Members of the House of Representatives’ traditional conservative caucus voted this morning to make Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, their next leader, sparking recriminations about inappropriate influence from “establishment” leadership and open questions about whether the group had abandoned its conservative roots.
Flores, 60, beat the supposed front-runner, South Carolinian Mick Mulvaney, 47, and fellow Texan Louie Gohmert, 61, for the chairmanship of the Republican Study Committee. He officially will take over the 170-member RSC in January.
“It is my plan to lead the RSC as a member-driven organization which puts forth positions developed through member participation and dialogue consistent with the RSC’s mission and the U.S. Constitution,” Flores said in a statement. He continued:
It is important that we take full advantage of the RSC’s size, character and the passion of its members to advance our conservative agenda in order to restore America to the ‘shining city on a hill’ that Ronald Reagan envisioned.
Mulvaney had been the favorite of many conservatives and Gohmert arguably is the most conservative of the three candidates.
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Flores will succeed Rep. Rob Woodall of Georgia, who took over as interim chairman following the election of Louisiana’s Steve Scalise to the post of House majority whip.
The Republican Study Committee began in 1973 as a caucus designed to promote and advance a conservative agenda. In recent years, however, many conservatives have become concerned that the committee has drifted from its roots and instead grown to become more aligned with House leadership.
“It’s almost a wing of leadership,” one conservative lawmaker told The Daily Signal today. “We pick up huge numbers and still have a RSC that continues to drift.”
The lawmaker had hoped this year’s RSC election would yield a leader who was willing to challenge the status quo.
In an interview with The Daily Signal today, however, Flores said he disagreed with that premise. Instead, he argued that RSC is “just as conservative as it ever was,” and said the ideological makeup of the entire GOP conference has moved more to the right, narrowing the gap.
Flores said:
RSC still stands for all the great things that are in its mission statement. Those are the things we’re going to aspire to fulfill when I become chairman in January. I try to disabuse folks of the notion that for some reason the RSC is viewed to be less conservative. It’s pulled the House to the right.
Sources told The Daily Signal last week that leadership likely would throw their support behind Flores, which would help deliver him the votes needed to win the chairmanship.
Members gathered at 10:30 this morning to elect their new chairman. Gohmert received the lowest number of votes on the first ballot, and Mulvaney and Flores were forced into a runoff. Mulvaney then claimed 57 votes and Flores 84. That means 12 of the 153 members voting chose neither.
Leadership ‘twisted arms,’ Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, says. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
As he was leaving the meeting, Rep. Raúl Labrador of Idaho told waiting reporters that Flores likely won his 27-vote margin because of top Republicans’ involvement.
“It’s always leadership,” Labrador, a Mulvaney supporter, said. “[They] twisted arms.”
Flores, however, disputed Labrador’s statement and said he had no knowledge of leadership playing a role. He told The Daily Signal:
There are four members of the GOP House leadership that are members of the RSC. That’s only four of 153 people who voted. I think it’s pretty hard to say that they had any outsized influence in this.
Flores, who said Labrador’s comment was “unfortunate,” cited the effort he and his 33-member whip team put in by personally calling all of the voting RSC members. They were the ones “twisting arms,” he said. “Nobody else.”
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Other lawmakers, though, expressed skepticism about Flores’ role as RSC chairman.
Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan said he was not convinced the group will return to its conservative roots with Flores at the helm.
“I’m disappointed,” Amash said. “Our membership has gone up because people have been dissatisfied with the RSC over the past few years, and I wish Bill Flores all the best, but I’m not persuaded that the RSC is going to turn into the organization that conservatives expect it to be.”
The conservative lawmaker who spoke to The Daily Signal said the Republican Study Committee has become an “extension of leadership” and that the group has come to serve as a stopping point for GOP members making their way up the “establishment ladder.”
“They will be a group that gets together, ” the lawmaker said, “and when leadership says to jump, they will say ‘How high?’ ”
In an interview last week with The Daily Signal, Flores touted his ability to get along with anyone as an essential quality needed to lead the 170-member RSC:
If you look at my history in Congress in the last four years, you won’t see that I’ve done anything to embarrass the team or to burn bridges in the conference. You won’t find any volatile quotes out in the press where I’ve run the team down publicly.
Mulvaney and Gohmert, who has known his fellow Texan for more than 40 years, wished Flores well.
“My warmest congratulations go to Rep. Bill Flores,” Gohmert said. “May God bless the RSC and its new leader.”
Flores, a ninth-generation Texan, said he hopes to focus on job creation, economic growth, restoration of a strong national defense, promotion of traditional social values and balancing the budget as chairman of the RSC.
He touted his record of advocating a strong defense during his campaign for the chairmanship, saying he voted for all 38 defense bills deemed important to the conservative committee. Citing President Reagan, Flores told The Daily Signal that restoring national defense will be one of his foremost priorities:
Ronald Reagan believed in peace through strength, not through a piece of paper. The president is cutting deals but they don’t mean anything for the safety and security of the American family sitting around the dinner table.
Kelsey Harkness contributed to this report, which has been updated.
