Chip Roy wants to take down Washington from the inside
Nicole Russell
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is in the swamp but, as he strives to make clear, not of the swamp. In fact, the Texas Republican has been in the swamp, Washington, D.C., for about 20 years now. He began by working for various Texas politicians, first with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and then as chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). But with each passing year, he said, he loathes it even more. “The reason I’ve never absorbed the town is I’m inherently hostile to the town,” the three-term congressman told the Washington Examiner while sitting in his Cannon office on Capitol Hill.
Though Roy boasts “long-standing Texas roots,” such as a great-great-grandfather who was a Texas ranger, he grew up in Virginia, soaking up the history surrounding the DMV, from Harpers Ferry and Monticello to St. John’s Church and Mount Vernon. Later, he earned a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and worked for the now-disgraced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. (His impeachment trial is in September.)
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The lore of Texas and the history of Virginia coalesced in Roy’s worldview to create a lawyer-turned-politician who is now the policy chairman of the Freedom Caucus, the GOP’s far-right, often-controversial coalition of House Republicans. The way Roy sees it, what drives him is often what drives the entire caucus — or what should.
As such, Roy’s been at the center of the debate over two massive happenings in Washington. The first happened earlier this year when he voted three times against the bid of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to be House speaker.
“[Roy] is not a nihilist, but an institutionalist with a well-considered view of how the House should work. He wants to take the leadership down a notch and allow more decentralized decision-making and fuller debate to empower the rank-and-file,” Rich Lowry wrote in Politico in January.
Roy’s ploy failed, but he continued onward and led an insurgency of sorts against President Joe Biden’s debt ceiling deal. He gathered allies, called the deal a “turd-sandwich,” and threatened a “reckoning.” Eighteen Texans in Congress opposed it, including four Democrats.
Ultimately, Roy’s revolt stood little chance against the Beltway machinery. But his willingness to act out of lockstep with some Republicans, such as his call to “hold the line” on spending, being outraged at the Jan. 6 protests, and subsequently publicly disavowing former President Donald Trump, has resonated with Texans and caught the media’s eye.
Roy isn’t stymied or even deflated by such losses. His crusades against McCarthy and the debt ceiling deal are representative of his involvement in the Freedom Caucus and exemplify exactly what Roy hates about Washington, which is exactly why he must be there, even if he seems to spend more time losing the battles. Roy’s real aim is to win the war.
“And that’s what people around here don’t understand,” he said. “They don’t get how I can — and I think I’m a little unique in this way — where I’m friends with these people: Let’s grab a beer. Sure. I’m going to agree with you. I’ll strategize with you. But if you get out in a lane that I think is hostile to what I believe is important for the republic and where we’re headed and limited government and the preservation of our freedom and values, I’m going to punch you in the nose, even if you’re my friend. And I think that’s what people don’t understand. They’ll see one day, ‘Oh, he’s on the team.’ And then the next day, I’m like, ‘No, that’s wrong.’ And I call it out, and they go, ‘Wait a minute. I thought you were on the team?'”
So what team is Roy on? When one hears the term “Freedom Caucus,” images of members such as Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) or Lauren Boebert (R-CO) surface — fringe examples of a far-right circus few want to attend and even fewer support.
“They are not in the same galaxy,” said Rick Tyler, a Republican strategist, in an article in the Hill comparing Gaetz and Boebert to Roy. “He is a conservative … but he is not going to join the clown show.”
Roy’s policy position in the Freedom Caucus is partially, or perhaps wholly some days, a crusade against what he’s dubbed the “Uni-Party.” “The Uni-Party is a collection of individuals who find their way towards continuing to advance the town [D.C.] and the interests of this town over the interests of the country,” he said. “And they do it even while they yell at each other saying how much they’re different. It’s like the omnibus bill last December. We just had an election. Republicans took the House, and these sons of guns passed a $1.7 trillion monstrosity because they could, nothing more, nothing less … to the detriment of the American people.”
Roy doesn’t hesitate to point out that fellow Republicans voted for it, too — 17 in fact. “The defense establishment plus the radical Left who wants to use the federal bureaucracy to increase power: Those two things come together, and that’s the Uni-Party. And so to break the back of that, man, that’s the thing that’ll cause the swamp to bite back,” he said.
