A conservative lawmaker publicly resigned from the House Freedom Caucus on Wednesday, and criticized the group’s tactics — including its demands that funds for Planned Parenthood be blocked as part of a bill to keep the government open.
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said that the tactics employed by the Freedom Caucus “have repeatedly undermined the House’s ability to advance them.”
{mosads}Besides the Planned Parenthood fight, he cited as examples the fight over funding the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year, and battles over the fast-track trade package and the Iran nuclear deal.
The fight over Planned Parenthood risks a government shutdown on Oct. 1 — it is unclear how the House GOP will move a spending bill given the demands from conservative lawmakers.
McClintock said the Freedom Caucus’s strategy has ultimately empowered Democrats by making it harder for House Republicans to control the legislative process.
“A common theme through each of these incidents is a willingness — indeed, an eagerness — to strip the House Republican majority of its ability to set the House agenda by combining with House Democrats on procedural motions. As a result, it has thwarted vital conservative policy objectives and unwittingly become Nancy Pelosi’s tactical ally,” McClintock wrote.
“I feel that the HFC’s many missteps have made it counterproductive to its stated goals and I no longer wish to be associated with it,” the California Republican concluded.
McClintock noted that members of the Freedom Caucus perhaps ironically found themselves on the same side of a vote as Democrats during the debate earlier this year over blocking President Obama’s immigration executive actions through a Department of Homeland Security funding bill.
A three-week stopgap measure pushed by House GOP leaders melted down on the House floor when 52 Republicans and nearly all Democrats voted against it.
“At the behest of its board, most HFC members combined with House Democrats to defeat this effort, resulting in the full funding of these illegal orders for the fiscal year,” McClintock wrote.
He predicted that the Freedom Caucus’s decision to oppose any government spending bill this month that includes Planned Parenthood funding in the wake of controversial videos regarding the use of fetal tissue donations would be similarly counterproductive.
“I have strongly opposed the public funding of abortions throughout my 29 years in public office, but this tactic promises only to shield Senate Democrats from their responsibility for a government shutdown and to alienate the public from the pro-life cause at precisely the time when undercover videos of Planned Parenthood’s barbaric practices are turning public opinion in our favor,” McClintock said.
The House Freedom Caucus is made up of about 40 members, but the group keeps its membership secret and highly selective. Multiple conservatives formed the group earlier this year following complaints that the Republican Study Committee — which was the original group intended to keep a check on GOP leaders — became so large some members felt it no longer served its initial purpose.