The pressure had only just begun. When Haley called Scott in December with the news of his appointment, the historical implications were staggering. He would be just the seventh African American to serve in the U.S. Senate—and the first African American ever to serve in both chambers of Congress.
The notion of an affirmative-action hire, as grumbled about in certain quarters back home, ignored the fact that Scott had held public office for fifteen years and was easily the most qualified candidate. Still, there was no downplaying the symbolism: South Carolina’s Indian American governor, who had overcome a nasty, identity-based whisper campaign in her own election, was bulldozing a major racial barrier on behalf of Scott, a self-made black man from the lethal neighborhoods of North Charleston, just as the national party commenced a public display of hand-wringing over its homogeneity.
“The Republican Party has always been very good at saying, ‘We include everyone,’ but they’ve never taken time to show it,” Haley said in an interview after Scott’s appointment. “When have they ever gone to a minority community and said, ‘What do you care about? We’re a better country because you’re in it.’ We can’t be this party of old, white men who just say, ‘We need diversity’ and end it there.”
Together, Haley and Scott vowed to each other that they would fight to remake the Republican Party in the image of a diversifying America.
They had no idea what they were in for.
DEMINT’S EXIT IN DECEMBER 2012 WAS TIMELY FOR GOP LEADERS AS they faced their trickiest negotiation yet: the fiscal cliff.
January 1 was circled on every congressional calendar. When the ball dropped on 2013, it would trigger a domino effect of economic woe: All the Bush-era tax cuts would expire, raising rates on every American; and the automatic spending cuts crafted during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis would take effect, ripping indiscriminately through the budget and gashing everything from military readiness to safety net programs. With the economy struggling back to its feet after the wallop of recession, going over the cliff was not an option.
The problem, yet again, was ideological disagreement—between the two parties and within the Republican Party.
The president had won reelection campaigning on a proposal to raise tax rates for individuals making more than $200,000 annually. But Republicans would not give an inch. Understanding full well that Obama had the leverage, they argued nonetheless that owners of small businesses would be crushed by such a hike. After weeks of haggling, the president offered a concession: $400,000. It was still unacceptable to Republicans. Most of them had signed a document the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” sponsored by an outside group, Americans for Tax Reform, that forbade any tax hike for any reason. Even though this circumstance was unique—taxes would increase on everyone if nothing were done, and Grover Norquist, the group’s president, was telling lawmakers that the pledge did not apply—many Republicans didn’t care. The nuance would be lost in attack ads from inevitable primary challengers alleging that they had voted to raise taxes. They couldn’t take that risk.
So, Boehner made a counteroffer to Obama: $1 million. Anyone making less than that would be spared from a tax increase; anyone making more than that would see their taxes go up. Surely, Boehner thought, after the party’s nominee had been bludgeoned as an out-of-touch aristocrat, Republicans would see the value in volunteering a tax hike on millionaires only. The Speaker, having been battered in past negotiations, now thought he had the White House on the ropes. If the House GOP united behind his $1 million proposal, passing it on the floor to demonstrate their leverage, Obama’s offer would likely go higher—not all the way to $1 million, but higher, protecting more taxpayers along the way. It was quintessential Boehner: He was bluffing with a bad hand, hoping to salvage part of the pot rather than throwing down his cards and walking away from the table with nothing.
But the conservatives didn’t see it that way. To them, certain issues were nonnegotiable: guns, abortion, taxes. It didn’t matter that Obama had the high ground. It didn’t matter that Boehner was trying to make the best of their very had situation. All that mattered was honoring a commitment, the context and the consequences be damned. “We didn’t come to Congress to raise taxes,” says Jordan, who led the effort against Boehner’s proposal.
As Cantor and Kevin McCarthy ended their vote-whipping effort only to discover that they were well shy of the support needed to pass the $1 million plan, Boehner was devastated. The Speaker was a cool customer, but this defeat nearly broke him. How could they not see? How could they justify opposing a tax hike on millionaires when it would mean a tax hike on everyone making more than $400,000?
Boehner was running out of patience. The day before, Harry Reid had blasted him from the Senate floor, accusing him of running the House like a dictator. “I don’t do angry. Nobody on my staff has ever seen me angry,” Boehner recalls. “But that little son of a bitch got under my skin.” When they arrived at the White House the next morning for a meeting, Boehner spotted Reid talking with McConnell. “I walked right up to him and said, ‘Harry, you can go fuck yourself. You ever listen to that shit that comes out of your mouth?’” Boehner imitates a flustered Reid, then adds: “I thought McConnell was going to have a heart attack.”
Now, hours later, dejected and teary-eyed, Boehner stepped to the microphone inside a conference room in the House basement. The room was silent. Christmas was less than a week away, the fiscal cliff was looming just beyond, and nobody had a clue as to how this crisis would resolve itself. “Lord,” Boehner declared, “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
It was the Serenity Prayer used in twelve-step addiction programs. Republicans had failed to find the necessary votes, Boehner announced, and would have no counter to the president’s offer. They were free to go home for the holiday; they would be called back with forty-eight hours’ notice to vote on a Senate bill addressing the stalemate.
On New Year’s Day, the House passed the Senate’s bill—with 85 Republicans joining 172 Democrats—that raised taxes on individuals making more than $400,000, while permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone making less. Boehner and Paul Ryan voted in favor, while Cantor and McCarthy, to the murmurs of their colleagues in the chamber, were opposed.
Boehner made a beeline for his top two lieutenants. “Are you shitting me?” he demanded.
They didn’t answer, slipping out of the chamber before things could escalate. Boehner wanted to chase them down, to wring their insubordinate necks. But he couldn’t afford to make any more enemies. In two days, the new Congress would convene and members of the House would vote on his reelection as Speaker. As he walked off the floor, Boehner spotted a cluster of young conservatives whispering feverishly to one another. It looked all too familiar. Fifteen years earlier, Boehner had declined to join an attempted coup against Speaker Gingrich. Now he was the one in the crosshairs.
A JOLTING KNOCK ON THE DOOR SENT THEM SCRAMBLING LIKE TEENAGERS at a keg party. Who was it? Were they busted? Should anyone answer?
It was January 2, the night after the tax-hike vote, the night before the new Congress, and a throng of some twenty House Republicans was huddled in the Capitol Hill apartment of Tennessee congressman Stephen Fincher. There was no drinking or socializing; the lawmakers carried themselves with an urgency rarely displayed in their day jobs. The next morning, members of the House of Representatives would elect a Speaker, and this particular faction had gathered at the eleventh hour with an extraordinary purpose: to plot a mutiny against Boehner.