The congressman from Virginia’s 5th District was among the final six Republican holdouts against awarding fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy the House of Representative’s speaker gavel. Bob Good’s only concession to the inevitable was to vote “present “on the 15th ballot.
In a Dec. 28 essay in the Richmond Times Dispatch, Rep. Good outlined his reasons for not supporting Kevin McCarthy. Among them was the new speaker’s unwillingness “to change how Congress operates to empower regular members.” Even after McCarthy made concessions that would do this, and other Republican rebels came over to the California Republican’s side, Good still refused to vote for him.
Good said he wanted “a strong leader who represents the conservative center of the Republican conference.” Kevin McCarthy is much closer to his party’s “conservative center” than Bob Good. The 5th District congressman is an extremist like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is on the left, who also will go against her party when she does not get her way.
Extremists do not make good legislators. Legislators negotiate and compromise. It is how the House gets things done. Since extremists do not negotiate or compromise, they serve only as obstructionists. Good has voted against anything the Democrats offer because he believes the party is “evil.”
Among other things, he voted against the Disaster Assistance for Rural Communities Act, a bill that would make it easier for rural communities to get Small Business Administration relief following a disaster.
The Republican members of Congress from the two neighboring districts, Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith, saw the bill’s value for their people and voted for it, as did Kevin McCarthy. Since the 5th District is about 70% rural, Good’s vote was clearly against the interests of his constituents. So, in this case, what the congressman calls the “swamp cartel” was more supportive of his people than he was.
Good labels himself a “biblical conservative.” Perhaps he skipped 1 Samuel 15:23, which says, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”
Steve Bailey, Richmond