San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Issa remains vague about Cheney’s removal
Rep. Darrell Issa voted for Rep. Elise Stefanik as Rep. Lynne Cheney’s replacement for the House GOP’S third-highest leadership position.
That much is clear. How or whether Issa voted on Cheney’s removal is not.
Cheney, R-wyo., was stripped of her post by an overwhelming voice vote during a closed Republican House conference meeting on Wednesday. One report said the vote happened so early in the session that some members who were running late missed it.
Issa would not grant an interview about his vote and views on Cheney to the The San Diego Union-tribune. Jonathan Wilcox, Issa’s communications director, was then asked in an email, “How did Rep. Issa vote? Did he vote?”
“Rep. Issa supported the great majority of his colleagues in the voice vote,” Wilcox replied.
He did say the congressman voted Friday for Stefanik, a high-profile Trump defender, and issued a statement from Issa:
“Elise Stefanik knows that Republicans need a leadership team that reflects the broad scope of our party and the fact that our conference is as united as any time I can remember,” Issa said. “I am very confident she will bring some needed energy and initiative to the position of Conference Chair.”
At least several other Republican House members across the country have refused to say how they voted on Cheney. Unlike Issa, some of them voted to impeach Trump in January.
House conference meetings are private and how people vote generally isn’t made public, though information sometimes leaks out or members discuss their votes openly. On Wednesday, the sentiment was so clear that Cheney supporters decided against requesting a vote by secret ballot.
Cheney survived an earlier attempt to remove her as conference chair in February after she became one of 10 GOP House members to vote to impeach
then-president Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
But her continued outspokenness about Trump lying that the 2020 election was stolen from him ultimately weakened her support among Republicans, who increasingly have become cowed by the former president.
It is also unclear how Issa voted on Cheney the first time around. However, afterward CNN reported “that Issa had asked Cheney if they kept her in the leadership, whether she would do it again.”
Issa had been a Trump backer from early on. He was perhaps the first major House Republican to endorse Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and urged others to get on board.
He also voted with other GOP members to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania — after House and Senate sessions were temporarily suspended because pro-trump supporters had stormed the Capitol. Plans to contest results in a number of other states were dropped.
Being a Trump loyalist hasn’t always been an easy fit for Issa. He had never faced much of a challenge since his first election to Congress in 2000. That changed in 2016, when his support for Trump almost cost him his re-election in the North County-based 49th Congressional District.
His continued identification with the new president and a key vote against the Affordable Care Act probably would have led to his defeat in 2018, but Issa decided not to run in the increasingly Democratic district.
He ran and won last year in the Republican, Trumpfriendly 50th District based in East County in a campaign where he and Republican Carl Demaio jousted over who was the stronger supporter of the president.
Issa toed the Trump line by voting to overturn presidential election results, but he has never been an outspoken election-conspiracy ringleader. Neither the courts nor Republican state election officials — or even
Trump’s own Department of Justice — found any level of election fraud that would have changed enough votes to result in a Trump victory.
Issa expressed optimism about future bipartisanship on the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated and has introduced some legislation with backing from members of both parties, including bills on veterans health care, Department of Justice accountability and drug costs.
But recently he has had tough criticism of Biden’s policies regarding the border, infrastructure and taxation, to name a few — replete with a reference to Rep. Alexandria Ocasiocortez, the progressive Democratic icon from New York.
“This is an extreme agenda, completely partisan proposals, and it’s classic old Democrat with a lot of AOC added,” he said on KUSI after Biden’s address to Congress in late April.
As far as I could find, Issa hasn’t been talking much about Trump, though he has said the former president doesn’t get the credit Issa believes he deserves for helping to speed development of the COVID-19 vaccines. Issa has not mentioned that the president consistently downplayed the severity of the pandemic.
It’s no revelation that Trump is a dilemma for Republicans. He hurts them in some battleground districts, particularly in the suburbs. While the 50th District is often noted for its rural communities and backcountry scenery, many residents live in urban and suburban areas.
Further, congressional districts will undergo their once-a-decade reapportionment and it’s unknown how the 50th may be affected. One thing that’s certain is
California will lose a congressional district because of population shifts.
Despite that uncertainty and potential Trump liability, Republicans can’t live without him.
“He’s the most popular Republican in the country by a lot,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an interview with Fox News. “If you try to drive him out of the Republican Party, half the people will leave.”
Issa has some shifting ground to navigate, but it would be surprising if San Diego didn’t still end up with a Republican district that Issa would be well-positioned to represent.
When Issa ran for the 50th District last year, he said he would return to Congress with his seniority intact, despite his brief hiatus. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee and is the ranking Republican on the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. He also serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
He could be in line for a chairmanship, at least on a subcommittee, if Republicans regain the majority in the House after next year’s elections, as many expect.
Had things gone differently, Issa might not be in Congress right now. In September 2018, Trump appointed him director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. He was never confirmed by the Senate, in part because of questions about his background.
There also was lingering resentment among Democrats about how Issa aggressively investigated the Obama administration when he was chairman of the House oversight committee.
If Issa ends up wielding a committee gavel again, Democrats may wish they hadn’t blocked his appointment.
Tweet of the Week
Goes to David Corn (@Davidcorndc), Mother Jones Washington bureau chief and MSNBC analyst, responding to Molly Jongfast of the Daily Beast.
M.J-F.: “What happened to the guy with the bear who was running for governor?”
D.C.: “The bear pulled ahead of him in the polls.”