GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Most elected representatives host town halls in their districts to speak with constituents about solving the nation’s ills — slimming the bloated federal budget, say, or lifting up the poor and the middle class.

Rep. Justin Amash, a leader of the House Freedom Caucus who helped plunge the House of Representatives into an unprecedented state of chaos, wants to talk about rules.


The House rules. How he believes John Boehner didn't follow them, and how the chamber’s next leader needs to. Amash and his crew want a robust committee process. They would like more amendments and no more end runs to fast-track legislation to the House floor. If the next leader does those things, he or she might not have to constantly worry about the Freedom Caucus. Return to “regular order,” and the Republican Conference just might be able to return to normal.

“The problem isn’t that he isn’t conservative enough,” Amash told about 40 people here during a town hall meeting Wednesday evening, referring to John Boehner, who announced his resignation amid growing pressure from Amash’s group. “The problem is he doesn’t follow the process. He operated a top-down system, and still operates a top-down system because he hasn’t stepped down yet. Which means that he figures out what outcome he wants, and he goes to the individual members and attempts to compel and coerce us to vote for that outcome.”

Amash, a 35-year-old libertarian-minded Republican first elected in the tea party wave of 2010, is at the heart of a new power center in the House Republican Conference. With roughly 40 members, the Freedom Caucus has an outsized role in selecting the next speaker of the House. If its members vote as a bloc, which they say they intend to do, it essentially gives them veto power over the next speaker of the House.





Republican leaders see Freedom Caucus members as a bunch of bomb-throwing ideologues with little interest in finding solutions that can pass a divided government.

But that's a false reading of the group, Amash told his constituents. Their mission isn't to drag Republican leadership to the right, though many of them would certainly favor more conservative outcomes. It's simply to force them to follow the institution's procedures, Amash argued.

That means allowing legislation and amendments to flow through committees in a deliberative way, and giving individual members a chance to offer amendments and to have their ideas voted on on the House floor. Instead of waiting until right before the latest legislative crisis erupts, then twisting members’ arms for votes, they argue, leadership must empower the rank and file on the front end and let the process work its will.

“In some cases, conservative outcomes will succeed. In other cases, liberal outcomes will succeed. And that’s OK,” said Amash, who was reelected overwhelmingly last year after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce backed his Republican primary rival. “We can have a House where different coalitions get together on different bills and pass legislation. And then we present that to the Senate and we present it to the White House.

“The worst scenario,” Amash continued, “is where you have one person or a small group of people dictate to everyone else what the outcome is going to be in advance.”

During the town hall meeting, Amash talked about his desire to balance the budget, stop the National Security Agency from spying on innocent Americans and increase transparency in the political process.

But in the midst of the GOP's acute search for a new speaker, Amash spent the overwhelming majority of the hour-plus town hall on an extended discourse about the arcane rules that govern the House of Representatives.

Listening to him tell it, Washington today is a banana republic. He said he's asked by leadership on a weekly basis to waive the institution’s rules, a move to expedite legislating that most members view as a relatively minor vote. But Amash finds it maddening. He says he's threatened and coerced to support the party leadership — or else.

“Under this system, it’s very rigid, very controlled,” Amash said to overwhelmingly sympathetic nods from the crowd. “From Day One it's drilled into your head that you must waive the rules every time we bring one of these resolutions to the floor or else you’re not part of the team. ... And you need to stick with the speaker on everything. [So] it’s no surprise you have all these crises. It’s no surprise when you have one person or a small group of people always negotiating the outcomes and trying to find the votes afterwards.”

Of course, that’s what the establishment says of the House Freedom Caucus: that its roughly 40 members have just enough power to throttle progress and give Republican leaders a perpetual migraine, but no interest in the give and take required to get something done.

And allies of Boehner and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy say they have been overly solicitous of all House Republicans. Current leaders say they use the committee process, and follow the rules — and when they don't, they say, it's to protect Republican members from tough votes or to advance an agreed-upon agenda.

Furthermore, they say the Freedom Caucus has, essentially, held the GOP hostage, demanding specific changes to House and party rules in exchange for support. Many of Boehner's many allies doubt the authenticity of the group's push and point to ideological demands to use budget reconciliation to repeal Obamacare, and its resistance to raising the debt ceiling.

Amash vows his group is focused on changing the way the institution works.

"It takes those members in the House Freedom Caucus to stand strong against the current system in order to change it," he said. "And if we didn’t stand together, I don’t think we’d be here today talking about who might be the next speaker of the House. So we need to make sure that we push for process reforms and continue to emphasize process. We’re not talking about the ideology."

Right now, the group — which is led by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan — is supporting Daniel Webster, a little-known congressman from Florida at risk of soon losing his seat to redistricting, for speaker. Amash called Webster "a principled representatives and he cares most about process." But caucus members are keenly aware that others might get into the race, namely Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

In an interview after the event, with his suit jacket in his hand and an aide in the wings, Amash said he spoke to Ryan last week about running for speaker.

"I felt it was important to have a conversation with people who might consider running, particularly because the House Freedom Caucus and a lot of other members have concerns about the process," Amash told POLITICO. He said he believes Ryan would "be open" to their requests "because he’s seen how the House has been dysfunctional under Speaker Boehner."

"But I’m not sure it’s in his nature, because he’s a policy wonk. He’s a self-described policy wonk." Amash added that Ryan would "have to persuade us" that he is willing to make changes to how the institution works.

"He’s a likable person," Amash added of Ryan. "And I know a lot of us have good relationships with him. But we need to hear how he’s going to run the House."

During the town hall, however, Amash appeared to take a shot at Ryan, saying "if someone is saying that they will only agree to be speaker if they have unconditional support, then that person is not fit to be speaker." People close to Ryan have said he's seeking unanimous support, but Amash later said it was a "general statement" that wasn't directed at Ryan, because he's not a declared candidate.

The Freedom Caucus flexed its muscle last week when the group endorsed Webster over McCarthy (R-Cailf.) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) for speaker. (McCarthy dropped out of the race shortly thereafter, citing the caucus endorsement as a real warning sign.) Now Amash's group is trying to extend its influence. He said during the town hall that the Freedom Caucus will meet with the moderate Tuesday Group next week to discuss "differences and misunderstandings."

Most people in the room agreed with Amash's take on the state of the House. But Robin Daning, a 65-year-old lifelong resident of Grand Rapids and a self-described libertarian like Amash, said the lawmaker sounded hypocritical.

"What he’s doing is saying we shouldn’t let a minority control the situation," Daning said. "But then on the other hand, the Freedom Caucus is trying to do the same thing. They’ll withhold votes and do different things to gum up the process. They're doing the same thing. They’re a minority, too."

But many others praised efforts by Amash and conservatives to topple Boehner. Amash also took questions about the Syrian refugee crisis — his father was a Palestinian refugee, he said — and a smattering of inquiries about the role of money in politics.

One man asked whether Amash will stick around Washington. He said he didn't know.

"I’ve always said I'll serve in Congress as long as I'm being effective," he said. "And I believe I am being effective. I believe I'm making a difference. And we’ve seen that difference. When I got to Congress you had a system that was really broken, and I started to talk about it. And here we are almost five years later, and that system that they put in place is starting to crumble. And we have a real opportunity here to change things."

