It’s time senior leadership pays attention to the young guns in the House. As Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal writes:
Many House Republicans—particularly the younger freshmen and sophomore members who now make up a stunning 46% of the caucus—don’t much care what conventional wisdom says they should do. They are happy to rock the boat.
Two weeks ago, conventional wisdom said, as the majority party, House Republicans simply had to muster the votes needed to pass a farm bill despite misgivings about its size and shape. Instead, 62 House Republicans rebelled and voted against it because of its cost, and the bill failed.
Now, conventional wisdom says the national Republican Party’s imperative to build bridges to Hispanic voters, as well as business-community support, means House Republicans must pass a comprehensive immigration bill. Yet that simply isn’t the way the world looks to many House Republicans.
They come from districts where the concerns of the national party don’t matter much, and the concerns of liberals who want a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants matter even less.
In other words, they come from very red districts, many of which have gotten more red since the redistricting that followed the 2010 Census.
