Conservative lawmakers who believe that Ohio Republican John Boehner has not been strident enough as House speaker in opposing President Barack Obama's policies went into Tuesday's speakership vote fragmented and distrustful of each other, it emerges from a
statement issued by South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney.
Mulvaney opposed Boehner two years ago by voting for no one, according to
The Washington Post.
In November 2014, he lost a race for the chairmanship of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative lobby within the Republican conference. First elected to Congress in 2010 with tea party backing, Mulvaney supported a
"cut, cap, and balance" fiscal approach that Boehner himself also backed in 2011.
Mulvaney says that Boehner is probably partly to blame for what ails politics in Washington.
Two years ago colleagues lied to him by promising they would oppose Boehner's re-election and in the end didn't, Mulvaney said in his statement. This time, he simply did not trust the group claiming to oppose the speaker's re-election.
"And you cannot go into this kind of fight with people you do not trust," he wrote.
He said that he realized early on that there was no way Boehner was going to be ousted as speaker.
All the same, Boehner suffered the "
biggest revolt against a House speaker in more than 150 years," according to the Post.
Had conservatives genuinely planned to oust Boehner, they should have tried within the
Republican conference in November. "THAT was the time to fight. But not a single person ran against Boehner. Not one," Mulvaney wrote.
Regarding two of those who stood against Boehner, Mulvaney characterized Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert as not being speaker's material. He said Florida's Daniel Webster, whose "lifetime Heritage Action score" of 60 percent compared unfavorably to his own 91 percent, was not going to be the sought after "savior of the conservative movement."
"The truth is, there was no conservative who could beat John Boehner. Period."
Under these circumstances, trying to topple the Speaker only leaves conservatives marginalized, Mulvaney said.
As "one of the most conservative" members of Congress," he ridiculed the notion that he had "sold out" by backing Boehner.