Tag Archives: Mac Thornberry

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Question doesn’t produce desired result

Hopes dashed, I’m afraid to say.

I noted in an earlier blog post that I was going to ask U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry a question about how he would work to restore a sense of civility, comity and gettin’ along in Congress. It was during the recording of a candidate forum that will be broadcast this coming week on Panhandle PBS.

My hope was for an answer that would restore my belief in the “nobility” of politics.

I didn’t get quite the answer I hoped for. Indeed, Thornberry — who faces two Republican Party primary challengers, Elaine Hays of Amarillo and Pam Barlow of Bowie — really didn’t pledge to do anything specific himself. For that matter, neither did Hays or Barlow; and in fact, Barlow seemed to hint that she would be even more combative if she were elected to Congress this year.

I won’t give any more of this away, given that the candidates still have a TV appearance scheduled to be broadcast.

Thornberry, though, does seem to be falling into the same old trap that snares other politicians. He is blaming, more or less, the other side. The other side, meanwhile, is blaming his side.

The result? No one is holding themselves accountable.

The blame game continues.

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Politics shows nasty side once again

Once upon a time I thought of politics as a noble profession. I subscribed to the Robert F. Kennedy view that politics should be a force for positive change and reform of what we think is broken in our society.

I continue to believe politics has the potential for nobility.

Then we hear the carping that arose from the U.S. Labor Department’s jobs report for January.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/07/republicans-slam-president-over-jobs-report/?hpt=hp_bn3

Republicans were quick to pounce on the numbers, which weren’t as good as the White House had thought would come out. The nation added “only” 113,000 jobs in January, down from the expected 178,000. The jobless rate ticked down a bit, to 6.6 percent. It’s down from its high of 10 percent in 2009, but still too high to suit the loyal opposition.

“Today’s jobs report underscores that there remains a real crisis for the chronically unemployed in this country. It’s too hard for many to find good jobs, wages are stagnant, and it’s harder to get ahead,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

I guess the most annoying aspect of the reactions to these jobs numbers is that the “other side” is quiet when they’re good, as they were in November and December. The labor market added about 400,000 jobs at the end of 2013. Did we hear anything then from Cantor and his congressional Republican colleagues? Their silence was deafening.

Yes, I am acutely aware that Democrats do the same thing to Republican presidents. George W. Bush couldn’t buy a break from congressional Democrats whenever his administration welcomed good economic news.

The nobility of politics has been replaced by something far less high-minded. It’s become a game of who can get the better of the other guy. It goes on and on.

I’m going to talk today to U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, who’s running for his 10th term in the House. I intend to ask him what he’s going to do to restore some sense of comity in Congress and repair its relations with the White House.

Let’s hope he can offer a noble answer.

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Re-election hill steepens some for incumbents

The Gallup Poll organization reports something that might give congressional incumbents plenty of pause as they campaign for re-election.

Listen up, Rep. Mac Thornberry.

It is that 46 percent of Americans — a record low — would vote to re-elect their member of Congress in 2014.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/24/poll_record_low_would_re-elect_representative_121344.html

That’s down from 59 percent in 2012, according to RealClearPolitics.com.

Get this as well: It’s split evenly among Democrats and Republicans, at 18 percent for members of each party.

Why should this concern incumbents? Republicans in particular have shown this penchant for — as the late Texas state Sen. Teel Bivins used to say — “eating their young.” Tea party insurgents keep popping up to challenge “establishment Republican” incumbents. It’s happening in the 13th Congressional District — which Thornberry represents — with two challengers trying to outflank the incumbent on the right. The same is true in Kentucky, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is being challenged by the tea party, as is Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

It’s no secret that this appears to be the season of discontent with Congress. Polls show congressional approval in the low teens, which actually is a slight improvement from late in 2013, when it slid into the single digits.

How will this end up? It could end well for incumbents, but only perhaps when Congress can re-learn the art of legislating, which involves some compromise between the parties.

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Would chairmanship compromise Thornberry?

U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry is in line to become chairman of one of the House of Representatives’s most powerful committees.

