A top conservative voice in the House said he has doubts that Republicans will take control of the Senate this fall, claiming the party has failed to tell voters what they stand for.
“I fear we’re not going to take the Senate back because we haven’t done anything this past year to show the American people why we are different than the Democrats,” Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) said during an event with conservative lawmakers on Thursday.
{mosads}“We have a lot of speeches, but we haven’t taken a lot of votes,” he added.
Labrador, who chairs the monthly “Conversations with Conservatives” events, said he was disappointed leadership had not followed through and put a GOP alternative to ObamaCare on the House floor. Republicans also should have pursued tax reform this year, he said.
Instead, leaders stuck with their jobs message this campaign cycle — one Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will again return to during a speech this afternoon.
“The next few days we’re going to be talking about jobs and the economy,” Labrador said. “Guess what? Republicans have been talking about jobs and the economy for the last six years and we haven’t won majorities in the Senate.
“We needed to have an agenda, something concrete. One of those concrete things would have been a vote on an alternative to ObamaCare,” Labrador said. “All Americans know Republicans are against ObamaCare. The thing they don’t know is what they’re for. What is their plan to replace ObamaCare?”
But Labrador, who was defeated in the majority leader race this year by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), conceded he didn’t think anyone in the House Republican Conference could mount a credible challenge to Boehner as speaker after the Nov. 4 election.