Hensarling Could Be an Actual (Mushy?) Conservative

Tea Party favorite Michelle Bachman has dropped out of the race for the number 4 position in the House Republican leadership, the House Republican Conference Chair. She has endorsed the establishment candidate, Jeb Hensarling. So how good does Hensarling sound? For that matter, how good to the other three likely Republican leaders sound?

Hensarling has a substantially more conservative lifetime average from the National Taxpayers Union than Boehner and Cantor, 86% to their 70% ratings. Like the two mushy moderates, Hensarling's record, however, improved drastically in the three Democrat-majority years over his previous performance, in his case from 81% to 93%. The likely third-ranking Republican, Kevin McCarthy of California, bucked the Democrat tide of 2006 to win his first election and so has a record only under Democrat majorities, with an average of 81%, so he falls between the Boehner and Cantor on the one hand and Hensarling on the other hand, into the zone I call mushy conservative.

Breaking down their voting records into the period when the GOP had a majority and the period when the Democrats had a majority, moreover, we see a startling change in their voting patterns: both Boehner and Cantor actually had liberal Republican voting records (64% and 63%) when their votes actually determined spending, taxes and regulation. Boehner and Cantor rose a stunning 20 points to the mushy conservative range only when their votes, under the Democrats, could no longer determine spending, taxes and regulations. Hensarling had a smaller increase, but still 12 points, taking him from mushy conservative when his votes could determine the outcome to solidly conservative then the Democrat majority rendered his votes irrelevant. While McCarthy has no record under a Republican majority, we can see that he voted marginally worse than Boehner and Cantor under the Democrats. I've summarized their voting records below.

We don't yet know how conservatively Tea Party favorite Michelle Bachman will vote, nor do we know whether Boehner, Cantor and Hensarling will revert to their previous records when their votes once again determine spending, taxes and regulations. We also don't know if McCarthy will continue to vote mushy conservative or fall down to the previous levels of Cantor and Boehner. I do know two things: that I would have felt more confident of the Republicans if they'd chosen Michelle Bachman as their 4th-ranking House leader, and that we need to watch the four of them--like a hawk.


Analysis of NTU Averages of Likely House GOP Leadership
Name Likely Position NTU Avg Avg Under GOP Majority Avg Under Dems
John Boehner (OH) Speaker 70% 64% 84%
Eric Cantor (VA) Majority Leader 70% 63% 83%
Kevin McCarthy (CA) Majority Whip 81% - 81%
Jeb Hensarling (TX) Conference Chair 86% 81% 93%


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44976.html