There’s a possible conundrum in the works, maybe, potentially … whatever.

Thornberry is vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee. The chairman, Buck McKeon, R-Calif., is planning on retiring and he wants Thornberry, R-Clarendon, to take over the chairmanship. It means a good bit of influence is coming to the Panhandle. A committee chairman can steer legislation favorable to his or her district, yes?

Thornberry’s 13th Congressional District is home to, oh, the Bell aircraft assembly plant in Amarillo, the one that puts together those V-22 Osprey tiltrotor airplanes. It also services and refurbishes helicopters for the Marine Corps, the Air Force and the Army. Bell’s operation means a great deal to the region.

Would a new chairman work extra hard to protect those interests? Or … would he hold to the principle of staying away from what’s been called “pork-barrel politics,” which has been a hallmark of Thornberry’s congressional career.

He’s served in Congress since 1995. He is running for yet another term and faces two GOP primary challengers this March and a Democratic challenger this fall.

I’m guessing the incumbent is going to use — in some vague or perhaps overt way — the possibility of a House Armed Services Committee chairmanship as a selling point.

It would be good for the district. Does doing what’s good for the district mean more money coming this way? Is that pork-barrel politics?

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Thornberry faces a serious primary challenge

I’ve said more times than I can remember that political incumbents need serious challenges to their re-election bids.

They need to stay sharp. They need to defend their voting records. They need to be accountable to the voters, their constituents, the folks who pay their salaries.

Therefore, I’m glad that U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry might be getting a run for it from someone who thinks she’s a more qualified Republican than the incumbent who is running for his 10th term in Congress.

Elaine Hays is an Amarillo financial planner. Her website is here:

https://www.facebook.com/ElaineHaysForCongress/app_184474614987082

I’m intrigued by the fact that she’s running in the Republican primary to Thornberry’s right. Indeed, one political website, in announcing Hays’s candidacy, actually called Thornberry a RINO, a Republican In Name Only. Thornberry, a RINO? You must be kidding me.

Apparently not. Hays — who I do not know personally — seems to be preparing to run against Thornberry’s record by suggesting he hasn’t been conservative enough for the 13th Congressional District.

Check out her website and you’ll see what I mean.

Term limits seems to be one issue with which she’s scoring some early points. She criticizes Thornberry’s stand in favor of term limits while he is about to finish up his 20th year in Congress. Thornberry was elected in 1994 while running under the Contract With America banner hoisted by then-Rep. Newt Gingrich. One of the planks in that platform was term limits. Mac supported it, vowed to vote for limits if elected and actually has been true to that promise: He’s voted every time to limit congressional terms.

However, he never took the pledge to limit himself to three terms.

That’s his fallback position, but it isn’t playing well with some on the extreme right, who think he should have bowed out long ago in keeping with his stated support of term limits.

Whatever. Elaine Hays makes a pretty strong argument that Thornberry’s been a bit of a hypocrite on that issue.

This campaign just might illustrate as well the internal combat occurring with the GOP. Thornberry’s voting record is about as conservative as it gets. Right-leaning political watchdogs routinely rate him in the 90 percent range as they tally up lawmakers’ voting records. According to Hays and others, though, that’s not good enough.

This campaign could get mighty interesting, maybe even a bit testy if Hays starts to make inroads on Thornberry’s long-standing support among 13th District voters.

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Boehner showing some spine … finally

I’ll admit that Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner’s sudden display of steel is quite becoming.

It’s nice to have so many of your House colleagues on board with a plan so that you can say what you really think — at least I hope it’s what he really thinks — of the ultra-conservative interest groups that have taken your Republican caucus hostage for the past three years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/12/13/john-boehner-back-on-top/

The House approved this week by a 332-94 margin a budget deal brokered by a committee chaired by tea party darling Rep. Paul Ryan and his Democratic Senate colleague Patty Murray. A few hardliners held out against the deal, which heads off a government shutdown, strikes down much of the mandated budget cuts created by sequestration and cuts the deficit a little bit over the next decade.

