WASHINGTON — A group of two dozen House Republicans, led by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., officially launched the congressional Tea Party Caucus on Wednesday, strongly defending the grassroots conservative movement as a positive force in American politics and repeatedly insisting it does not have racist motives.
Many congressional Republicans have long associated themselves with the Tea Party activists who emerged during last year’s stimulus and health care debates and sharply oppose President Barack Obama’s agenda, but Bachmann’s move to create this caucus formalizes their relationship with the GOP.
Bachmann and her allies say the caucus will invite activists to Capitol Hill, solicit their ideas and perhaps turn those ideas into policies.
Members did not say what impact the caucus might have. Most Republicans in Congress already oppose most legislation the Tea Party dislikes, reducing the need for a caucus to push the GOP to the right. And House Republicans already have a group of its more conservative members called the Republican Study Committee.
The Tea Party Caucus’ creation creates a choice for some Republicans who want to capture the energy of the Tea Party but not defend its more controversial elements.
“We decided to form a Tea Party Caucus for one very important reason, to listen to the concerns of the Tea Party,” Bachmann said. “. . . I am not the head of the Tea Party, nor are any of these members of Congress. The people are head of the Tea Party.”
Bachmann, long the informal leader of the Tea Party movement in Congress as a popular speaker at movement rallies during the health care debate, further established that role by founding the caucus. She filled out the paperwork to create it last week and then led Wednesday’s meeting, which included caucus members and two dozen activists, most from the Washington area.
The meeting was closed to reporters, as are most congressional caucuses. At the news conference afterward, members of Congress aggressively tried to show the diversity of the movement, at a time when it is battling accusations of racism. After Bachmann spoke, the next four speakers were all activists who had come to Capitol Hill for the event. None was white.
“I am here because we want to tell America we are not terrorists, we are not racists, we are Americans who care about our country and the future and our grandchildren,” said Danielle Hollars, an African-American woman from Virginia.
Reversal.