Many conservatives in Washington are there to represent their constituents and don’t mind exchanging a little of this for a little of that. Negotiations and deals are part of the game that’s been played for decades — some would even say this is fundamental to political coalition building. This, too, Roy views as part and parcel of the entire problem with Congress. And he blames Republicans as much as Democrats.
“The question is, are you going to break the back of the inner party? Are you going to change the trajectory? Are you going to drain the swamp? Trajectory shifts are hard, and breaking the back of the Uni-Party in Washington is hard. And so, you have to just be deliberate and go at it and go at it.”
Sometimes Roy is so passionate, even his allies wonder if they’ll become the object of his ferocity. After a recent “rant” on the House floor, the kind for which he’s gone viral online a few times, a colleague Roy did not name asked if he just hated everyone in Washington. Roy told him no. Rather than all the people themselves, Roy said he hates the institution “basically because it’s been screwing America for my entire life.”
“There’s a disaffected bloc of America who just wants a return to sanity, and it’s like a breath of fresh air,” Roy continued. “When they see some of us just unvarnished, ripping into the thing that they’re so frustrated about and channeling their frustration … they want to see us have passion and a spine and stand up for them.”
This anti-establishment attitude and determination to stand up for the regular voter is precisely why he is tolerated by Republicans, hated by Democrats, but beloved in Texas and elsewhere. Roy often receives kudos while out from constituents and nonconstituents alike simply saying, “Thanks.” “They’re thanking any of us who are willing to say no to the insanity because you’re representing what they think,” Roy said.
Naturally, not everyone in politics loves Roy’s direct, passionate style or the fact that he’s such a pure ideologue. “I think of Chip Roy as erratic,” Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Texas, told the Hill in January. “On occasion, he will be part of the solution, and you’ll find him making compelling points. But the other Chip Roy is more often throwing gasoline on the fire.”
In a mostly scathing January Texas Monthly article, called “Chip Roy, Bless His Heart,” the disdain dripped from beginning to end for the Austin-area-based conservative.
“Typically, Texas politicians who fall in the That Guy category rail against the system and the establishment, which they say is a threat to the Texas values that many That Guys have dedicated their lives to defending,” the article said. “Roy, who was born inside the D.C. swamp in Bethesda, Maryland, and raised in Virginia, does precisely this, but he is a prominent member of a subcategory of That Guys who are also consummate insiders. He is a miniature of his longtime mentor and ally Ted Cruz: a veteran political operative from out of state, bound for the upper class, who rode to office on the back of a folksy populist persona and a nickname. They’re even both now experimenting with facial hair.”
Some of Roy’s criticism could truly be of his own making. When elected three terms ago, the freshman congressman, fresh from many years already of working the Beltway, suggested he was akin to the conservative version of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). When the coronavirus pandemic started, Roy simply called for the country to reach herd immunity rather than wait for a vaccine, a statement that did him no favors. Last year, Roy was just one of three members of Congress to vote against a bill making lynching a federal hate crime, calling it indicative of “a woke agenda.”
Still, even his critics, such as in that same Texas Monthly article, have a word or two of praise: “He’s just as outspoken and infuriating as ever — but unlike the Louie Gohmerts of the world, he cares more about influencing the process than yelling. He’s a rock-ribbed ideologue but not a partisan, which makes him an unusual figure in D.C.” Roy would take that as a compliment, especially coming from a left-of-center publication.
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In Washington, Roy’s inability to compromise might as well be seen as a double-edged sword that makes him untouchable and dangerous, but he sees it as a net force for good, a necessary weapon in his crusade to drain the swamp, helping him stand firm, immutable, ready to strike.
“I love everything that we do around here, but it doesn’t mean crap if we’re not actually living free,” he said. “So, I wake up every day thinking, Well, God’s got me on this planet for some reason. We’re only on this planet for a blip in the history of mankind. I want to preserve liberty for my kids and grandkids.”
Nicole Russell is a journalist and mother of four who is the opinion columnist at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She previously lived outside Washington, D.C., and is a Minnesota native.