Why is eric cantor blocking

Cantor's move to block the markup is stirring outrage. He recently wrote:. Why is Congressman Eric Cantor blocking this basic good-government reform? Does Cantor believe that congressmen should be allowed to inside trade with impunity? Does Cantor not realize that congressional insider trading raises serious issues of ethics, corruption, and even the potential for bribery?

Does Cantor not see that the current de facto exemption of Congress from the draconian penalties for insider trading it has imposed on everybody else is fundamentally unfair? Skip Navigation. He had generally kept his distance on the issue from Democrats or rank-and-file Republicans pushing the hardest for an immigration overhaul, like Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla. And Cantor, fearing the wrath of staunch and Tea Party conservatives on immigration, tacked to the far-right as the primary drew near.

Brat accused Cantor of trying to overplay his opposition to advancing an immigration bill after he had already carved out a record of being in favor of one. The difference? Simpson and Shuster mostly had effective and substantive lines of attack against their opponents. Cantor did not. Tim Kaine was immediately called out by FactCheck. The ad barrage not only generated curiosity about Brat, it may have created sympathy for him.

For most longtime House incumbents, the task of winning a primary is roughly equivalent to an NBA player following through on a layup. At p. But could a pollster really be 45 points off the mark two weeks out? It strains credulity. But a close look at precinct-level results offers little evidence that Democrats participated at anywhere near high enough levels to affect the outcome. In the 58 district precincts President Obama carried in , turnout in the GOP primary was up As one immigration-reform-supporting conservative operative emailed me mournfully: "I can't vote for Democrats because I am pro-life, but my party seems beyond repair.

In truth, it's not quite so simple. The Tea Party has come up short in most of the big races where it played this year, and other, unapologetic Republican supporters of immigration reform, like North Carolina Representative Renee Ellmers and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham , have held on in the face of primary challenges. Cantor may have suffered more for his role as part of the unpopular House leadership than for any particular issue.

After Republicans took the House in , Cantor positioned himself as conservatives' voice in leadership, a role in which he was blamed for scuttling the debt-limit deal that led to the nation's credit being downgraded. But he had since patched things up with Boehner, a turnaround that led many House Republicans in both camps—the hard right and the establishment—to be unsure they could trust him.