Tag Archives: Randy Neugebauer

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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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Ethics group takes aim at Neugebauer

You have to love an ethics watchdog group that challenges a blowhard politician for chastising a public service employee who simply was doing her job — as ordered by the very same blowhard politician.

At least I do.

http://www.ibtimes.com/randy-neugebauer-crew-wants-investigation-texas-gop-congressman-verbal-attack-us-park-ranger-video

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed an ethics complaint against West Texas Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock who earlier this week scolded a national park ranger for keeping folks out of the World War II Veterans Memorial in Washington. She was acting on orders because of the partial government shutdown that Neugebauer voted to enact.

He confronted the ranger and told her she should be “ashamed” for refusing to let people into the memorial. Neugebauer was trying to score points because Honor Flight attendees were coming from Texas to tour the WWII memorial.

“My beef wasn’t with the park ranger,” the congressman told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on Friday. “My beef is with the Park Service and with the administration.”

OK, fine. Why, then, did he believe it was necessary to scold the park ranger in public, have it recorded on video and then distributed around the world?

“Obviously, the Park Police employee had no role whatsoever in the decision to shut down the federal government,” CREW executive director Melanie Sloan wrote in her complaint letter. “Instead, as is well recognized, the shutdown was forced by members of the House of Representatives, including Rep. Neugebauer, who have refused to vote for a resolution to fund government operations unless the president acquiesces to an ever-changing series of demands, the most recent of which was a delay in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.”

Go get ‘im, CREW.

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‘Politicization’ of vets memorials continues

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is right when he urges all parties to avoid politicizing veterans memorials while part of the federal government remains shut down.

He talks a good game, but he and his colleagues play something quite different.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/10/john-cornyn-dont-politicize-veterans-memorials/

Cornyn made his statements in front of the World War II Memorial. Then came Sen. Ted Cruz, Cornyn’s fellow Texas Republican, to welcome Honor Flight veterans from Texas to the memorial. What did Cruz do? He blamed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the mess that has engulfed Washington.

Members of the House and Senate, by their presence at these memorials, in effect politicize their very existence and make pawns out of the veterans who come to visit them.

The National Park Service that runs these memorials has been forced to shut down because Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on a simple spending measure to fund their operation. Just the other day a West Texas congressional Republican, Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock, put on a disgraceful display of grandstanding by upbraiding a park ranger for doing her job, which was to keep people from entering one of these veterans memorials.

Was he politicizing the memorial? Ummm, yes.

I believe Sen. Cornyn and other members of both congressional chambers — from both political parties — should concentrate on settling this issue and avoid public displays that, by definition, lead to the politicization of solemn memorials meant to honor brave Americans who fought and died in defense of this country.

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Outburst makes me miss Larry Combest

Randy Neugebauer’s disgraceful outburst against a U.S. National Park Service employee has brought unflattering comparisons between the West Texas congressman and the man who preceded him in that office.

Neugebauer, a Lubbock Republican, confronted a park ranger this week as she was seeking to enforce a rule banning visitors from entering an open-air exhibit on the Washington D.C. Mall. The exhibit was the World War II veterans memorial and Neugebauer, whose votes in the House of Representatives contributed to the partial government shutdown now in its fourth day, upbraided the ranger for refusing to let people in. “You should be ashamed,” he told the ranger. The exchange was caught on video and has gone viral.

It was an idiotic example of what’s transpiring now in D.C. The people responsible for this mess are now becoming the chief grandstanders.

I thought of Republican Larry Combest, who represented the same 19th Congressional District from 1985 until 2002, when he resigned unexpectedly to return to private life.

Combest came from a different era. He is just as conservative as Neugebauer but he saw up close the good side of divided government. Combest once served on the late Sen. John Tower’s staff and he would tell me of the times Tower would argue ferociously with the likes of the late Sen. Hubert Humphrey, who was just as liberal as Tower was conservative. Tower and Humphrey would debate on the Senate floor and then walk out arm in arm after the session was gaveled to a close. The men were foes — never enemies — while they were on the clock, but friends when time expired.

Combest understood that. His best friend in the House was a Democrat, Charlie Stenholm of Abilene, with whom he served on the Agriculture Committee. Stenholm lost his congressional seat in 2004; his district was paired with Neugebauer’s district. The GOP-led Texas Legislature made sure Neugebauer would win by stacking the new district with true-blue Republican voters.

I’ve long wondered how Combest voted in that election.

I got to know Combest pretty well over many years. For a time, from the early 1990s until 2001, his congressional district included the Randall County portion of Amarillo. Thus, he was a frequent visitor to the newspaper where I worked. I don’t know Neugebauer; I know only of him. What I witnessed this week was thoroughly disagreeable.

I have tried in the past day or so to imagine Larry Combest confronting that park ranger. The image just doesn’t register. Gentlemen know better than to make spectacles of themselves.

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West Texas lawmaker shames himself

A West Texas member of Congress has done something I didn’t think was possible. He has shamed himself while seeking to shame another government employee.

U.S Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, confronted a U.S. Parks Department employee today and told her she should be ashamed of herself for enforcing a rule handed down by Neugebauer and his congressional colleagues.

http://gawker.com/gop-congressman-makes-park-ranger-apologize-for-shutdow-1440577868

This demonstration of unbridled arrogance illustrates graphically the idiocy of what’s happening at this very moment in Washington, D.C.

Neugebauer, who represents the sprawling 19th District of West Texas, has been in Congress for a little while. He succeeded Larry Combest in the House after Combest resigned suddenly in early 2003. Neugebauer then sought a full term in a newly redrawn district against another West Texas stalwart, conservative Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Stenholm. Neugebauer won, thanks to the way the newly configured district was redrawn to favor the Republican.

Now he’s seeking to become a tea party darling. He’s been voting against funds for the Affordable Care Act and demands that it be repealed. His actions, along with many in the House, have helped create the situation that has brought us the government shutdown.

The Park Service is one of the agencies that’s been closed. The shutdown has forced park rangers to enforce a rule that prevents tourists from enjoying the parks.

And so Neugebauer confronts a park ranger and tells her she should be ashamed because she was doing the job she was ordered to do?

He has shamed himself.