-Columbia-TN) signed onto a letter (dated Jan. 1, 2023) expressing concern about U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) bid for House Speaker.
The letter states that times such as these require a drastic departure from the status quo and a history of Republican failures.
The letter goes on to call out McCarthy for his long tenure as Senior House Republican leadership and that he “bears squarely the burden to correct the dysfunction he now explicitly admits across that long tenure.”
However, the letter does not identify an appropriate choice for the position of House Speaker, if not McCarthy.
The text of the letter can be found below:
Late in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, Kevin McCarthy gave his first comprehensive written response to proposals offered in good faith on December 8 to articulate key values we believe must be championed — and led — by any candidate for Speaker of the House.
Mr. McCarthy’s title, “Restoring the People’s House and Ending Business as Usual,” is a welcome and telling admission of the longstanding and deep dysfunction of the House of Representatives and statement of aspiration to begin to set it right in the 118th Congress. Regrettably, however, despite some progress achieved, Mr. McCarthy’s statement comes almost impossibly late to address continued deficiencies ahead of the opening of the 118th Congress on January 3rd.
At this stage, it cannot be a surprise that expressions of vague hopes reflected in far too many of the crucial point still under debate are insufficient. This is especially true with respect to Mr. McCarthy’s candidacy for speaker because the times call for radical departure from the status quo — not a continuation of past, and ongoing, Republican failures. For someone with a 14-year presence in senior House Republican leadership, Mr. McCarthy bears squarely the burden to correct the dysfunction he now explicitly admits across that long tenure.
Thus far, there continues to be missing specific commitments with respect to virtually every component of our entreaties, and thus, no means to measure whether promises are kept or broken. Moreover, some in the Republican conference have expressed that absent universal support for Mr. McCarthy, they would reject even the progress made to date regarding rules and changes to bill text availability, single subject and germaneness requirements, and other structural changes for the good of the body and every member. Mr. McCarthy’s statement also continues to propose to restrict the availability of the traditional motion to vacate the chair a a means of holding leadership accountable to its promises; we have from the beginning made clear that we will not accept following Nancy Pelosi’s example by insulating leadership in this way. We also note that the statement fails completely to address the issue of leadership working to defeat conservatives in open primaries.
The progress made thus far has been helpful and should guide our thinking going forward.
Respectfully,
Rep. Scott Perry, PA
Rep. Paul Gosar, AZ
Rep.-elect Andy Ogles, TN
Rep.-elect Anna Paulina Luna, FL
Rep.-elect Eli Crane, AZ
Rep. Chip Roy, TX
Rep. Dan Bishop, NC
Rep. Andy Harris, MD
Rep. Andrew Clyde, GA
12 Responses
How Right he is. McCarthy nothing more than a Closet Democrat!!
THIS is why Andy Ogles was elected and supported by those who have lost confidence in the ‘status quo’ that is the swamp, otherwise known as the nation’s capital Washington, DC. Unfortunately, there are no other Tennessee Congressmen names on this letter (My representative Mark Green included) Maybe they’ve been in DC long enough to have drunk the kool-aid of power. You can cry all about the ‘process’, and how these congressmen are showing an effort in futility, yet when even more when these long term swamp rats disappoint us with their votes (i.e., 100 billion for Ukraine and margin, if any support for our southern border). Just remember, that when McCarthy is elected, I’ve said it right here, that he will disappoint us, just like Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. How can we continue to support RINO’s when what we ‘claim’ to really need is All American, America First policies at the Federal level of less government, less taxes and less regulation on us and more action on the things that the federal government should be doing.
Victor, you are so right in the fact that the Republican Party should not have someone with a Heritage score of 53% leading the party in anything, much less the House. You are terribly wrong implying that the “RINO” label belongs on Marvelous Mark Green (Heritage-97%), John Rose (99%), Tim Burchett (95%) etc.
Even conservative House leader Jim Jordan (95%) is supporting McCarthy because there are perfectly good tactical arguments to be made for doing so. I don’t agree with those arguments but that doesn’t make everyone who disagrees with me on this or anything else a “RINO.”
This is why we elected Andy. The status quo is not acceptable.
Trumps endorsement aside, I don’t think McCarthy is the man for the job. We need to put a firebrand in the job whose not afraid to break eggs to end the status quo. With each new crop of Senators and Representatives, we hope that term limits will become a fact. Never happens, the new ones learn from the old how lucrative it is to stay in power. I hear cries of “Vote them out!” and know it rarely happens. Even voters vote with their own self interest in mind. The more pork their officials bring home, the less chance they’ll be voted out. Some cities in Tn. have instituted term limits and it seems to have improved the measure of real service we get out of those elected officials.
Ralph, I don’t know what kind of wonderful “real service” they get in Davidson County that has term limits, but I wouldn’t want to live in that hellhole if they paid me to do so. Why shouldn’t I have the freedom as a conservative to vote for Marsha Blackburn (Heritage-87%), Bill Hagerty (89%), Marvelous Mark Green (97%) etc. for as long as they are doing a good job and are willing to run?
Term limits is a truly bad idea that limits freedom of voters, solves no problems in terms of government policy, needlessly creates unaccountable lame-ducks, and conservatives should have none of it.
Agree with all the other comments.
Hats off to Rep.-elect Andy Ogles, TN and all the other Reps that signed the letter.
Thank you for siding with the American people. No more RINOs. You are right nothing will ever change if we keeping voting in the lesser of two evils. I’m done voting for RINO who belong to uniparty. If a conservative can’t when then let it be a Dem no different than a RINO.
If Ogles and the extremists group cause the Dems to take control of the House, it will be a disaster and they will never be forgiven. If the Dems take control it is over. 5 million illegals came into the US since Biden was elected and 4 million are expected in 2023. That’s 9 million. The Dems will put them on welfare, give them free health care, make them citizens and then “Chain Migration” will start and they will bring in their parents, siblings, etc. The Dems will never lose again and will have total control. They will pass a national law allowing abortions at any time, arrest anyone who criticizes them, etc., etc.
If a few Repub’s flip by being bought off, that will happen.
I think McCarthy is far better than a Leftist. I’ll never donate to Ogles or Gaetz again or to any of the others. They lack the ability to think thru where this could end. They could never outsmart Pelosi and none of them need to be in charge of anything.
We have an opportunity to influence or hopefully change the “circus” orchestrated by Pelosi, Schumer and Biden, YET we have freshman elect Andy Ogles standing firmly in the way of the Republican party electing McCarthy as house speaker. Has Ogles forgotten how McCarthy, not only endorsed Ogles but also campaigned heavily for Ogles? Or is Ogles simply pursuing publicity & “on the floor” recognition?
This is like a 2nd Lieutenant telling General George Patton how to defeat the Nazis or a programmer telling Tim Cook how to run Apple. In short, get your butt in place within an organization AND through your efforts & hard work prove your worth and influence. As a voting member of the 5th District of Tennessee, I am embarrassed Ogles is my representative…should have spent more energy touting the qualities, education and history of Beth Harwell.
Well said.
Can anyone list some votes that gave McCarthy a 50 something heritage score. I’d love to know.