Speaker Boehner Should "Take Revenge" on Those Who Voted Against Him

There is a Politico article from Tuesday where some of the 25 Republicans who voted against Boehner for Speaker are being retaliated against. Two leaders of the attempted coup were removed from the Rules Committee, and the article recalls a story where a Kansas Republican was removed from the Agriculture Committee for his misbehavior.

Here are some key quotes:

“I am already hearing from my colleagues, and myself, about retaliation against those who voted their conscience, their constituents, their principles, to change the status quo,” Huelskamp said. “My colleagues fully expect that. That’s what they expect out of this leadership team.”

and

Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King, who voted against Boehner, said, “If you cannot vote your conscience … then it’s clearly a dysfunctional system here.”

The fact of the matter, at least according to people like Cox and McCubbins and John Aldrich, is that party discipline is crucial to maintaining any advantage tied to holding majority power in the House. Having the leader of your party undermined in such a way, the argument goes, hurts all Republicans by making the party look disorganized, which in turn harms the party “brand” during elections. Congressional party leaders have a responsibility to put down “issues of conscience” when doing so protects the rest of the party. Speaker Boehner is the leader of 246 Republicans in Congress. It’s his primary responsibility, as party leader, to do right by all of them — and punishing the 25 who sought to undermine the rest of the party was the right thing to do by the entire Republican caucus.