Back in spotlight, Roskam won’t rule out leadership run

Rep. Peter Roskam said Thursday he isn’t ruling out another run for leadership, just a year after the Illinois Republican was routed in his race for majority whip.

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Roskam, the former chief deputy whip, told The Hill in a sit-down interview, careful to note he wasn’t doing anything to actively plot his political comeback.

“What I’ve observed in politics is people who spend an extraordinary amount of time plotting and scheming and this-ing and that-ing end up pretty unsatisfied,” he continued. “Life passes them by as they’re scheming for the future. I choose to live for now.”

Roskam, 53, tested that philosophy this week as Congress returned from the summer recess. After months of keeping his head down, Roskam grabbed the spotlight, blowing up the House GOP leadership’s strategy to oppose President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team had been poised to move forward with a vote to disapprove the Iran deal this week. But Roskam and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) — neither with a reputation for bucking leadership — began sounding the alarm that the administration had not shared with Congress everything it knew about the deal, specifically any “side deals” between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Roskam placed a call to Boehner on Labor Day, informing the Speaker he planned to make a procedural motion Tuesday that would gum up and delay leadership’s vote on the Iran deal. “He was gracious and generous. He was not dismissive at all,” Roskam said.

Having served as chief deputy whip under then-Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Roskam had several strategic advantages: The five-term lawmaker once had a key seat at the leadership table, he had personal relationships with Boehner and his lieutenants, and knew complicated House procedures inside and out.

“We knew how to approach the game,” Roskam said.

He also secured key support from members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who were threatening to vote down the rule on the disapproval measure over the “side deals.”

Boehner’s team went back to the drawing board, and reached a deal with Roskam and his allies on a series of votes, one of which included a non-binding resolution stating that the administration had failed to give Congress the text of the side agreements.

Roskam pushed back on critics who’ve said his procedural protest sparked internal GOP divisions and muddied the party’s arguments against the Iran deal.

“There is no ambiguity on where the party is on the Iran deal,” said Roskam, co-chair of the House Republican Israel Caucus. “Because of the intensity of the discussion, and the clarity with which rank-and-file is now speaking, that demonstrates an intensity of opposition.”

Roskam previously served in the Illinois state Senate with a Democrat named Barack Obama. He won his House seat in 2006 after defeating Democrat Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran and double amputee who would later go on to win a neighboring House district.

In the leadership shake-up following Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise primary defeat last year, Roskam — then No. 2 in the vote-counting operation — had been in prime position to succeed McCarthy as majority whip.

But in a three-way contest, then-Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise (R-La.) had all the momentum, making the case that Boehner’s team needed an outsider from a deep-red Southern state. Scalise dispatched Roskam and Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) on the first ballot.

Roskam’s defeat offered him plenty of time for reflection. He was encouraged, he said, at how serious his GOP colleagues took the leadership races. “It was not a high-school election,” he quipped.

And once on the outside looking in, Roskam realized there are plenty of other ways to be helpful and influential. He was appointed as chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight, and has spent the past year focusing on tax reform, Medicare fraud and abuse at the Internal Revenue Service.

“I view the oversight side as a tool to try to move things,” Roskam said.

Fellow GOP colleagues have taken notice of Roskam. Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said Roskam has “earned kudos from a lot of people for doing good, hard work, leading the Oversight panel on Ways and Means and his passion on the Iranian issue all bodes well for him.

“He’s a player, no doubt,” Chaffetz said. “I don’t know where he goes next.”

A political comeback is hardly unheard of in the House of Representatives. In 1998, Boehner himself was ousted as GOP conference chairman, the No. 4 job in leadership, after Democrats gained seats in the midterm election. Boehner bided his time as Education Committee chairman before mounting an unlikely comeback in 2006 to succeed Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).   

Roskam again insisted he’s not focused on climbing back up the leadership ladder; he’s just trying to make the most of his time here.

“Remember, you’re just here for a short season, and there’s nothing more former than a former member of Congress,” Roskam said. “The shelf-life on a former member of Congress drops off like the yogurt section at the local grocery store. I’m privileged to be here.

“I don’t know what the future brings.”