Ryan calms restless House Republicans
WASHINGTON, May 23, (Agencies): Seven months before his planned retirement, House Speaker Paul Ryan is facing growing disruption among the GOP ranks, raising fresh questions about his ability to lead a divided group of Republicans through a tough election season.
Ryan sought to quell infighting Tuesday, dashing back to Washington from Wisconsin and abandoning plans for family time at home, as he tried to unify the factions and reassert control over the majority.
In remarks to reporters, the speaker acknowledged restlessness among Republican lawmakers and argued an internal election to replace him at the helm would be a distraction. For now, he told reporters, “We all agree the best thing for us is to complete our agenda and not wedge into the middle of the completion of our agenda a divisive leadership election.”
Ryan’s job leading the rambunctious House Republicans has never been easy, but it has become more difficult since he turned himself into a lame-duck speaker by announcing he won’t seek re-election to Congress in the fall. The move immediately prompted questions about whether his status would undermine his efforts to set a legislative agenda and jeopardize Republican hopes of holding on the House majority in November’s midterm elections. Those questions intensified in recent days after Ryan tried and failed to pass a farm bill — a casualty of an unrelated immigration standoff.
Over the weekend, a top Cabinet official mused openly about replacing Ryan. Republicans are publicly at odds, blaming one another for squandering the waning time before the elections.
It’s not at all clear how much longer Ryan will be able to stick around as planned, despite his ability to raise large sums for Republican re-election campaigns.
Behind closed doors at Tuesday’s meeting, the speaker made a plea for GOP unity, expressed his own frustrations over their divisions and encouraged Republicans to work together to rack up legislative accomplishments, according to lawmakers at the meeting who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private talks.
Ryan received a standing ovation, according to one person who attended.
Rep Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Republicans don’t want Ryan to leave, but they want him to lead. “Nobody I know is pressuring Paul Ryan to step aside. We just want results,” Barton said.
Barton said that with the largest House majority in almost a century, Republicans have their best chance before the midterms, when their numbers are likely to shrink. “If we really want to accomplish things there is no better time than right now,” he said.
The latest dustup is a familiar one, pitting the conservative House Freedom Caucus against more moderate Republicans over what to do on immigration.
But for some lawmakers, the details hardly matter anymore. They are expressing their own sense of rebellion fatigue, tired of the almost unending churn of leadership power struggles and factional infighting that have become the norm among the House GOP.
Rep Ryan Costello, R-Pa, who is retiring rather than seeking re-election in fall, said it makes sense to revisit the leadership issue after “things blow up” as they did Friday over the immigration dispute. “But things blow up every couple of weeks around here.”
‘Right to try’ experimental drug bill:
The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to expand terminally ill patients’ right to try experimental drugs not yet approved by US authorities, a controversial move that enjoys support from President Donald Trump.
The federal Right to Try Act, which cleared the Senate last year, passed the House on a 250-169, band now heads to the White House for Trump’s signature.
Legislatures in 38 states have already passed similar laws allowing for experimental treatments to be given outside of clinical trials to people who are too sick, young, old or far away to participate.
The bill that cleared Congress would lay out a “right to try” law on a national level. It was a long time coming for the bill. The Senate passed it last August, and an attempt by the House to greenlight its own version stalled.
Eventually, the chamber passed it in March. But when the Senate made clear it would not negotiate new text, the House backtracked and passed the Senate version Tuesday without changes.
The law allows patients who have exhausted all treatment options approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to try experimental drugs, so long as such drugs have successfully completed initial safety steps in clinical trials that show they are not toxic or life-threatening.
Bipartisan prison reform bill:
A bipartisan bill to reform the federal prison system by helping inmates prepare for life after their release and reduce recidivism rates passed the US House of Representatives on Tuesday, paving the way for it to be considered by the Senate.
The First Step Act does not contain a broader overhaul favored by some moderate conservatives and progressives seeking changes to mandatory minimum sentencing laws that have kept many low-level offenders behind bars for decades.
The bill’s top Democratic and Republican sponsors have said such broad reforms should be left out for now as a compromise to get legislation passed by the Senate and signed into law.
“Folks, this is what legislating looks like,” Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the leading Republican sponsor of the bill, told reporters on Monday. “Sometimes there are disagreements, but you come together and you find compromise.”
The bill would require the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a part of the Justice Department, to do risk assessments on which inmates should qualify and earn credits toward completing their sentences in halfway houses or home confinement. It would broaden job opportunities for inmates, expand laws on compassionate release of prisoners, prevent the BOP from using restraints on pregnant inmates and allow prisoners to earn early release credits of up to 54 days for good behavior.
The good behavior provision would allow for the early release of an estimated 4,000 prisoners.
The House bill contrasts with one in the Senate championed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley. It would lessen prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders.