Everyone Agrees-- The Republican Committee Chairs Really Suck

Lucky for them Steve Israel gives all GOP committee chairs free passes to reelection-- and even luckier, Nancy Pelosi just reappointed Israel to head the DCCC next cycle, despite the abject failure he just presided over in "trying" to win back the House. Earlier today we were complaining because the GOP committee chairs are all white, all male, all corporate whores. Conservatives are fine with the lack of diversity but they're also uncomfortable with what a bunch of corrupt corporate whores Boehner managed to come up with for his A-Team.

Republicans don't care that the Senate, run by the Democrats, will have 6 committee chairwomen while the Republican House has none, one less than this year, because they refused to keep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (their one chairwoman) on-- although they sure did re-up a lot of males, from Ryan, both Rogers and McKeon to Kline, Issa, Hastings, Camp and Upton. Very few men got dumped. Boehner's main criteria was how much the chairmen were able to wring out of their committee's special interests and how much the chairmen spread that around the other members of the Republican caucus.

But right-wing website, RedState, had a different way of looking at it and they seem unhappy with the crap Boehner came up with. The complaint, as voiced, is that most of the chairmen aren't right-wing enough. "None of the important economic policy committees are chaired by conservatives," although he admits in the paragraph before that that Jeb Hensarling, one of the most deranged wingnuts ever elected to Congress, has replaced notorious Wall Street hooker Spencer Bachus as head of Financial Services.

Republicans in Washington are looking for ways to change the face of the party following their defeat in the presidential election. However, one thing that will not change is the face of GOP leaders in the House.

Last week, John Boehner stacked the Steering Committee, which is responsible for selecting committee assignments, with like-minded stooges. He also gave himself 5 votes. Not surprisingly, there aren’t too many changes from the array of weak committee chairmen. Dave Camp is still at Ways and Means; Fred Upton is still at Energy & Commerce; Hal Rogers is still chairing Appropriations. The only positive change for conservatives is that Jeb Hensarling will be replacing Spencer Bauchus [sic] at Financial Services.

Most of Boehner's stooges, as RedState calls them, have failing grades from Heritage Action and for Club for Growth. The only chairmen right-wing enough to be able to hold their head up in the company of Michele Bachmann, Paul Broun and Benito Mussolini are the aforementioned Hensarling plus Ed Royce (who was vulnerable this year but who Steve Israel refused to go up against despite a well-funded and energetic opponent in Jay Chen), Jeff Miller, and, barely, Paul Ryan.

The Madison Project rated each one and the scores really are pretty abysmal from a right-wing perspective. All but two of them have negative scores! Here's the list, starting with the worst:

Frank Lucas, Agriculture -38.5
Hal Rogers, Appropriations -38
Doc Hastings, Natural Resources -35.5
Bill Shuster, Transportation & Infrastructure -35.5
Lamar Smith, Science & Technology -31
Buck McKeon, Armed Services -26.5
Dave Camp, Ways and Means -20.5
Fred Upton, Energy and Commerce -18.5

Sam Graves, Small Business -16.5
Mike McCaul. Homeland Security -14
Darrell Issa, Oversight -11
Mike Rogers, Intelligence -10.5
Bob Goodlatte, Judiciary -10
John Kline, Education and Workforce -8
Pete Sessions, Rules -7
Jeb Hensarling, Financial Services -4.5
Jeff Miller, Veterans Affairs -1.5
Paul Ryan, Budget 2
Ed Royce, Foreign Affairs 8.5

Don't look for any any more productive House this year than we had last year. In other words, lots of pointless bills targeting women's reproductive health and further redistributing the nation's wealth to the biggest corporations and richest families.