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POLITICSWashington to mix it up. And early signs suggest it’s
not just the hard-liners among them who will toe
the party line. Only one of the 19 newbies, Repre-
sentative Young Kim of California, has joined the
Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of 54 Republicans
and Democrats focused on writing and supporting
bipartisan legislation. (Three first-term Republican
men are members.) By contrast, 11 voted against cer-
tifying President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victo-
ry, all of them voted against a second impeachment
of former President Donald Trump and just three
voted to strip Greene of her committee assignments.
What’s more, only seven of the new women signed
on to an Inauguration Day letter from 17 freshmen
Republicans to Biden calling for a fresh start. All
seven signatories won their elections by fewer than
five percentage points; Representative Mariannette
Miller-Meeks of Iowa won by a scant six votes. “AfterTo be sure, not every newly-elected Republican
woman is a violence-espousing conspiracy theorist
like Greene, whose antics have included heckling a
Parkland school shooting survivor and seeming to
endorse the execution of House Speaker Nancy Pelo-
si. Nor are they a Glock-toting gun-rights activist like
Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert or an out-
spoken firebrand like Illinois Representative Mary
Miller, who took flack for saying at the pro-Trump
rally before the Capitol riot, “Hitler was right about
one thing.” A few of the new GOP congresswomen
have even expressed willingness to work with Dem-
ocrats, especially representatives like Tenney who
narrowly flipped seats from blue to red. For them,
seeking common ground is political common sense.
Still, most of the record 19 first-term GOP women
in the House won big, often by selling themselves as
unbending, Trump-style conservatives heading to“We’ve elected some REPUBLICAN WOMEN who are
more strident than we’ve ever seen before.
They didn’t come to Washington to COMPROMISE.”