Last Friday marked the first major denial of Trump’s legislative agenda when moderate and conservative Republicans refused to support the American Health Care Act. This blow to President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-WI, was largely thanks to Texas members of the House Freedom Caucus refusing to support the bill. Their reason? It did not make proper haste in repealing the Affordable Care Act. While it’s true that the bill also faced opposition from moderate Republicans, the refusal of these Texans to engage with the bill continues to paint a portrait of a divided Republican party — one that has been being divided since they gave the boot to John Boehner in 2015.
The Texan representatives we’re looking at here are Joe Barton, Louie Gohmert, Randy Weber and until this morning, Ted Poe. I’ll be direct: These U.S. representatives deserve recognition for their refusal to buckle to pressure from Trump on supporting the disastrous AHCA. Whether because it wasn’t far enough right for them, or because the bill would have taken insurance away from 250,000 of their constituents and was supported by just 39.5 percent of their districts, they made a good call on this one. At the very least, these members acknowledged that their partisanship is stronger than their party’s leadership. At the most, they voted against their party’s interests to vote in favor of the country’s.
I like to think these representatives acted in their electoral self-interest, as each one of the above districts shifted away from their Republican candidate from 2014 to 2016. This could be a sign of a possible “blue wave” in Texas — though it is still hard to believe that these representatives pay that much attention to the electoral trends in their districts. I digress.
Let me be clear: Texans’ support of the House Freedom Caucus ought not to underplay their complete disregard for factual policymaking — Representative Gohmert once claimed that terrorists wanted to come to America to have “terror babies” — in exchange for electoral advantages. Instead, whatever applause we award them, however temporary that kudos may be, ought to be for their refusal to blindly follow the agenda of Ryan and Trump.
Perhaps it will be this disrespect of Trump’s authority — and we know how highly he regards loyalty — that further divides the Republican Party between loyal partisans and the stalwart ideologues of the HFC. The Texans above, in particular, appear to have their own loyalties in mind. Opponents of Trump and supporters of good health care policy can rejoice that Congress has representatives that don’t enact bad change for the sake of passing bills — that includes both the HFC and those moderates mentioned above.
In the future, we may continue to question the consequences of these hyper-conservative representatives that show no deference to the executive branch. At least for now, we should support any elected official who stands by their principles and does not blindly follow their party.
Morris is a government, history and computer science junior from Port Aransas. He is a senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @gelliottmorris.
