As the August recess approached, Boehner’s resolve stiffened. Nothing, not a visit from Ryan or a call from his friend Jeb Bush, could convince him otherwise. The timing wasn’t right, Boehner told them. They would revisit immigration in 2014, when things cooled down.
King took a victory lap. Referring to the undocumented minors who remained in limbo, he told Newsmax, “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another one hundred out there who weigh 130 pounds, and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”14 King lauded Boehner for his rejection of the Senate bill—the sort of praise that convinced the Speaker he’d made a big mistake.
Looking back, Boehner says that not solving immigration is his second-biggest regret after the failed Grand Bargain. He blames Obama for “setting the field on fire.” But it was the inaction of the House of Representatives—not voting on the Senate bill, not bringing up any conservative alternative, not doing anything of substance to address the issue—that enabled the continued demagoguing of immigration and of immigrants. Ultimately, Boehner’s quandary boiled down to a choice between protecting his right flank and doing what he thought was best for the country. He chose the former.
It wouldn’t be the last time.
RIGHT AROUND THE MOMENT IMMIGRATION REFORM DIED, SO, TOO, DID one of the longest-standing alliances on Capitol Hill.
Since their inception in 1973, the Heritage Foundation and the Republican Study Committee had worked in tandem. Heritage would supply conservative lawmakers with policy blueprints; conservative lawmakers would keynote Heritage dinners. Heritage would pay for conservative lawmakers to go on retreats; conservative lawmakers would hawk Heritage materials back home and encourage their constituents to donate. For decades, this codependent relationship revolved around the presence of Heritage staffers at the RSC’s weekly meeting in the Capitol basement.
But with the creation of Heritage Action in 2010, that bond had begun to fray. Whatever promises of legal separation between the think tank and its lobbying arm proved insincere; the wall crumbled almost immediately and came crashing down entirely once DeMint became president. In raising large sums of money for his Senate Conservatives Fund by picking on “moderate” Republicans, many of whom had solidly conservative voting records, DeMint had created a model for the organization he now led. Heritage Action was increasingly belligerent, baiting Republicans into fights they could not win and then monetizing their failures with fund-raising emails decrying the impotence of the GOP.
The tension boiled over after a June vote on the Farm Bill, a monster piece of annual must-pass legislation that governed both agricultural subsidies and food stamp provisions. Heritage Action argued, as did many conservative Republicans, that the policies should be split into separate bills. It was a reasonable request and a smart fight for Republicans to pick. They had leverage because of the bill’s weight; furthermore, legislating these two items together made sense only in Washington, a town that thrives on punting tough decisions and regularly resolves conflicts by larding up legislation with goodies to satisfy both parties.
But Boehner and his team ignored the conservatives, bringing the bill up for a vote that failed in embarrassing fashion. As they scrambled to save face, Scalise promised the party leadership that splitting the farm policy and food stamps into separate bills would deliver the votes. They listened, and he was proved right: Of the 62 Republicans who voted against the first iteration, 48 came around to support the second. (“Incredibly,” the Kansas City Star reported, “Rep. Tim Huelskamp of KS-01—one of the most farm-centered districts in the United States—was one of just 12 GOP votes against the measure.”)
The revised bill passed the House, and conservatives celebrated a major victory. There was just one problem: Heritage Action, which had issued a “key-vote” alert threatening punishment for any members supporting the first bill, had key-voted against the second bill as well. This, despite House leaders doing exactly what the group, and its congressional allies, had called for. Heritage officials explained that now their opposition owed to sugar subsidies in the farm-only bill. The goalposts had moved, and the Republican locker room went berserk.
Mick Mulvaney, the hot-tempered South Carolinian, contacted the Wall Street Journal about placing an op-ed in the newspaper. He drafted a memo hammering Heritage Action as a bloodsucking enterprise and found a half-dozen willing co-authors. But then, Mulvaney decided to scrap the project. It turned out that his friend Scalise, the RSC chairman, had a different sort of