{"id":623822,"date":"2023-03-30T12:09:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/30\/meet-kevin-mccarthys-new-wingman\/"},"modified":"2023-03-30T12:09:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T17:09:00","slug":"meet-kevin-mccarthys-new-wingman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/30\/meet-kevin-mccarthys-new-wingman\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Kevin McCarthy\u2019s new wingman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nWhen Kevin McCarthy won the speakership, he appointed self-described policy \u201cnerd\u201d Garret Graves to his leadership team \u2014 a remarkably central role given that the Louisiana lawmaker chairs no committee and won no leadership election. | Francis Chung\/POLITICO\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Kevin McCarthy has a new fixer: Garret Graves.<\/p>\n

The fast-talking Republican from south Louisiana has vaulted to the center of the House GOP\u2019s biggest political dramas, from this week\u2019s massive energy bill to its contentious earmarks policy to getting the party united on a debt-limit strategy. And all of his steps have the central goal of making the speaker\u2019s life a little easier.<\/p>\n

To hear Graves tell it, he took on the role unexpectedly \u2014 all after he decided to go for the mat for McCarthy during the Californian\u2019s chaotic speakership battle, without being asked to help.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m watching it on TV,\u201d Graves said of the January stalemate over electing McCarthy, as he recalled thinking: \u201cWe look like idiots.\u201d So he began dialing conservative holdouts as well as GOP moderates resistant to the right\u2019s biggest demands. The 51-year-old even grew a beard that he refused to shave until McCarthy prevailed.<\/p>\n

And when McCarthy won, he appointed the self-described policy \u201cnerd\u201d to his leadership team \u2014 a remarkably central role given that Graves chairs no committee and won no leadership election. Graves has embraced the jack-of-all-trades adviser identity, helping smooth intra-party conflicts while building his clout in the House.<\/p>\n

That emerging profile of \u201cassistant coach,\u201d in McCarthy\u2019s words, raises the question of how Graves fits in an elected leadership team that includes fellow Louisianan Steve Scalise, McCarthy\u2019s formal No. 2. But Graves said he\u2019s been careful not to get in the way \u2014 and also suggested the gubernatorial run he openly mulled this year may not be the end to his statewide ambitions, declining to rule out a Senate bid in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very cognizant of the fact that all these folks were actually elected positions,\u201d Graves said in an interview, referring to Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) He portrayed his role as \u201cblocking and tackling\u201d and \u201cplate-spinning\u201d to give McCarthy an extra assist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the intent here is to benefit the entire leadership team, the entire conference,\u201d he added. \u201cIf ever that\u2019s not happening. I obviously need to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s spent this week helping keep the House GOP together on perhaps its biggest agenda win yet, a nearly 200-page energy bill incorporating a decade\u2019s worth of Republican energy ideas that passed Thursday, 225-204.<\/p>\n

Yet even that broadly popular package required plenty of hands-on work with just four votes to spare. Graves and other members of leadership raced to resolve intra-party policy spats, several of which involved coastal Republicans resistant to offshore drilling.<\/p>\n

The GOP\u2019s energy project permitting push is a particular personal highlight for Graves, who\u2019s literally handled thousands of permits at the state level \u2014 first as a teenager working for his parents\u2019 small engineering firm, and later as head of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. At the latter job, he helped devise a multibillion-dollar program to rebuild coastal levees damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe learned his way around\u201d on energy issues as the coastal authority chief, said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), whom Graves replaced in the House and could, at some point, face in a statewide primary. \u201cYou put all that together and you have a guy others respect. And it gives him greater influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Scalise officially led the House GOP\u2019s energy bill effort, Graves has been a central part from the start, leading McCarthy\u2019s task force on the subject last year. He sat with senior staff to draft the details of the permitting section, a rare display of policy chops from a lawmaker. One senior GOP leadership aide described him as a \u201cbonus chief of staff.\u201d (A former long-time energy aide himself, Graves even tried to attend staffer committee briefings when he arrived in Congress in 2015.)<\/p>\n

