DCCC sends 'Tea Party membership card' to House GOP freshmen

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent "Tea Party membership cards" to all new Republican congressmen in the 113th Congress on Thursday, the day they were sworn in to Congress.

The card charges that, as a member of the Tea Party, lawmakers are entitled to:

"—Unlimited votes against women's rights
—Authority to create and/or ignore any national crisis
—Access to millions in undisclosed special interest cash
—Full participation in a caucus united behind ending the Medicare guarantee
—Ironically, government-funded health care paid for by taxpayers
—Multiple chances to protect tax breaks for Big Oil and outsourcing donors"

Not every new Republican lawmaker is an avowed member of or backed by the Tea Party. But it continues a line of messaging pursued by the DCCC over the past month that aims to both align the entire Republican Caucus with the Tea Party and vilify the conservative movement at the same time.

Tea Party members have been prominent opponents of certain pieces of legislation that centrist Republicans and the GOP leadership in the House and Senate has backed. And the DCCC is working to frame the Tea Party as extremist and the group to blame for an inactive Congress, and saddle vulnerable Republicans with the Tea Party mantle.

“The Tea Party Republican Congress has repeatedly chosen an extreme ideology instead of practical solutions and now Congressman Davis has opted to join them,” said DCCC Communications Director Jesse Ferguson in the email sent to Rep. Rodney Davis's (R-Ill.) office.

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