McConnell summons restive Republicans for 'combative' sitdown The meeting was prompted by an email from a Mike Lee aide about using the Obamacare vote as a political weapon.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got his hands on something he believed to be damning: An email from Sen. Mike Lee’s aide to conservative activists plotting to use an Obamacare vote as a political weapon.

So McConnell quickly summoned the GOP to a closed-door session in the Senate’s Mansfield Room Monday night. And he made sure his caucus read the email, placing a copy on every Republican senator’s chair before they arrived. A lawmaker in the room described the mood as “combative.”


One GOP senator after another objected to the Lee aide’s tactic and called for GOP unity, including party leaders like John Thune of South Dakota and the retiring Dan Coats of Indiana. Two senators in tough reelection races — Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire — were vocal, as was Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), sources said. The email, Republican leaders believed, was what they needed to marginalize conservative hardliners who had thrown their plans into disarray the last several days.

Lee was quick to apologize, saying he wasn’t aware of what his aide was doing. And one conservative firebrand stayed notably quiet: Ted Cruz of Texas.

“I think there’s a sense that we have to figure out how we can work together to accomplish our objectives,” Thune said. “Right now, we have to figure out how we succeed as a team.”

The sitdown appeared to be an effort by McConnell to impose order in his caucus after days of infighting, initiated by Cruz, who accused McConnell of “lying” in a hard-charging series of floor speeches and public statements. Cruz, along with Lee, have sought to use arcane Senate procedures to force through simple majority votes on a range of conservative causes — to take a hard line on Iran, defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare.

But Lee, extending an olive branch of sorts, decided not to push the matter Monday night. And GOP senators said during the session that using the filibuster-proof reconciliation process remained the best bet to move a repeal of Obamacare this year, attendees said.

“We all want a reconciliation vote to repeal Obamacare — just do it in a smart way,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The convoluted process Lee and Cruz sought to employ prompted concerns from GOP elders, who worry that the tactics would lead to disarray in a body bound by customs and rules. In a rare Sunday session, McConnell and GOP senators hit back at Cruz. When the Texas senator tried to push for a roll call vote to allow his Iran plan to be considered, he did not have enough support for a “sufficient second,” which is normally customary in the body. The same thing happened to Lee, and both efforts died a quick death.

What prompted particular concern for Senate GOP leaders was how the Obamacare repeal amendment could be perceived. Lee planned to attempt to challenge the ruling of the Senate’s presiding officer that the health care amendment is not germane to a must-pass highway bill. If 51 senators joined in an effort to overturn the ruling, the Obamacare repeal would be considered germane and could later be adopted by a simple majority vote, effectively circumventing the 60-vote requirement to override a filibuster.

But many GOP senators are squeamish about such tactics. It typically takes 67 votes to set a new rule in the Senate, but the Lee-Cruz effort only required 51 votes. So if future majorities continued to employ such tactics, the Senate’s ability to stall and delay legislation and protect minority rights could be thwarted, some believe.

It’s an argument Republicans made last Congress when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used a similar tactic — known as the “nuclear option”— to gut the filibuster on presidential nominees. But Cruz noted that Republicans have backed such tactics in the past.

So when Republicans got their hands on an email from Rachel Bovard, a senior aide on the conservative Senate Steering Committee that Lee chairs, they acted quickly. In a Friday email to conservative activists, she detailed how Lee planned to push for a vote to repeal Obamacare and effectively circumvent a filibuster.

“That’s the real vote that should be scored,” she wrote in the email provided to POLITICO. That means that it would be counted as a mark against them among conservatives in their next election.

Bovard did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The concern among GOP senators is that had they voted against the Lee measure, they would lose their ability to claim purity to Republicans on Obamacare — even if they were voting against Lee for procedural reasons.

Lee spokesman Conn Carroll said his boss apologized to McConnell when he learned of the email.

“This email is not how Sen. Lee does business,” Carroll said. “As soon as Sen. Lee found out about the email he contacted McConnell, met with him, and apologized.”

Lee made a similar appeal in the conference meeting, senators said.

“Things like that happen in this world we operate in, but I do think it was unknown to Mike, and he did not approve of that,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). “We got a lot to do, and I think it’s important that Republicans work hard and win the confidence of the people who elected us last November.”

Brian Darling, a former senior aide to Sen. Rand Paul who helps administer the conservative email list, said it’s largely made up of libertarian-leaning activists. He said Bovard was not coordinating any effort and that she was simply responding to questions about complex Senate procedures.

“These were casual conversations,” Darling said. “It was not a coordinated effort.”

Still, few things anger GOP lawmakers more than one of their colleagues actively working with outside forces to undermine them.

The Lee aide’s email reminded many of the 2011 controversy in the House, when Paul Teller, a top aide to the conservative Republican Study Committee, was found to be emailing with conservative groups against a debt deal backed by the party leadership. Teller, who was later fired by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), later became Cruz’s chief of staff. Similarly, Cruz and Lee were berated in 2013 by their colleagues for working with the Senate Conservatives Fund, a conservative outside group that targets GOP incumbents. Both men vowed not to fundraise for the group, after appearing in its ads.

Amid this most recent fight with his party leaders, Lee on Monday night offered to withdraw his effort to change Senate rules if Republican leaders would “publicly commit” to using the budget reconciliation process to repeal Obamacare.

GOP leaders have warned that it may be impossible to use the majority-vote budget maneuver to repeal the health care law because of rules prohibiting the use of reconciliation on anything that would increase the deficit. Yet, many leaving the meeting expressed confidence that the budget reconciliation bill — which cannot be filibustered — will indeed by used to approve a repeal. But there were no public pronouncements from McConnell on his Obamacare strategy Monday night.

Lee left the session with fellow GOP senators after an hour but declined to comment. “I’m not doing any hallway interviews,” he told reporters.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.