TULSA, Okla. — Newly elected eastern Oklahoma Congressman Josh Brecheen (R-Okla. 2) said he will continue to oppose Republican Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for Speaker of the House until he can get assurances that bills surrounding spending the Federal budget will be treated much differently than they have been in more than ten years.
Brecheen spoke with only FOX23 News in a video call Thursday morning before he headed back the House floor to continue opposing McCarthy’s speakership for another day.
“This isn’t about me. This is about our country,” Brecheen said. “I’m more fixated on what this could mean transformatively (sic) for our nation and turn this nation around than I am in my own personal ability to be seen as this or that.”
The freshman Congressman said he was up for making waves on his first official week on the job because he was doing what he campaigned he would do when running for the office.
Brecheen was once a field representative for U.S. Sen. Dr. Tom Coburn, a fiscal conservative who also pushed for balanced budgets and against earmarks for things he considered to be non-Constitutional expenditures. Brecheen campaigned that he would follow in Coburn’s footsteps when occupying the seat Coburn held between 1995 to 2001 before he ran for the Senate in 2002. Brecheen also received the endorsement of Coburn’s wife during the 2022 campaign for the eastern Oklahoma Congressional seat. Coburn died of prostate cancer in March 2020.
But it’s not picking up the fiscal conservative torch where Coburn left off for Brecheen. Last week’s passage of a a $1.7 Trillion Omnibus bill that funded pet projects for members of Congress in addition to changing laws at the same time. Brecheen said McCarthy has in previous years allowed for omnibus bills to pass with little to no questions or resistance even when Republicans controlled the chamber.
“We keep living in the cycle of the omni flow and continual omnibus spending. Where legislators are relegated to an up or down vote on a Christmas tree pork laden spending bill,” Brecheen said to describe his feelings on the current way the Federal government is funded.
In his interview, Brecheen said he was not concerned about weakening his future capacity to make and push for change in the Republican caucus despite poking the Republican leadership bear, but he said there have been tense times on the House floor from other Republicans, especially allies of McCarthy who hoped he would be Speaker by now.
“We have to address this if we’re going to be serious about this and not just be actors on a stage maintaining the status quo up here,” Brecheen told FOX23.
Similar to what other Republicans opposing McCarthy’s nomination are saying, Brecheen told FOX23 that despite what it looks like on TV, Republicans control the House chamber, and what the American people are seeing is healthy debate that is long overdue, not a party in crisis.
“Look out your window. They sky isn’t falling. Ask yourself the question are our children and our grandchildren worth the uncomfort level of what you’re seeing on the television if we can fundamentally change the spending habits of Washington D.C.,” he said he’s been telling his constituents who have started to complain that the current Speaker debate is embarrassing the party and hindering their ability to lead the chamber they were elected to control.
Brecheen has been spotted on the back benches on the Republican side of the House chamber with prominent House Freedom Caucus members such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). The two are conservative firebrands who have been some of the leaders of the group of 19 demanding McCarthy give the group more of their demands in the way of House rules, House committee assignments, and promises bills like term limits will be brought to the floor.
Brecheen said he plans to join the Freedom Caucus after he takes the oath of office, which no member can take until a Speaker of the House is chosen.
“I am open to join any group that is going to fundamentally bring about the change this country needs to turn itself around,” he said.
The freshman Congressman told FOX23 he fears if no changes are made in how Republicans handle the Federal government’s finances, the Federal government’s annual expenditures will simply be interest on the national debt like a credit card that continues to rack up interest.
“If we don’t fix this, half of the Federal budget will simply go towards debt service,” Brecheen said.
He went on to say the passing of the bills to future generations of Americans was the primary reason he and others had gotten into this fight.
“A baby born today will immediately be saddled with $90,000 for their share of the Federal debt,” he said. “That has to stop now.”
To make things even more interesting for Oklahomans in the middle of this national fight, Brecheen joined Boebert in nominating and voting for Tulsa-area Congressman Republican Kevin Hern as a consensus candidate that can bring both sides together and be strict on the budget. Hern said he would pray about being Speaker when asked by national media, and continued to vote for McCarthy.
Last month, Hern told FOX23 McCarthy was serious about the Federal budget and spending, and he had earned the right to the Speaker’s chair by rebuilding the Republican majority over the last four years.
“When you look at what Leader McCarthy has done certainly in the last four years to get us back to this position of having the opportunity of getting back to the majority, he certainly has spent enough time and raise enough money to compete with the democrats and certainly here we are. So I will be voting for him to be speaker of the house,” Hern told FOX23 last month when asked if he would support Kevin McCarty for Speaker.
Hern is the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest Republican caucus on the Republican side of the House. The Freedom Caucus is considered farther to the right of the committee, but as members pointed out on the floor this week by members of The Freedom Caucus who support McCarthy, you don’t have to be a member of The Freedom Caucus to be a good conservative.
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