Tea Party proponent Rep. Raul Labrador offers defense of his vote FOR Boehner

U.S. House Representative Raul Labrador offered a defense of his vote for John Boehner for Speaker of the House on Facebook. Labrador is often vilified as a “Tea Party extremist” by the left, so his words should carry special weight.

From his post:

Read my full statement on why I voted for Speaker Boehner today:

Today, I made a difficult decision in voting for John Boehner for Speaker of the House. Many constituents from Idaho contacted me to let me know that I should not support him. I want them to know that I did not make this decision lightly. I share the view of the majority of my constituents who are deeply frustrated by the way the House has run the last four years.

I understand that many of my most loyal supporters are angry with my vote. I ask them to remember that for the last four years I have stood tall for the conservative cause. In December, I opposed the end of year spending bill by opposing both the rule and final passage. Last year I ran for Majority Leader of the House when no one else was willing to stand up against the establishment in Washington. And every time over the past four years that the Speaker ignored the views of the Republican majority and the voice of the American people, I opposed him.

In 2013, I led the effort to oust Speaker Boehner from his leadership post. At that time, we had sufficient votes to be successful, but at the last minute several members changed their votes to support Boehner.

This year was different – even after 25 Republicans opposed the Speaker, we still needed 12 more votes. The votes were simply not there to defeat the Speaker. I think it is unwise to marginalize yourself when there is no chance of victory, which was the case today.

Before I cast my vote for Mr. Boehner, I spoke with him multiple times. He assured me that he wants to change the way the House is run. He cited my successful efforts last August in bringing conservatives together to pass two bills that would have secured the border and prevented Obama’s illegal executive actions. He asked for my help moving the House in a more conservative direction and promised that this would be a model for how he’ll conduct himself as Speaker in the 114th Congress.

My vote for Mr. Boehner is not an endorsement of his past leadership. Just as I have done during my first two terms in office, I will continue to fight for the American people and hold our leadership accountable.

While many are vilifying our Republican members for not ousting Boehner, I think Labrador makes some reasonable points. I’m not a fan of Boehner by any means but with Gowdy saying he wouldn’t take the mantle, it didn’t seem like there were any viable alternatives.

So we have weepy Boehner once again. If we want to force the leadership to be more conservative, then we have to keep calling and writing and fight for those principles. We can’t hope for one election to just solve all our problems.


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