John Boehner and conservative groups traded barbs over Paul Ryan's budget Wednesday. GOP's private war goes public

The simmering feud between House Republicans and movement conservatives is finally an all-out war.

The tension exploded on Wednesday morning when Speaker John Boehner and outside conservative groups traded sharp barbs over the budget deal Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) crafted with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). It only escalated later in the day when the leader of the right-wing Republican Study Committee forced out its longtime executive director for leaking private conversations about strategy to those organizations.


The frenzied activity — just days before the House is scheduled to recess until 2014 — represents the ultimate culmination of a power struggle between institutional Republicans in Congress and outside groups, which are funded by well-heeled conservative donors and can pay for primary challenges.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Boehner, an Ohio Republican, accused outside conservative groups of “using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals.”

( Also on POLITICO: Ryan shielded from conservative criticism)

Republican leaders have long accused those outside groups — Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity, to name a few — of existing solely to oppose them. Many of these organizations accuse Boehner, his leadership team and some Republican members of Congress of being a bunch of squishes willing to abandon their conservative principles in favor of compromises.

More than 50 members of conservative groups signed onto a statement Wednesday evening responding to both Boehner’s remarks and Teller’s dismissal.

“It is clear that the conservative movement has come under attack on Capitol Hill today,” the statement read.

All of that was private, relegated to fundraisers and K Street lunchroom chatter, until now.

The two sides are fighting over strategy, politics and policy — and, in a way, this skirmish neatly encapsulates the existential battle for the soul of the Republican Party. They are showing the tug between purity versus pragmatism, and loyalty versus the pedal-to-the-metal tactics to drag the a party to the right.

( Also on POLITICO: Inside the budget agreement)

Boehner’s line of attack against outside groups follows a similar tack by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has focused his outrage on the Senate Conservatives Fund. He even blessed the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s blacklisting of consulting firms that do business with the group.

“John Boehner has apparently decided to join Mitch McConnell in the war on conservatives,” Senate Conservatives Fund executive Director Matt Hoskins said. “McConnell called us fringe traitors who should be locked in a bar and punched in the nose, and now Boehner is lashing out at us too. Conservatives everywhere need to understand that the party’s leadership has declared war on them. If they don’t fight back, they will always regret it. We’re going to hang together or hang separately.”

Then Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) upped the ante.

The chairman of the RSC, the bastion of right-wing strategy on Capitol Hill, fired the group’s longtime executive director Paul Teller for leaking member-level conversations to the outside groups, according to a senior Republican aide.

( Also on POLITICO: Conservatives balk at budget deal)

“Paul was divulging private, member-level conversations and actively working against strategies developed by RSC members,” said the senior GOP aide familiar with the group. “Trust between senior staff and RSC members is paramount. No staffer is above a member.”

Scalise and Teller didn’t immediately comment.

If there was any staffer on Capitol Hill that was nearly as powerful as a member of Congress, it was Teller. He has been involved in conservative strategy for more than a decade, helping drag legislative debates to the right. But he often chafed on Republican leadership, who saw him as causing intraparty drama.

Conservatives reacted with outrage at what they perceived as a one-two punch to try and squelch the tea party.

“The fact they are making an example of Paul is clearly a message to staffers and other members that they will take a pound of flesh if they go against them on this sellout budget deal,” said one Senate Republican aide with close ties to the tea party. “It’s disgraceful. This is clearly Paul Ryan and John Boehner cracking down on dissent in the House. It shows the hostility the establishment has to tea party-minded staffers.”

( Also on POLITICO: The new Paul Ryan)

There’s no evidence, however, that Boehner and Ryan were at all involved in Teller’s ouster.

Friction between GOP lawmakers and the outside groups has been brewing for months. For example, Heritage Action urged Republican leadership to strip food stamps from the farm bill. When Republican leadership did, Heritage Action still urged lawmakers to vote against the bill. The group irked the RSC so much that it banned Heritage Action aides from attending their weekly meeting.

After the government shutdown, top Republicans, frustrated with the tea party hijacking their agenda, urged business groups to get more active in primaries.

But the groups who have drawn the most ire aren’t changing their strategy.

Heritage Action’s Dan Holler said Republicans who vote for Ryan’s budget will have to explain their support to their constituents.

“Americans are deeply concerned about the direction of the country,” he said. “Over the next few days, lawmakers will have to explain to their constituents, many of whom are our members, what they’ve achieved by increasing spending, increasing taxes and offering up another round of promises waiting to be broken. That will be a really tough sell back home.”