Paul Ryan: Luis Gutierrez’s choice for Speaker

I may be one of the few who is saying publicly that Rep. Paul Ryan is a bad choice for Speaker, but I’m not the only one who believes his selection would benefit liberals, comparatively speaking. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an extreme left-wing Democrat, told MSNBC that Ryan’s ascent to Speaker “would be good for the country.”

Breitbart correctly describes Gutierrez as “perhaps the most extreme open-borders advocate in Congress.” It notes that he “has worked tirelessly to expand immigration levels and open America’s borders up to the rest of the world.” Indeed, Gutierrez once declared, “I have only one loyalty…and that’s to the immigrant community.”

Gutierrez isn’t a one issue leftist. His lifetime rating by the American Conservative Union is 4. That’s the same as the rating of Bobby Rush, the ultra-liberal who once defeated Barack Obama for Congress. Gutierrez’s 2012 rating was 0, which was lower than Rush’s.

Moreover, as Breitbart notes, Gutierrez was never enthusiastic about Rep. Eric Cantor even though he too made common cause with the Illinois radical on immigration reform. In part, that’s because Ryan was more pro-illegal immigrant than Cantor. In addition, though, I suspect that Gutierrez sees a kindred spirit in Ryan, whereas in Cantor he just saw someone whose support on immigration was driven by the interests of big business.

Gutierrez describes Ryan as “the kind of individual that would work with people on the other side of the aisle and that’s what we need.” I consider this code language for “sucker.”

It would be ironic, but perhaps not altogether surprising, if the Republican Freedom Caucus pushed John Boehner out and stymied Kevin McCarthy for being insufficiently hard-line conservatives, only to consent to Luis Gutierrez’s favorite choice for Republican Speaker.

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