Boehner: House Victory in La. is Symbolic

by Walter Alarkon - 12/08/08 12:11 AM ET

House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) said that the GOP’s House race win in Louisiana last weekend can show the way forward for the party.

In a memo to his fellow GOP House members, Boehner said that Joseph Cao’s victory over Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) is a symbol for the positive reform message Republicans can use against the Democrats in power.

Read Boehner’s full memo below.

To: House Republicans
From: Leader Boehner
Re: The Future is Cao
Date: 07 Dec 08

The people of Louisiana this weekend elected two new House Republicans, with Anh “Joseph” Cao ousting a corrupt Democratic incumbent in a heavily Democratic district and John Fleming successfully defending the seat held by retiring Rep. Jim McCrery, a seat Democratic leaders and their special interest allies had circled on the map and gone all-out in hopes of winning.

As The Hill reported last night, the Louisiana results “give Republicans a second shot of good news in less than a week, following Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ relatively easy win in a runoff in that state.”

As House Republicans look ahead to the next two years, the Cao victory is a symbol of what can be achieved when we think big, present a positive alternative, and work aggressively to earn the trust of the American people. Joseph Cao is a Vietnamese immigrant whose experience in America drew him to the Republican Party and its traditional commitment to freedom and reform. Working with like-minded Republicans such as Governor Bobby Jindal, he took an aggressive stand against corruption, offering a principled alternative to what voters were offered by the local Democratic establishment. Shrugging off conventional wisdom, he ran as a reformer in a district hungry for new representation in Congress. And he won.

While Washington Democrats are busy spinning the Jefferson debacle as an aberration, they are in the process of trading it in for a new debacle with greater implications for national policy. Just days before the Cao win, Speaker Pelosi declared she “does not foresee” a change in the current leadership of the Ways & Means Committee, whose chairman faces questions about potential abuses of tax laws and House rules. It’s disappointing the Speaker does not foresee making a change in the Ways & Means Committee leadership at this critical time for our nation’s economy. Despite the economic hardships they face, working families across America are paying their taxes, and they deserve the confidence of knowing that the elected officials entrusted with the responsibility of crafting our nation’s economic policies in these challenging times are following the rules as well.

The Cao victory is a symbol of our future. In the two years ahead, House Republicans will demonstrate our commitment to reform by holding ourselves to the highest possible ethical standard