Mavericks Silenced: How Party Leaders Punish Dissenters

After stepping out of the prescribed narrative of his political party, this member of Congress was assailed by rumors of dire problems within his office involving his wife and him, leaked to the press by “unnamed staffers.”

You may think we’re talking about Sen. John Fetterman and his recent run-ins with his own Democratic Party. Actually not.

Long before Pennsylvania’s hoodie-wearing senator hit the scene and ran afoul of the leadership of the Democratic Party and became the subject of a whisper campaign in the Washington, D.C., press questioning his sanity, then-Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett was ruffling feathers in the Republican Party.

In 2017, Garrett was trying to get a version of the famous Obamacare “repeal and replace” legislation to the floor of the U.S. House for a vote despite Speaker Paul Ryan’s, R-Wis., puzzling opposition. Puzzling because it was a bill that the House had passed just a year before only to have President Barack Obama veto it. Yet it was 2017, and President Donald Trump was in the Oval Office saying he was ready to sign something if Congress would “get it to me.”

Then Garrett took part in a documentary called “The Swamp” that featured Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.; Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.; among others, detailing how both political parties required monetary contributions for committee seats and other corrupt practices. That is when stories leaked by “unnamed staffers” started to appear to make Garrett look like he was using his staff as personal servants.

So, as the Fetterman story unfolded, the similarities drove The Daily Signal to call and ask Garrett’s views on the Fetterman situation after having been through something similar and why such punishments seem to be a bipartisan affair.

Now a member of Virginia’s minority party in the state House of Delegates, Garrett says he’s driven by making sure that the Republicans take back the majority in the Virginia House. We also talk about the challenges he sees in accomplishing that.

Here’s our interview: