![]() ![]() Vela was a political newcomer when he ran for a newly created Congressional seat in 2012. That might come as a surprise to some of his early critics. When he’s criticizing his own party, it’s often from the left. ‘We now have a Republican who has converted to being a Democrat’ Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee “is now in complete chaos” after several black and Hispanic members of Congress voiced concerns over lack of diversity in the DCCC and called for Chairwoman Cheri Bustos to replace the executive director of the DCCC with a person of color. A year earlier, he told reporters, “I think you’d have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Pelosi at the top.” Last year, he was one of 16 Democrats in Congress who opposed Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House. Vela hasn’t exclusively focused his ire on Republicans, though. “Fil was a little more confrontational, I guess you could say, but on my side of the aisle he was a hero.” “Conaway was out of line,” Peterson said. It wasn’t clear at the time, but Vela likely had the backing of Democrats in the committee. “I never felt like we really called it out right, and that was an opportunity to do that,” Vela said in a later interview. Vela, meanwhile, said his animosity toward Conaway was “a long time coming.” Conaway’s previous efforts to cut food stamp funding in the 2018 farm bill didn’t sit well with Vela, and he felt compelled to address that amid a completely unrelated discussion. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, said Vela’s comments “were uncalled for and completely untrue.” “Filemon knows better than to use this type of hateful rhetoric, especially about Mike Conaway of all people,” said U.S. The comments didn’t settle well with other Republicans, however. ![]() So, good riddance,” Vela said.Ĭonaway declined to comment for this story. ![]() “Let me just put it this way: There are other members of the Texas delegation that are leaving, and I would not say any of these things about them. In a subsequent interview with The Texas Tribune, he called the retiring congressman “chicken shit,” among other epithets. “Every Democratic member of this committee championed the efforts to protect in this week’s … negotiations.” “Our caucus doesn’t need to be lectured by a racist Christian pretender who led the effort to starve America’s poor,” Vela tweeted. Vela was silent during the hearing but got fiery on Twitter soon after. By the end of the night, efforts to withhold those payments were quashed.īut during a hearing on Capitol Hill, Conaway, who leads the Republicans in the committee, gave remarks calling Democrats “shameful” for bringing any doubt that the subsidies would be dispersed. The next day, he spent close to 10 hours fielding calls from worried Texas farmers. “Why would we do something stupid like that?” Vela responded. Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota who chairs the Agriculture Committee, telling him other Democrats were threatening to withhold payments to farmers affected by tariffs. The previous weekend, Vela had begun a 28-hour drive from Brownsville to Washington when he got a call from U.S. Conaway and Vela tussled over an otherwise uncontroversial issue: subsidies for farmers, which in the end both members agreed should be disbursed. The two Texans serve together on the House Agriculture Committee, one of the few remaining places in Congress where bipartisanship is the norm. ![]() His latest dustup came in September with U.S. “I would say I was more straight-forward,” he said, rebuking the wording in a Tribune story describing his comments as “less-than-diplomatic.” Quiet voices don’t often get heard in Congress, especially not now. To him, each statement has been completely warranted. In September, he called a Republican colleague “a racist Christian pretender who led the effort to starve America’s poor.” Two months earlier, he called for the firing of the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, saying the organization was in “complete chaos.” Since then, he has made news for firing verbal bullets toward both sides of the aisle. As much of Washington has come to realize since, Vela knows how to make a scene. At the time, Vela was known as a mild-mannered, perhaps even centrist, representative. Filemon Vela, a Brownsville Democrat, when Donald Trump was still running for president. Only one, however, has told him to “take your border wall and shove it up your ass.” WASHINGTON - Many members of Congress disagree with the president’s approach to border security. Filemon Vela is willing to tussle with colleagues from both parties” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans - and engages with them - about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |