PHOTO: Former US Speaker of House John Boehner

John Thompson of the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin writes for EA:

After Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections, the incoming Speaker of the House, John Boehner, offered a conservative and uncompromising preview of his approach: “We’re going to do everything — and I mean everything—we can do to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”

By any reasonable measure, Boehner was true to his word. He oversaw the most conservative period in the history of the House since the early 20th century and, in the process, greatly complicated the agenda of President Barack Obama.

Nonetheless, Boehner announced his resignation in a move that was forced upon him by conservatives unhappy with his leadership. News of his departure has been celebrated by the base of the party and most of the Republicans running for President. When Senator and Presidential candidate Marco Rubio announced Boehner’s exit at the Values Voters Summit, the crowd applauded thunderously.

The truth is that while many political scientists considered Boehner to be an effective Speaker, many in his party did not.

Tactics, Not Ideology

Boehner was an effective manager of the House, especially considering the constraints he faced, even if many liberals despised his policy positions. He forced Obama to make many concessions and, as several analysts have noted, he played an influential role in shrinking the size of the Federal Government, a key Republican goal.

Boehner was, by any measure, very conservative — after all, he was a key lieutenant of Newt Gingrich in the formulation of the Contract with America and the retaking of the House by Republicans in 1994. However, he suffered from one crucial shortcoming in the eyes of many conservatives: he was willing, when necessity dictated, to compromise with the President and Democrats.

Boehner repeatedly defied a majority of his caucus and ignored the so-called Hastert Rule, which dictates that the Speaker will not allow a floor vote on a bill unless it enjoys the support of a majority of his caucus. He did this in 2013 with legislation to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, to approve disaster recovery funds in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling; in 2014 with the reauthorisation of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and again over the debt ceiling; and in 2015 for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

Boehner ignored the Hastert Rule in these instances, and others, for a very good reason: legislation that passed on the strength of Democratic votes was necessary for the functioning of the Federal Government. The Speaker was not motivated by altruism; instead, he understood that Republicans in the House would likely be blamed for any fallout caused by the gridlock.

The key divide between Republicans over Boehner’s speakership was not ideological; it was tactical. The Speaker and those who sought his ouster did not disagree on policy, they disagreed on methods: he was willing to accept incremental progress on conservative priorities whereas his opponents sought nothing less than total and immediate victory.

The Problem of Conservative Political Culture

From the perspective of political scientists, Boehner’s approach was sensible. It yielded the best results that his party could expect, given the division of power in American political institutions and the Democratic control of the White House. For Republicans, however, all of this seems to be beside the point: by the end of his tenure Boehner had come to symbolize for many Republicans the lack of fighting spirit that was limiting their party.

Boehner’s opponents in the House were strong enough to force him to resign — and they have already succeeded in forcing his presumptive successor, Kevin McCarthy, to withdraw from contention — but they will be unable to place one of their own in the Speakership. The Speaker’s replacement will face the same challenge that Boehner faced, at least until Obama leaves the White House and if he is not succeeded by Hillary Clinton in 2017. Any compromise will be seen as selling out, but the President can veto Republican legislation and Democrats have enough votes on almost every issue to prevent a Congressional override.

Everyone recognizes this fact, and yet many conservatives are celebrating Boehner’s ouster as a major victory. What they think they can accomplish with that victory is less clear. As Jonathan Bernstein has observed, it is difficult to discern a coherent Republican policy platform. This contrasts sharply with the House Republican Contract with America in 1994 that, regardless of its merits, offered a specific and comprehensive policy platform around which conservatives could rally.

The unwillingness to compromise to advance their agenda seems strange for a party that makes such a point of highlighting its fealty to the Constitution and the intentions of the Framers, but it makes more sense when one understands the worldview of conservatives in America.

As Stan Greenberg, James Carville, and Erica Seifert discovered in a series of focus groups in 2013, most conservatives are convinced that the country is rapidly changing for the worse — America’s increasingly multi-racial electorate, the election of the first African-American President, and passage of the Affordable Care Act have all played a role in enhancing this sense of undesirable evolution — and that the leaders of the Republican Party have not been nearly aggressive enough in fighting to halt and/or reverse this process. Republican policymakers across the country have acted, sometimes in aggressive and even constitutionally questionable ways, to prevent the changes they oppose — for instance, by introducing laws that discourage voting by groups that tend to support the Democratic Party — but such efforts have failed to prevent some notable policy successes for Democrats under Obama.

Why The Speaker Sang as He Resigned

Given the nature of contemporary conservative political culture, the difficulty that Boehner faced is not an anomaly. Instead, his successor — and anyone who seeks to maintain a leadership role in the Republican Party — will be faced with the same unenviable choice. The next Speaker could attempt to advance conservative policy priorities within the framework of a system that requires compromise and face constant challenges to his or her leadership. Alternatively, he/she could adopt a stance of unrelenting opposition to Democratic priorities, earning the approbation of many conservatives but also grinding the Federal Government to a halt and, in the process, causing severe damage to the Republican brand at the national level.

There is a reason that Boehner sang “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” at the conference announcing his resignation: he was relieved to be leaving a job in which it is impossible to succeed.

Despite the celebrations in conservative circles that accompanied his departure, Republicans are unlikely to share in Boehner’s sense of relief for long. Instead of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”, they will be singing a much less cheerful tune.