One guy who I feared might vote “no,” my own congressman Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, actually voted in favor of the deal. His West Texas colleague, Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, stuck with his do-nothing approach to government and cast a negative vote. I am not surprised Neugebauer wouldn’t sign on; after all, he was the guy who scolded a National Park Service employee for doing her job — at Congress’s orders — when she refused to let tourists into the World War II Memorial in D.C. during the government shutdown in October.

Boehner now has taken the gloves off, more or less, in calling out folks like the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, who oppose any deal that results from compromising with Democrats. He says they’ve “lost credibility.”

I’m kind of hoping that Boehner, who I believe at heart is a decent guy with good-government instincts, finally is realizing that as the Man of the House he has the power to get things done and that he doesn’t need to buckle under to the pressure brought by factions within his party.

As the Washington Post notes, he has clawed his way back on top “for now.”

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Thornberry gets a challenge … from the right!

An acquaintance of mine read a blog I posted about state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, drawing an opponent in next March’s GOP primary.

She wants to know what I think of another race involving a Republican officeholder: U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon.

Well, here goes.

There can be no doubt that Elaine Hays, an Amarillo financial planner, thinks that Thornberry isn’t conservative enough. For the life of me I cannot understand that one.

Here is Hays’s “issues” page taken from her campaign website:

http://www.elainehaysforcongress.com/#!issues/cdbv

Hays is seeking to bounce Thornberry out of the office he’s held since 1995. I looked at the issues summaries posted and I am having trouble finding anything substantively different from what Thornberry has supported during his umpteen terms in Congress.

I must stipulate that I do not know Elaine Hays. She calls herself a “dedicated conservative,” a wife and mother. I am quite sure Thornberry sees himself as just as conservative as Hays and he’s a dedicated husband and father to boot.

Of the issues Hays has cited, I cannot fathom how her voting record would differ from the incumbent’s. Thornberry has voted for pro-life legislation; he’s opposed spending measures proposed by Democrats; he supports gun-owners rights; he’s called for more exploration of fossil fuels to achieve “energy independence”; he’s given the cold shoulder to immigration reform efforts and has spoken in favor of strengthening our borders.

These all are things Hays is saying.

What makes her different? I’m guessing she’s going to be even more forceful than Thornberry in pushing them. That’s about all I can figure.

That spells “tea party Republican” to me.

I didn’t think it was possible to run to the right of Mac Thornberry. I’m guessing Elaine Hays is going to prove me — and a lot of other observers — so very wrong.

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Sequestration bad for education

Texas’ congressional delegation has been scolded by a gang of top-level Texas higher education officials — representing private and public schools across the state.

Our congressmen and women need to get their knuckles rapped.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/03/texas-higher-ed-leaders-share-sequestration-concer/

Sequestration has educators concerned. They fear the mandatory budget cuts enacted by Congress and signed by President Obama will bring potentially irreparable damage to the state’s higher education network.

“Further reductions to the budgets of research agencies and other federal programs threaten critical national investments that grow our state’s economy, support Texas students, and spur the innovation and discovery required to meet future scientific, medical and economic needs,” the group wrote.

The full roster of signatures, by the way, does not include Texas Tech University Chancellor Kent Hance — a former member of Congress. The list, though, does include Texas Tech President Duane Nellis, who presumably had Hance’s blessing before putting his name on the letter.

I hope the letter and the concerns it expresses about higher education and research doesn’t fall on deaf ears in Washington. Listen up, Rep. Mac Thornberry; they’re talking to you, too.

However, as is too often the case, lawmakers from both parties listen a bit too intently to the fringe base elements within their party and fail to heed warnings from the unwashed masses out here in the heartland.

Sequestration, let’s remember, involve the mandatory budget cuts that kicked in at the beginning of the year. They were supposed to be last-resort measure that was enacted because lawmakers and the president didn’t believe Congress would allow the sequestration to occur. Silly them. They did allow it.

According to the Texas Tribune, “the group warned that sequestration cuts will stifle innovation, resulting in a reduction in gross domestic product, and that students — more than 850,000 are enrolled at Texas universities — will also suffer.”

Our elected leaders keep talking about ensuring a brighter future for their states and the nation. Is this the way to do it, by cutting the guts out of higher education? I think not.

