House GOP Freshmen Vote Similarly to Colleagues

Some have portrayed House Republican as fire-breathing dragons, ready to defy their party leadership at the drop of a hat. But a Politico analysis of votes in the House shows that’s not the case.

On 100 important House votes, Republican freshmen acted little differently from their GOP brethren, voting against the party leadership 12.5 percent of the time, compared with 12.34 percent for veterans. The rookies banded together only twice to vote as a bloc against the Republican majority. And neither of those bills was a major one, Politico reports.

The media perception of the freshmen doesn’t stand up to reality. “While it makes an easier media narrative to lump them into one bowl, the freshman representatives come from very different backgrounds and represent many different people, and I believe that any attempt to bind them together ideologically or as a voting bloc is a flawed exercise,” said second-term Kansas GOP Rep. Lynn Jenkins.

“At the end of the day, like all of my colleagues in Congress, the freshman class, as individuals, are showing their loyalty is to the people they represent, not an ideology or group in Washington,” Jenkins said.