Representative Massie: ‘I will vote for a new Speaker’

 Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie is the latest Republican House member who has announced he will not be voting to return John Boehner to the Speaker position.

  Here is part of what he had to say while making this announcement:

“For years I watched Washington from afar and suspected that something was broken. Why is it that so many people approve of their congressman, yet they consistently disapprove of Congress? During my first two years as a congressman I discovered a significant source of the dysfunction,”

“With a process this broken, is it any wonder that Washington no longer works for the people?” Massie said. “My constituents expect better, and America deserves better. On January 6th, 2015, I will vote for a new Speaker who will consistently articulate a constitutional vision for America and facilitate an inclusive and orderly legislative process that allows Congress to truly reflect the will of the people.”

  He went on to list a couple of reasons behind his decision:

Massie said that Boehner “schedule[d] a fiscal crisis in a lame duck session on the last legislative day before Christmas to get maximum leverage over rank and file members” and then worked to “mislead members into thinking that a vote on an unpopular bill was postponed, only to then conduct a rushed voice vote on the $10 billion unfunded spending measure with fewer than a dozen members present.”

Boehner also made sure to “give members less than 72 hours to read bills over 1,000 pages long, and,” Massie said, has proven he will “remove members from committees simply because they voted for the principles upon which they campaigned.”

    I am happy to hear Thomas Massie actually call out John Boehner for punishing conservatives by removing them from committee positions, this is the first instance I can recall of this happening. Most of the others seem to cherish their committee positions too much say anything. Perhaps the rest of the Republicans could learn a thing or two from this young gun.

  We still need a couple of dozen more to remove John Boehner but I fear that is unlikely for precisely the reason Thomas Massie outlined…