Grassroots voters in 2014 apparently foiled a secret plan by House Speaker John Boehner to give his top job to the party’s House Majority Leader, Rep. Eric Cantor, who is a close ally of the GOP’s establishment wing.
The plan suddenly collapsed last June after Cantor’s constituents in Virginia’s 7th district rejected him in favor of his primary challenger, economics professor Dave Brat. Brat won by blasting Cantor for mimicking Senator Marco Rubio’s effort to pass the mass-amnesty bill that would further raise high immigration levels.
“The Speaker’s plan was to serve only through the end of last year. Leader Cantor’s loss in his primary changed that calculation,” said a Boehner aide, according to The Huffington Post.
The Huffington Post explains that had Cantor not lost his primary, Boehner would have stepped aside to allow Cantor to fill his place:
“Cantor’s 2014 primary loss was not just a remarkable political turn of events, but a complete twist of history. The Virginia Republican, who had served as second in command in the Republican-controlled House, was stunned in his primary election campaign and decided to leave Congress altogether before his term was up. With no heir apparent, Boehner decided to stick around. But the clear implication from Boehner’s aide was that the original plan had been to usher Cantor into the speaker’s role at the turn of the year.”
That’s not a on-the-record, direct confirmation of the plot — but it matches the public evidence.
Eric Cantor worked tirelessly to pass Marco Rubio’s immigration plan in the House, and was responsible for co-authoring the House Republican immigration principles released last year. Brat slammed Cantor relentlessly for his support of Rubio’s unpopular plan to grant amnesty illegal alien minors. Immigration enforcement experts have explained that such a policy would “extend birthright citizenship in the future to include the foreign citizens of other countries” and represents a promise of “perpetual amnesty.”
Indeed, government reports have documented the ‘DREAM’ amnesty agenda promoted by Rubio and Barack Obama played a substantial role in sparking the surge of 100,000 Latin American youths across the southern border since 2011.
Brat also slammed Cantor for being beholden to the Chamber of Commerce and Silicon Valley billionaires who backed the Rubio-Schumer immigration plan.
Brat told voters:
“There is no member of Congress more beholden to global corporate interests than Eric Cantor. He has spoken for hours and hours about immigration yet never once spoken one word – one word – about protecting unemployed American citizens… about protecting the jobs of college students, single mothers, and working families. He doesn’t work for you. He works for larger corporations seeking a never-ending supply of low-wage foreign workers. He even praised the Chamber of Commerce guest worker proposal that drives down American wages and imports millions of guest workers to take their jobs.”
Had Eric Cantor won his primary, many believe that Boehner would have brought Rubio’s amnesty plan up for a vote in the House. If he had, he would have passed the large-scale amnesty, tripled immigration up to 33 million over one decade, and also increased the number of low-wage foreign workers desired by business groups and Republican donors.