But Graves\u2019 identity on energy policymaking has another, politically charged dimension: He got elected as a rare Republican willing to call out his party on climate change, as Donald Trump was falsely deriding it as a hoax.<\/p>\n

And the Louisianan\u2019s message didn\u2019t always sit right with his party. When McCarthy first picked Graves to lead GOP pushback on Democrats\u2019 new climate panel in 2019, some colleagues were skeptical.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think when he got chosen [that] immediately he was everybody\u2019s number one pick,\u201d recalled Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), who first got to know him on the panel. Armstrong now calls Graves \u201cone of our most effective\u201d members, full stop.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big reason why fellow Republicans answered his calls in January, when Graves first jumped in to help McCarthy\u2019s election math problem. He and a handful of other McCarthy allies began bringing leadership and the holdouts into the same room for real talks.<\/p>\n

Centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) has called Graves \u201cone of the unsung heroes\u201d in the speakership battle. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a conservative holdout, said Graves excelled at convincing each side that common ground existed.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t hurt that Graves, though sometimes seen as sharp-elbowed, also wins friends easily, despite (or perhaps due to) being a notorious prankster. \u201cHe\u2019s the kind of guy who will give you a hard time, then he\u2019ll step back and make sure you\u2019re all taken care of,\u201d said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah).<\/p>\n

The same players, from Graves to Roy, will soon play similar roles as the party grasps for a workable strategy to resolve the imminent debt limit crisis. But for now, Graves is wrapping up the House energy bill \u2014 which is DOA in the Democratic-controlled Senate.<\/p>\n

During his eight years in office, he\u2019s taken solace in seeing elements of his party move closer to the message he shaped as a coastal Republican: a readiness to talk about the disastrous effects of a warming planet alongside calls for more U.S. oil and gas production. <\/p>\n

Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who chairs the Conservative Climate Caucus that launched in 2021 with Graves as a founding member, credits his colleague\u2019s \u201cability to explain these concepts in a way that helps Republicans get their climate feet underneath them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graves is elated to see others in the party parrot his language on clean energy, including McCarthy: \u201cI love the fact that the Republican mainstream is now talking about lowering emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats who\u2019ve worked with him, though, say he\u2019s doing little but paying lip service to the threat of climate change by not using his sway to advance GOP policy solutions. <\/p>\n

One who worked closely with him on the now-disbanded climate committee said that Graves isn\u2019t interested in alienating an oil and gas industry still dominant in his coastal district, which is also vulnerable to sea-level rise from climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen no cameras are on, I love Garret. When cameras are on, he does what he needs to do. But he\u2019s a good human being and someone I get a beer with,\u201d said Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). <\/p>\n

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who led the climate panel which McCarthy disbanded this year, said Graves under-delivered there. \u201cHe is a fierce defender of the oil and gas industry \u2014 he makes no bones about it,\u201d she observed.<\/p>\n

Graves dismissed those Democratic criticisms of him and the GOP\u2019s energy bill, which was written to ease production and export of oil and gas, but also to streamline permitting reviews that affect electric vehicles and renewable energy supplies.<\/p>\n

And he did so with characteristic bluntness, calling Democrats\u2019 arguments \u201ccomplete bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose people that have the bulls-eye on oil and gas, those people haven\u2019t run companies and thought through how you do this. Does that mean we do away with wind, solar, and geothermal? Hell no. We need absolutely everything,\u201d Graves said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n By Sarah Ferris and Josh Siegel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Kevin McCarthy won the speakership, he appointed self-described policy \u201cnerd\u201d Garret Graves to his leadership team \u2014 a remarkably central role given that the Louisiana lawmaker chairs no committee and won no leadership election. | Francis Chung\/POLITICO Kevin McCarthy has a new fixer: Garret Graves. The fast-talking Republican from south Louisiana has vaulted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":623823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,523,36087],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-623822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial","8":"category-kevin","9":"category-mccarthys"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}