Jordan Readies a Fighting Minority as Conservatives Keep the Heat on Thune

Three days after Republicans chose the men who will lead them in the next Congress, the party's argument over its midterm defeat is only getting louder. In the House, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is stepping forward as the fighter a shrunken conference says it wants. In the Senate, John Thune of South Dakota kept his post, but he has spent the week defending his record to a conservative movement that is not ready to move on.

The two votes on Tuesday set the terms of the debate. House Republicans picked Jordan over Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana by 106 to 73, Fox News reported, and members are rallying behind the combative style that once made the Freedom Caucus co-founder a frequent thorn in his own leadership's side. Senate Republicans went the other way, re-electing Thune by acclamation late Tuesday afternoon even after a handful of senators objected to holding the election so soon after the losses, The Hill reported.

One chamber changed course and the other stayed put. That contrast is what conservatives have been arguing about ever since.

The sharpest criticism came at The Forum, the Heritage Foundation's gathering in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside Washington. Heritage President Kevin Roberts told the crowd that Republicans share significant blame for the scale of their losses, pointing to a wide gap in communication between the party's policymakers and the American people and calling Thune "feckless," The Daily Signal reported.

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas took aim at the filibuster. Fox News columnist David Marcus, who covered the event, wrote that Roy railed against the explanations offered for the stalled SAVE America Act, the voter-citizenship bill that faltered when Thune declined to force a vote to get around the Senate's 60-vote threshold. "No more excuses. No more garbage about filibuster this, filibuster that," Roy said, according to Marcus. Marcus added that in his conversations with attendees away from the stage, the talk about the Senate leader was harsher still.

For many grassroots conservatives, that is the heart of the matter. Election integrity was a promise, the SAVE America Act was the vehicle, and the Senate's rules became the reason it never reached the President's desk. Roy's argument, and that of many in the room, is that voters who handed Republicans the majority deserved a fight on the Senate floor rather than an explanation of why the votes were not there.

Thune has not ducked the question. In an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News' "Special Report" on Tuesday, he described the closed-door conference meeting as open and honest and said he had asked his colleagues directly what Republicans could have done differently, RealClearPolitics reported. He said he did not know of anything they told him he had gotten wrong.

Instead, Thune pointed to the record of the last two years: holding firm through two long government shutdowns without giving in to Democratic demands, permanent tax changes, school choice measures and what he called the first meaningful entitlement reform in three decades. Those are real conservative achievements, and they are the heart of the case Thune is making to a frustrated base.

His colleagues, for their part, gave their answer on Tuesday. Despite the objections over timing, the conference returned him to the top job by acclamation rather than a contested ballot. Thune's critics answer that accomplishments on paper did not move voters who wanted to see their leaders fight, and that caution carried a price the party paid on Election Day.

On the House side, Jordan's allies say the minority leader's main job is counter-messaging against the new Democratic majority, a role that suits a lawmaker known for hard-charging committee hearings, according to Fox News. The same report said Jordan has traded his old habit of publicly criticizing fellow Republicans for calls for unity. That shift matters. A minority party has few tools beyond discipline and a clear message, and Jordan will need every member pulling in the same direction when Democrats begin setting the agenda.

Thune's first test comes sooner. On Thursday he said he was interested in President Trump's renewed push for a $350 billion military funding package passed with Republican votes alone, the Washington Examiner reported, though he stopped short of promising it would pass before Democrats take control of Congress in January and said the House would need to act first. For conservatives who say the Senate leader lacks urgency, that package is the clearest measure of what the final weeks of the Republican majority can still deliver for the troops and for the country.

The Book of Proverbs teaches that there is safety in a multitude of counselors. The postmortems at Heritage and the defense Thune offered on television are both part of that counsel, and Republicans would be wise to hear all of it. House Republicans chose a fighter. Senate Republicans chose continuity. Which bet pays off will become clear soon enough, starting with what the party does with the time it has left before the new Congress is sworn in.