Glenn Thrush is senior staff writer at Politico Magazine.

John Boehner, oft criticized for being a captive of the Tea Party, seems increasingly eager to battle conservative groups pressuring House Republicans to reject more or less any budget compromise with Democrats. This week’s flashpoint: Paul Ryan’s modest budget deal with Senate Democrats, and the caustic reaction by major players on the right—Heritage Action, the Family Research Council, the American Conservative Union and the Cato Institute, which described the proposed pact as a “ huge Republican cave-in.”

Boehner, who would do just about anything to avoid a repeat of this fall’s debt ceiling and government shutdown debacles, blasted away at a Wednesday press conference in the Capitol basement. “They’re using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals,” he said angrily. “This is ridiculous.”


The broadside came as welcome news for some of Boehner’s long-suffering allies who believe he’d be in a stronger position today if he’d taken his shot at the right years ago. Many close to Boehner say his laid-back governing philosophy—“the House works best when it is allowed to work its will” is his mantra—has at times backfired in an inmates-run-the-asylum way.

Long one of the speaker’s top allies on the Hill, former Rep. Steven LaTourette was among those cheering Boehner's counterpunch this week: "Hallelujah!" he said. "Finally Boehner calls out the Flat Earth Society and mocks them for being against the deal before there was a deal." LaTourette, a chain-smoking Ohio centrist who left Congress last year, sat down with Politico Magazine recently to explain why he thinks the 64-year-old Boehner isn’t as “effective” as Nancy Pelosi. That could change, he says, if Boehner manages to negotiate a grand bargain on taxes and entitlements, which LaTourette cites as still a hidden ambition even if the speaker has disavowed big deals with President Obama.

LaTourette, who arrived on the Hill in 1994 and now runs the Main Street Advocacy Fund, a group that hopes to recruit moderate Republican congressional candidates, is skeptical that the Tea Party wing is through challenging Boehner and the House leadership. From his perch at a lobbying firm down the hill from the Capitol, LaTourette likened his party’s conservative faction to pet alligators: “You know, once you turn your back, they're going to eat you.”

Politico Magazine: You didn’t really know Boehner before you came to Washington in ’94. How did you guys become friends and allies?

Steve LaTourette: He was from Ohio, so I enlisted on Team Boehner very early on. He had my back in many ways. We're different in that he's a golf player and all that other stuff. I don't golf. But, I mean, he's just a nice, friendly guy. And I think I probably liked him more because, you know, in '94 I was running against an incumbent, and basically anybody that wanted to be my friend I was happy to be friends with.

I wasn’t the easiest vote in the world on some of the issues when [former House Majority Leader Tom] DeLay and that bunch were there. And so he’d run interference for me with the leadership and explain that my district was different than their districts. … You know, the Contract With America was that year, and the Contract With America was a nice document with 10 bullet points. But I think I became a little horrified when they began putting legislative language behind some of the bullet points.

He’ll put his arm around you and say, “I could use you on this if you can see your way to clear to do it.” But if you can't, for whatever reason, he gets it.

LaTourette and Boehner have been friends since the mid-90s. “I enlisted on Team Boehner very early on,” says LaTourette. “He had my back in many ways.” | Susan Walsh/AP Photo

Different from Pelosi, totally. They’re still looking for a couple of people who voted against the ACA [Affordable Care Act] in landfills in New Jersey.

PM: People always assume you guys became friends because of the smoking thing. What percentage of the Ohio delegation around that time smoked?

SL: John and me obviously. [Former GOP Rep.] Bobby Ney smoked. [Retired Republican Rep.] Deborah Pryce—she smoked when she would be out drinking, you know. And Stephanie Tubbs Jones [a former Cleveland Democratic representative who died in 2008]—she would smoke cigars with the guys. … I mean, when I came, they had ash trays behind the rails [in the House chamber]. … The rule was you could smoke behind the rail.

PM: When Boehner became speaker in 2010, he was a real apostle of this notion of democratizing the committees and giving members their say after the Pelosi era. … Do you think that was a good idea?

SL: It was a breath of fresh air. It opened it up. That first big bill—H.R. 1—it had hundreds of amendments and went on for days. He let everybody talk. I know you want to talk about strengths, but the weakness in that is you had some people that took advantage of it. There was an amendment to defund the president’s teleprompter—just stupid amendments.

PM: Obviously this bothered you. What did Boehner say when you discussed it with him?

He always felt he could turn the ship around by reasoning with them. He doesn't beat you up or any of that business, but he would lay out his strategy [against Obama]. His favorite expression—one of them—is, you know: When your opponent's committing suicide, just get out of the way.

PM: Old Napoleon quote, by the way.

SL: Is it?

PM: Yep, yep.

SL: And then his other one is, you know: Pigs get fed, and hogs get slaughtered—which I never quite understood.

PM: I don’t get it either. What does it mean?

SL: I don’t know. [Laughs]

PM: Did you ever pressure him to, you know, get these Tea Party guys to settle down, get in line?

SL: I sat on Team Boehner. We would have lunch once a month in [room] H-230, and these would be the people that helped elect him, majority or minority leader. I mean, there were people who were really vocal about the fact that you got to do something to these guys. … [Michigan Rep.] Freddy Upton was really upset, which is—you know, Freddy’s a very mild man. … The general consensus was you’ve got to make an example of somebody. You’ve got to find somebody that doesn’t have a lot of friends so it doesn’t have a big backlash, and you got to do something mean to him.

And Boehner said no. I mean, his idea—he said, well, maybe I won't let them preside [the ceremonial position of sitting in the chairman’s rostrum in the House]. People were saying, “What kind of punishment is that?” Or maybe, you know, “When some of these appointments come up, such as the U.N. thing or whatever, I won't appoint them.” And everybody sort of left the meeting saying, “He's just not of the mind to go after these people and punish them, so they're going to be emboldened.”

PM: Are these the best characteristics in a speaker?

SL: In all of the other Congresses leading up to the 112th, yeah, I think he would have been OK. I mean, he's got a lot of friends. But when you are dealing with a group of people that are ungovernable and don't choose to govern. … I actually have, you know, played this over in my head a bunch of times. Could Tom DeLay have done better? I don't think so.

PM: Do you think history will regard Pelosi as a better speaker than Boehner?

SL: Well, she was a more effective speaker than Boehner because she, again, broke arms and legs, and if she wanted to get a piece of legislation taken care of, she got a piece of legislation taken care of. I don't think she's a better speaker from the standpoint of the institution. I think that she broke a lot of things that needed to be and are still in the process of needing to be repaired, such as comity, bipartisanship, openness, open rules.

It’s like having a pet alligator. You know, once you turn your back, they’re going to eat you.”

PM: Eric Cantor’s desire to become speaker seems to have cooled a bit. He seems to be getting along better with Boehner. Why?

SL: I think Eric’s come to the realization that these guys [the Tea Party Republicans who viewed Cantor as their early leader], it’s like having a pet alligator. You know, once you turn your back, they’re going to eat you.

PM: How do you think it all ends with Boehner? Obviously the 2014 midterms matter, but what’s his endgame personally?

SL: Republicans will keep the majority, he’ll be re-elected speaker, but then I don’t know if you’ll see him after the next term, because a lot of his friends—like [Georgia Sen.] Saxby Chambliss—are retiring. He’s had a great career. But I if the president tomorrow picked up the phone and said, “Let’s put this deal back together,” and he meant it and it was real, that’s the way it would end.

PM: So, you think he goes out with the “grand bargain?”

SL: I think that’s exactly what he wants to do.

Glenn Thrush is senior staff writer for Politico Magazine.