California tea party supporters revel in role in government shutdown (LA Times)
Their partisans in Washington have shut down the government and, as the debt ceiling deadline nears, have given much of the country a case of the shakes. But these are heady times for the tea party.
“It’s amazing how we can be completely irrelevant and shut down Congress at the same time,” one of the movement’s early organizers, Mark Meckler, chortled at a Saturday evening gathering at the weekend state Republican party convention in Anaheim.
“And they say the tea party is dead?” he opened.
Not quite. The movement may not have demonstrated electoral heft in California yet — Republicans hold no state offices and are outmanned in Sacramento and in Washington, and tea party members can claim only some of those seats.
But they made themselves heard this weekend. Members helped push several resolutions during Sunday’s general session, including ones to require voters to show identification before casting ballots and to gut the state’s high speed rail program.
more:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-california-tea-party-government-shutdown-20131006,0,4367096.story
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