Rep. Thomas Massie isn’t in a forgive-and-forget kind of mood.
The libertarian-leaning House member on Tuesday crushed his Republican primary opponent 88%-12% in the northern Kentucky district he’s represented since 2013. That despite several high-profile House Republicans initially backing, and sending campaign contributions to, his primary opponent.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming in the spring criticized Massie over delaying tactics on passage of a coronavirus economic relief bill. The proposal became law, but not before Massie used parliamentary tactics to force lawmakers to return to Washington as the pandemic worsened.
The feud was an extension of tensions between House Republican leaders and Massie, an MIT-trained engineer and multiple patent holder who frequent dissents from the party-line on votes. Particularly when, he says, party leaders disregard Republican principles of small government and limited spending.
Massie, headed for another term in Congress after dominating the all-important Republican primary, remembers where Cheney stood when it mattered.
Questions linger over “whether the Republican leadership is going to actively and openly back primary opponents to incumbent Republicans. I think it’s a dangerous precedent that Liz Cheney set as a member of the GOP leadership team, to try and cull the herd while we’re still in the minority,” Massie told the Washington Examiner.
“You don’t cull the herd when you don’t have enough herd. And yet she’s trying to use politics to influence the policy of the members in her conference. and I think it’s wrong,” Massie said. “Especially when we’re in the minority. The money that she spent financing my opponent could have been used for taking back the majority.”
Republican leadership made no indication that it will openly endorse further primary opponents over incumbents.
Massie angered Republican leadership and President Trump in March when he demanded a roll-call vote for the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package. However, his attempt failed after party leaders brought 216 members to the floor and gallery in order to establish a quorum.
The parliamentary stand taken by Massie, though, caused Trump to call for the Kentucky Republican to be ousted by his own party in the upcoming primary — an unusual action by the leader of any party. But Republican Party lawmakers such as Cheney, and Reps. Mike Turner of Ohio and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois followed suit and gave money to Massie’s primary opponent, Todd McMurty.
The same lawmakers ultimately rescinded their support of McMurty not long thereafter when controversial social media posts of McMurty’s emerged.
Cheney’s office declined to provide the Washington Examiner with a comment.
Massie says his concern relates to the openness of the Republican Party choosing a primary opponent over an incumbent. He compared it to hardball tactics employed by the past two Republican House speakers against dissidents such as then-Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, now Trump’s White House chief of staff.
“John Boehner and Paul Ryan had their super PACs and their c-4’s and their dark money that they would try to use against members. They used that against Mark Meadows, and it didn’t work out too well for John Boehner,” he said. “They’ve always told lobbyists up here, ‘Don’t give to this member, give to his opponent, or her opponent.’ It’s common knowledge that they extort members with their committee assignments.”
Massie said he believes party leaders used the opportunity of Trump’s tweet to attack him for years of his criticism of the party’s congressional campaign committee’s dues, which Massie has often referred to as “extortion.”
“When they saw the tweet from President Trump, they saw that as the signal to charge that it’s time to go after Massie,” he said. “They’ve been holding their fire or supporting my opponent behind the scenes, but they decided they could engage in open warfare against another member of the GOP with the president. Who they, by the way, have a miserable record of supporting.”
