Speaker John Boehner faces even more problems keeping his Republican caucus together.
House Republican leadership is far right. The Republican Study Committee exists to pressure House Republican leadership from the far, far right. Now, there's a new caucus forming to apply pressure from the right of the Republican Study Committee. Its name, naturally, is the House Freedom Caucus, in the grand tradition of Republicans seeking to free the population from health care, safe bridges and functioning public transit, and all those other government services.
The Freedom Caucus has nine founding members: Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan, Ron DeSantis of Florida, John Fleming of Louisiana, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Raúl Labrador of Idaho, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, and Matt Salmon of Arizona. While they hope to grow their membership somewhat, the plan is for this to be a very exclusive club. Like many exclusive clubs, this one has a solid chance of affecting U.S. policy well beyond its numbers:
The Freedom Caucus will be an invite-only group, and members involved with the planning said they will invite around 30 lawmakers to join. If the caucus can boast a 29-person membership, it would be in a position to block Republican legislation that members don’t support.
And it would never occur to Republicans to marginalize—rather than keep moving toward—their fringe.