A curious reaction from him in the Concord Monitor on how he will “deal” and “unify” with dissenters within the Republican caucus – he’ll just order them around:
On Tuesday, Republican House members will meet in a caucus to elect a state party committee member, who would in turn lead the body’s Republican majority, said Amherst Rep. Stephen Stepanek. “Jasper is the Democratically elected speaker of the New Hampshire House,” Stepanek said. “He is not the Republicans’ man.”
After all, Shawn Jasper does not meet the requirements of the NH GOP By-Laws to sit on its Executive Board as the Democrats appointed him to be Speaker and not a majority vote of the NH House caucus (unless NH GOP Chair Jennifer Horn pulls a “lawless Obama” and changes that with a snap of her fingers). But here’s the meat of Jasper’s problem – and his tone deafness:
Jasper, for his part, dismissed the scheduled meeting, saying only Flanagan – the party majority leader he appointed yesterday – has authority to call an official gathering of the Republican caucus. “Whatever it is this group plans on doing, we’re frankly just not interested in hearing about it because it’s nothing more than a group of people getting together,” Jasper said.
Well, if the vast majority of the majority caucus show up to vote otherwise, they are telling Jasper AND Jack Flanagan to go pound sand. I said the following to the other Groksters after Steve posted up Rep. Al Baldasaro’s guest post (emphasis applied):
Wow! I was thinking of doing a post that Leaders are only Leaders when they are followed. LAW or regulation does not make a designated Leaders a real Leader – only a title. Someone who wishes to be a Leader must first be such a person that others willingly accept them and then willingly follow.
You cannot FORCE someone to follow you in this sense of the word “follow”.
I think that is the problem that Jasper / Flanagan do not realize – Flanagan can be appointed to be a leader de jure but if not accepted de facto, he is no Leader at all.
After all, while Jasper may have “legally” followed the rules to become speaker, he “violated” the spirit of such rules in doing so. Thus, it is rather hypocritical of him to demand the majority of the caucus to follow simply because he “decrees” it – like rubbing their noses in his crap (and telling them to like it). And they aren’t going to do that. That does nothing to salve any political feelings or wounds on those he may well be turning into his opposition.
If it wasn’t so serious, this would be laughable, but he may really turn out to be a Republican Speaker whose main opposition will be the Republican caucus. Actions and decisions have consequences, and being a nominal Republican that became the “Democrat appointed Speaker Shawn Jasper ” has little street cred.
Jasper initially planned to announce his entire leadership team and committee chairs all together next Wednesday. He will still name the committee chairs and the rest of the team then, he said.
As has been said by others, don’t be surprised if he has to place Democrats in some of those positions because I do get the feeling that a lot of good Platform following Republicans will pass on those seats as they will not wish to given Jasper or Flanagan “cover” – those Republicans have too much respect for their constituents.
As majority leader, Flanagan will shepherd legislation through the House. The most important way to unify the caucus in the months ahead, he said, will be making sure good bills pass. Flanagan identified legislation targeted toward jobs, the economy and energy as key policy goals.
Once again, I stick with the title of my post – no clue as to handle, at least right now, the group dynamics facing him. Blathering and making poor judgement calls will only make it worse.
