A former Republican congressman called out extremists in his party Monday for trying to remove House speaker Kevin McCarthy in an "authoritarian" power grab.
Bob Inglis, who represented the Fourth Congressional District of South Carolina in the 1990s and 2000s, expressed regret in a New York Times column for voting in 1995 in favor of a government shutdown as part of the "Republican Revolution" and "thoughtlessly" voted to impeach Bill Clinton, which he said cost him a Senate race that year and ended his time in Congress for six years.
"In the six years that followed, I returned to the practice of law and watched the congressional action from the audience’s perspective," Inglis wrote. "I cringed, observing then-serving members make the same mistakes that I had made."
He returned to Congress in 2004 a changed man, saying he no longer reflexively denied climate change because Al Gore has sought action, and Inglis said his perspective on his old Democratic foes had softened considerably since Tea Party conservatives chased him out of office for voting in favor of George W. Bush's bank bailout.
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"Extremists in my party have threatened to try and remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy for relying on the votes of Democrats to keep the government open," Inglis wrote. "Some of them appear to be authoritarian separatists who reject pluralism — a founding American principle that expects disparate groups to come together to keep the government functioning. Some of them just know that a crowd can be whomped up by overwrought pronouncements of existential threats from the 'demons' on the other side."
"All of them need to grow up," added the former GOP lawmaker.
Inglis offered advice to current lawmakers, saying the perspective of age and time away from Washington, D.C., would likely have the same effect on them as they had on him.
"Ten years from now, you’ll be embarrassed that you cavalierly threatened to shut down the government or to refuse to pay its debts," Inglis said. "You’ll be embarrassed by overwrought pronouncements about the evil of the other side. You’ll want to have engaged on substantive issues like climate change."
