With the House speaker trying to sell his debt proposal, the Republican Study Committee says a staffer asked outside groups for pressure GOP lawmakers
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), is pushing hard to solidify support among House Republicans for his deficit reduction plan, and internal tensions within his conference appear to be running hot over some of the lobbying tactics against the bill from the Republican Study Committee led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Those tensions prompted an apology issued on Wednesday from the RSC, a conservative group of about 175 mostly conservative GOP members.
"Earlier this week, an RSC staffer sent an inappropriate email to outside groups that identified members of Congress he believed were undecided on the debt reduction proposal offered by the speaker," said RSC spokesman Brian Straessle. "This action was clearly inappropriate and was not authorized by the chairman or any other members of the staff."
"This has never been - and never will be - the way we do business at the RSC. We apologize to everyone affected, and we have already taken steps to ensure that it never happens again - either by this staffer or any other RSC staffer," said Straessle.
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Members leaving a closed-door conference meeting on Wednesday -- during which the RSC's actions were a heated topic -- described Boehner as emphatically insisting that they line up behind the bill and to not reject "the doable for the perfect." And several members have since said they have decided to embrace the measure, including some who previously had opposed.