Tag Archives: Club for Growth

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Club for Growth channels Empower Texans

I no longer live in the 13th Congressional District of Texas, but I remain interested in the political dynamics of that sprawling region of the state.

The upcoming Republican Party primary runoff election is the latest event to trigger my interest. Retired Navy Admiral/Dr. Ronny Jackson is running against Josh Winegarner for the congressional seat being vacated by longtime GOP Rep. Mac Thornberry.

Winegarner finished first during the primary in a huge field of GOP contenders, but didn’t get enough votes to win the nomination outright; so he’s facing the second place finisher, Jackson.

This is getting interesting. Jackson has received the endorsement of a group called Club for Growth, which an Amarillo political action committee, Amarillo Matters, describes as a group that “raises and spends a lot of money on political races, mostly pitting Republicans against other Republican candidates.”

They’re outsiders, according to Amarillo Matters. Club for Growth has no discernible interest in the 13th Congressional District, except to help elect candidates who hue to its right-wing national agenda. Amarillo Matters compares this outfit to Empower Texans, an Austin-based right-wing advocacy group that does the same thing. Empower Texans, in 2018, sought to unseat state Sen. Kel Seliger and state Rep. Four Price, both of Amarillo … but got its melon thumped by voters in Seliger’s Senate district and Price’s House district.

Amarillo Matters is backing Winegarner, contending that their guy is a locally grown candidate who knows the district. Jackson is a carpetbagger, having never lived within the 13th District.

Amarillo Matters writes: You might remember the name Chris Ekstrom. He’s a multi-millionaire from Dallas who spent more than $1 million trying to buy our congressional seat in the primary election. He was one of fourteen candidates that Winegarner beat by steep margins in March. In that election, Ekstrom received an endorsement from a nation-wide organization named Club for Growth. 

So now this outfit is at it again. It seeks to meddle where it has no real interest or concern. Don’t misunderstand me on this point: I don’t really care whether Winegarner gets the GOP nod. He’s a right-winger, too, and not precisely my kinda congressman. At least, though, he knows the district — unlike the retired naval officer and physician who once treated Presidents Obama and Trump.

Amarillo Matters has done a good job of alerting voters of the 13th Congressional District about what’s going on … supposedly in their name. Stay alert, my former neighbors.

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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.”