Tag Archives: 13th Congressional District

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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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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.