By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Monday, November 2, US Representative Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) commented in an address to constituents about the changes in House Leadership and how he hopes those changes in people will lead to changes in how well Congress works.
Congressman Aderholt wrote, “On October 29, 2015, the House elected Rep. Paul Ryan to serve as its new Speaker of the House; this election marks, in Speaker Ryan’s own words, a new beginning and a clean slate.
The Speaker has a very difficult job, but it is my hope that the new leadership will not “manage by crisis,” and that instead, it will work proactively to move legislation through the committee process well before its deadline. Too often legislation was unveiled to members just days before an important deadline, and sometimes its details negotiated behind closed doors. The best legislation is legislation that has been fully vetted through an open and very public process.”
Rep. Aderholt continued, “Additionally, I hope that new leadership can work with the Senate to ensure that conservative common sense bills passed by the House don’t just die when they go to the Senate. Recently, even when the House has done the work to pass good conservative bills, over in the Senate, the mere threat of a filibuster has been blocking them from coming to the floor. If a filibuster threat is fulfilled, the Senate would have to be present during all hours of the filibuster—no matter how long it runs. Literally around the clock. Therefore, the Senate is going to have to start working a little better in order to enact conservative change.”
Growing discontent with the management style of former Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) ultimately led to his retirement as Speaker and as a member of Congress. The heir apparent, House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-Virginia), was rejected by conservative GOP voters in his own district in 2014. The House GOP Caucus then chose Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) to be majority leader. His bid to replace Boehner as Speaker failed due to an inability to get the necessary votes after some controversial comments to the press and affair allegations surfaced. 2012 GOP Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) was then selected as the next Speaker of the House by the House Republican Caucus on Wednesday. The full House made Ryan the newest Speaker on Thursday, October 29.
Ryan, along with Boehner, Cantor, and McCarthy, has long been a proponent of immigration reform; but promised House conservatives that there would be no vote on immigration while President Barack Obama is the President of the United States and that no immigration reform bill would ever be voted on that was not supported by the majority of the House Republican Caucus.
Congressman Robert Aderholt represents Alabama’s Fourth Congressional District. He sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and is Chairman of the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee.
