Letter 2 America for October 4, 2013

Dear America,

I don't understand why John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives, is being characterized as nothing worse than the victim of the recalcitrant members of his own party in this matter of the government shutdown caused by the refusal of The House to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running at current funding levels.  Boehner's House has sent four continuing resolutions to The Senate for approval, but all of them have included provisions for "defunding Obamacare"--the ultimate poison pill in political terms--the members of The House knowing full well that President Obama and the Democrats will never agree to doing so.  Just for the sake of clarity, these efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as Obamacare, are effectively attempts at overriding the vote of the full congress and the signature of The president on the law, as well as reversing the affirmation of the constitutionality of the ACA by the Supreme Court.  But more importantly, they are attempts to do so with only a minority of the votes in only one house of our bicameral legislature against the express will of the majority of the other house--The Senate--and The President, as well as more than half the American voting public, which is unwilling to insist on defunding the law if it means shutting down the government.  And who is making all this possible?  Not the Tea Party as commonly claimed.  It's John Boehner.

By reports coming from several sources, and statements of at least one individual Republican Representative in The House that I have heard first hand, there are enough Republicans in The House in favor of what is called a "clean continuing resolution" to pass one by voting in concert with the Democratic minority if Speaker Boehner would allow a vote on any of the four continuing resolutions sent to The House by The Senate.  But Boehner, while insisting that the Democrats are at fault for shutting down the government because they refuse to negotiate, refuses to let his Republican caucus end the shutdown by voting, even though the projections are that such a resolution would pass by a huge majority in The House.  That's how many Republicans want to get out from under the cloud of obstructionism that Boehner's strategy represents.  And the reason for Boehner's intransigence is the recalcitrance of about thirty members of his party who proudly wear the mantle of the Tea Party.  But the way in which those Tea Party members control The Speaker is that at any time, a member of The House can ask for what is essentially a vote of no confidence in The Speaker and a new election within The House must then take place.  And if Boehner wants to retain his speakership, he has to have more than half of those Tea Party members in order to get the votes of a majority of the 435 House members; he would not likely get the half of those Tea Partyers if he allowed them to be defeated in their reactionary quest to eliminate the ACA...Obamacare to them in particular.  Hence, Boehner is enabling about 30 zealots, whose goals have already been repudiated by both the electorate and the rest of the government, to shut down the entire system, just so that he can remain speaker.  In other words, our government is shut down because the Speaker of the House is politically ambitious and values his own office above the fate of the nation that he swore to serve when he was elected to The House in the first place.  It is one man's political ambition that is the obstacle to sanity in the governance of our country, and I believe that people are beginning to realize that.

It has been the case that members of congress, Republicans in particular, have been excusing Boehner for--or at least explaining away--his inability to get a clean continuing resolution out of The House by blaming that disloyal fifth column within his party, but the Tea Party are a small minority of the votes Boehner needs to serve the nation's interests best.  By allowing the vote to reopen the government however, Boehner might lose his leadership role.  He might be broadly extolled for his self-sacrifice, but that doesn't seem to matter much to him.  On the other hand, by refusing to let democracy take its course, so to speak, he is demonstrating a craven self-interest, and everyone knows it, and that doesn't seem to matter to him either.  Contrary to what seem to be his proclivities, I believe that if Boehner wants to preserve his reputation as a politician...assuming that he has one worth saving...his only option is to give up his speakership in the hope that enough people will respect him for it to give the Speakership back to him.  But he seems to be single-minded about holding on with both hands in what I think is a futile attempt to retain what he only barely managed to hold onto after the 2012 elections.  And while it is true that an act of selflessness on his part might result in a historic first--a minority party speaker--that might be a better way to go down in history than the path that he is on now.  It's simple.  Boehner can be recorded in the annals of the House of Representatives as a man with political courage and integrity in his regard for democratic process, or as a political poltroon whose selfish pride did great harm to the nation that he professes to love.  Some of the articles you will read in the next day or two, and more and more of what will be written before this crisis is over, will make all these points, and at some juncture, Boehner is bound to read some of them and understand the cogency of those points they are trying to make, but he still mightn't do the right thing.  In my opinion, he isn't much of a Speaker.  This is a nation of laws, not men, but even if it weren't so, Boehner doesn't seem to be much of a man either.

Your friend,

Mike.