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Even ‘our SOBs’ may need to get tossed

I’ve been thinking the past few days about my former congressman, the late Jack Brooks, a crusty Democrat who served Southeast Texas for more than four decades before getting beat in that landmark 1994 Republican sweep of Congress.

Jack used to refer to himself as Sweet Old Brooks, which translates into the initials SOB. He was proud of his irascible nature. In fact, Brooks embodied the saying of members of Congress that so-and-so “may be an SOB, but he’s our SOB.”

Some polling has come out in recent days that suggests American voters may be more likely than at any time in memory to throw out their congressman or woman in the next election, largely because of the trumped-up drama that took us once more to the brink of defaulting on our financial obligations.

The faux drama ended late Wednesday when the Senate leadership cobbled together a deal to reopen part of the federal government and lift the debt ceiling so we can pay our bills.

The consequences of defaulting are quite chilling to consider. The financial markets would have collapsed, taking millions of Americans’ retirement accounts into the crapper.

Still, with that prospect hanging over Americans’ heads, a number of senators and House members voted against the deal to prevent the default. Who voted no? Among them were Texas’s two GOP senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and my current Republican member of Congress, Mac Thornberry.

Thornberry said on TV tonight that he voted “no” because the deal didn’t solve any problems; it only postponed for a few months a situation that he thinks will repeat itself when the debt ceiling is set to expire once more.

I guess my question for the dissenters is this: How would you propose to solve all those problems at the last minute?

I’ll concede that the political system is badly broken. However, Thornberry, Cornyn and Cruz all are part of what ails it. They, of course, blame the other party — just as the other party blames them.

So, to fix the problem they proposed letting the government default on its debts, allowing the economy to crash, keeping federal employees furloughed and maintaining maximum dysfunction in our federal government. Reminds me of the old Vietnam War axiom of “destroying the village in order to save it.”

To think that some folks still wonder why Congress’s approval rating is in the sewer.

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Term limits for all … but not for himself?

I recently chided members of Congress who have kept getting paid while other federal employees are having to take unpaid leave — all because Congress’s actions have resulted in a partial shutdown of the federal government.

I included my own member of Congress, Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, as a target of chiding. He’s still getting paid.

My criticism drew some response from blogosphere friends, a couple of whom took the argument a bit farther, suggesting that Thornberry shouldn’t even be in office at this moment, given that he ran for the House of Representatives the first time in 1994 while supporting the Contract With America, which included — among many other items — term limits for members of Congress.

I feel the need to respond to that criticism on Thornberry’s behalf.

To be clear, I am not a huge fan politically of my congressman — although I like him personally and consider him to be smart and an articulate advocate for his philosophical view of government.

Thornberry never took the pledge to limit himself to the amount of time he would serve in Congress. He espoused his support for the Contract With America, which was the brainchild of the leader of the 1994 GOP revolution, Rep. Newt Gingrich, who parlayed his party’s capturing of Congress into the House speakership. Thornberry has voted every time in favor of the term limits measure every time it’s come to the floor of the House. But because the legislation comes in the form of a constitutional amendment, it requires two-thirds of the House to approve it; the measure has fallen short every time.

Still, Thornberry is on the record as supporting it.

One of my blogosphere pals questioned my giving Thornberry a pass, suggesting that he should be more faithful to the CWA simply by taking the pledge to step aside after three terms, which the term-limits plank in the CWA provided.

This issue has dogged Thornberry ever since he took office, although the size of his re-election victories in every contested election — and there haven’t been that many of them — suggests that most voters are giving him a pass on it, too.

I have continued to maintain that Thornberry played the issue smartly when he ran the first time. Yes, he might have split a few hairs by supporting the CWA while declining to limit himself to three terms in office. Others in that congressional class of ’94 took the pledge, only to renege on it years later. Thornberry saved himself the embarrassment of trying to explain why he might have second thoughts.

As for lawmakers — including Thornberry — getting paid while fed staffers are being denied their income, well, that’s another matter. That should provide enough of an embarrassment all by itself.