Conservative leaders from over 100 groups released a memo on Tuesday that if “true change” is to come to Washington, then the next Speaker of the House must come from outside “current leadership.”
A memo from the Conservative Action Project (CAP) charged that if any true change were to come to Washington, DC, the next Speaker of the House must come from outside the “current leadership” of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
The leaders wrote in their memo:
As the House of Representatives considers candidates for new leadership, we urge Members of Congress to select a Speaker who is committed to fighting for the conservative policy promises included in the Republican platform and who will upend business as usual in Washington. Such a Speaker must come from outside the current leadership if true change in Washington is to be achieved and believed in by the conservative grassroots.
This memo would rule out their support for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as well as House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA).
The only other Republican currently running for Speaker of the House is House Freedom Caucus co-founder Jim Jordan (R-OH), who has widespread support among the conservative and populist grassroots.
Conservatives leaders across the spectrum backed the memo on Tuesday, including:
- Adam Brandon, FreedomWorks President
- Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
- Jenny Beth Martin, Tea Party Patriots President
- David Bozell, president of ForAmerica
- Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund
- Edwin Meese, former Attorney General for President Ronald Reagan
- Alfred Regnery, chairman of the Conservative Action Project
The conservatives chastised the current Republican leadership for “skyrocketing spending, a lackluster agenda, and a failure to keep promises, such as repealing Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood and securing the border.”
Congressman Jordan announced in July that he plans to run for Speaker of the House should Republicans maintain control of the House after the November midterm elections. In a letter to his Republican colleagues, Jordan promised that with himself as Speaker, Republicans, can:
- “Actually repeal Obamacare.”
- Pass “across-the-board” welfare reform that requires able-bodied adults to work to receive benefits.
- Build a wall on America’s southern border, reform our broken immigration system, and enact a merit-based immigration system.
- Make the individual tax cuts permanent.
- End taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.
- Cut spending to ensure that “we never see $1 trillion deficits.”
FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon told Breitbart News in an interview in July that if Jordan were to become the next Speaker, he would play a “huge part” in draining the swamp.
Jordan also chastised large social media companies such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook in an interview with Breitbart News last week, suggesting that these companies cannot claim to be an open platform and censor conservative and alternative viewpoints at the same time.
Jordan charged:
Well, they are private companies, they can run your company the way you want. At the same time, you can’t put yourself out there as an open platform where all ideas, conservative and liberal, are welcome. You can’t say that and then not actually have that happen. So if you’re a private company and you want to censor certain types of speech, then you can do that. But then you’re much more of a newspaper than an open platform.
“The new Speaker must also have the ability to stand up to a Senate unwilling to do its work, and be able to work with all members of the GOP conference and the White House while constructively and publicly opposing House Democrats in the public battle for the hearts and minds of all Americans,” the CAP memo added.
“We urge Republican Members to select a leader who will break the status quo, and lead the People’s House toward conservative policy ends,” the letter concludes.