Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican from Lewis County, is quickly showing that a sharp guy with two degrees from MIT who made millions as a technological whiz kid can’t find his backside with both hands when it comes to navigating the jungle that is our nation’s capital.
If you are so disposed, applaud Massie for abandoning the ancient unwritten texts that have guided the great American experiment for two centuries. But then quit complaining about the gridlock that continues to flood the process and stop wondering why the federal government isn’t there when you need it.
It comes as no surprise that at least one organization has determined that Massie is one of the least-effective lawmakers serving in one of the least-effective Congresses in human history.
According to InsideGov, a nonpartisan research website that provides information on national and state-level politics, Massie ranks 12th on its list of least-effective lawmakers, having sponsored 12 bills since entering Congress in 2012 and managing to pass, well, none of them. He hasn’t even proved able to get any of his legislation through committee.
That’s 0-for-12 if you’re scoring at home, placing him well short of the Mendoza Line. Even Cincinnati Reds outfielders do better than that.
If anything, Massie is worse than those numbers indicate. Republicans have ruled the roost since he assumed office. Four of those found to be even less effective than him are Democrats who stand about as much chance of passing a bill through the GOP-controlled Congress as they have of passing a camel through the eye of a needle.
So bump our boy up to number eight on the hit parade, or lack of hit parade if you prefer.
It’s fair to criticize InsideGov’s findings for focusing solely on a single aspect of a congressman’s duties, and he recently co-sponsored an amendment promoting industrial hemp that was attached to an appropriations bill. But it’s equally fair to say Massie is getting very little done legislatively and his record thus far shows little prospect for improvement. If there’s a bench situated far beyond the back-bench in the Capitol, you’re likely to find Massie manning a reserved seat.
For it seems Massie has learned absolutely nothing from his quixotic, futile and, frankly, silly bids to displace House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, from his vaunted position. Massie has had two opportunities to vote for Boehner to lead the lower chamber and in both instances he threw his support elsewhere. In fact it was Massie who led the revolt when the speaker sought the leadership position anew for the current 114th Congress.
Opposing the speaker of the House, especially one who hails from one’s own party, certainly dims prospects for any future success and, in Massie’s case, will certainly result in even greater ineffectiveness than what has been pointed out by InsideGov. Yet Massie refuses to learn a hard lesson.
In late July, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, who likewise has proved to be a pain in Boehner’s side and was temporarily heaved from a subcommittee chairmanship for his heresy, filed legislation to oust the speaker in what can only be described as a coup d’état. For several days Meadows proved unable to recruit a single co-sponsor – not even a Democrat – as lawmakers embraced the understandable position, as poet Alexander Pope put it, that fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
So here, of course, comes Massie rushing in.
Massie became the first co-sponsor of the Boot Boehner Bill and, according to a statement on his Facebook page, he believes the cabal is “very close’’ to achieving its mission.
“We need 29 Republicans and all Democrats to agree to replace the speaker. On Jan 6, we had 24 Republicans,’’ he noted.
But Massie is most certainly wasting his hopes. For one thing, there’s no guarantee House Democrats, perhaps facing the prospect of a Speaker worse than Boehner (hard to believe but a look at the GOP roster proves it could happen), will play along. There’s no indication the anti-Boehner faction has picked up steam and simply getting the legislation to the floor likely will prove nigh on impossible.
Massie’s congressional tenure, regardless of how long it may last, appears destined for one failed, stupefying gambit after another, ending in accomplishments one could fit on the tip of a pin – the head of a pin being too expansive to accommodate.
The bottom line is Massie and others of his ilk who have rendered it nearly impossible to make the trains run on time give all hints of not really believing in a functioning federal government. He, and maybe two dozen others, perhaps more, are members of what can best be described as the congressional Anarchy Caucus, hence their obsession with ridding the chamber of the thrice-elected Boehner as speaker.
It is government by tantrum.
Ironically, there exists really only one significant difference philosophically between Boehner and the Massies of this world. Boehner, as a head of one of three branches of the federal government, feels an obligation to promote the Republican/conservative agenda while simultaneously keeping the engines of government humming.
Massie feels absolutely no compunction to keep the government operating and, in fact, ferrets out excuses to shut it down. Don’t like Obamacare? Shut the government down to force repeal. Don’t want to raise the debt limit? Shut the government down to keep the nation from meeting its obligations. Don’t like bills funding governmental operations? Close the government and stem the flow of dollars.
It’s a philosophy that is the antithesis of a well-operated government and it appears Massie is about to return to the stage salivating over another shutdown opportunity, following close on the heels of the 2013 disaster.
Massie is one of 17 signatories of a letter sent to the House Republican leadership demanding a halt to the flow of federal dollars to Planned Parenthood, a move that could literally threaten the health needs of millions of women.
The letter, dated July 29, states, among other things that the 17 lawmakers “cannot and will not support any funding resolution – an appropriations bill, an omnibus package, a continuing resolution, or otherwise – that contains any funding for Planned Parenthood, including mandatory funding streams.’’
The language represents another ill-disguised threat to work toward another governmental shutdown, this one over Planned Parenthood – all because the organization distributes the tissue of aborted fetuses to laboratories conducting research on cures for maladies like Parkinson’s disease. The federal government doesn’t provide funds for the abortion procedures conducted by Planned Parenthood or anyone else for that matter. And the distribution is totally legal under a 1992 law.
All this leads to another potential Massie shutdown threat and yet another rationale for attempting to deep-six Boehner should he refuse to comply and go to great lengths to keep the government open.
That’s the sort of anarchy that Sacco and Vanzetti could appreciate.
Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.