WASHINGTON — House Republicans began the new Congress with old divisions on display Wednesday and bitter fallout from a failed rebellion against Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner took swift action against two of the dissenters, knocking Reps. Daniel Webster and Richard Nugent of Florida from the key House Rules Committee.
But some of his allies demanded more, furious at the two dozen lawmakers who opposed the Ohioan in the speaker vote Tuesday. In the process, the GOP is starting the year with infighting instead of a unified challenge to President Barack Obama.
“All of us think that they should have retribution,” said Boehner loyalist Devin Nunes of California of the rebels. “They put the conservative agenda at risk with their wanting to be on television and radio.”
The dissidents warned of payback if Boehner takes further steps against them.
“There’s going to be a fight,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, when asked what would happen if leaders retaliated against lawmakers who opposed Boehner’s re-election. “And it’s going to be real hard to bring the party together like they say they want to do.”
The dispute proved a distraction as Congress convened under full GOP control for the first time in eight years. Republicans are pursuing an ambitious agenda, including early votes on bills to advance the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline, change the definition of full-time work under Obama’s health law, and delay a key provision of a 2010 financial regulation law. The White House has said Obama would veto all three measures.
In one of its first acts, the House passed legislation Wednesday to renew the federal program that props up the private market for insurance against terrorist attacks.
And in the Senate, now under GOP control, new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky pledged to cooperate with Obama where possible, on such issues as trade and tax reform, but to challenge him elsewhere.
“The American people elected divided government, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want us to accomplish anything,” McConnell said.
In the House, the divisions that mattered were within the GOP itself.
Republicans began the day after Boehner’s election in a closed-door meeting where several lawmakers stood up to demand punishment for the speaker’s opponents. Others counseled caution, urging Boehner not to crack down and instead move forward and focus on policy issues.
“I’d rather be magnanimous in victory,” said Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina.
For lawmakers less willing to move on, their frustration over the 25 dissenters — a historically high total for a speaker’s race — was about more than the failed attempt to take down Boehner. Disorganized and haphazard, the rebels never coalesced around an alternate candidate, instead spreading their votes among nine people, some of whom got just one or two votes.
