The Chamber of Commerce vs. Libertarian-Leaning Republicans

Oh, those libertarians! Always shilling for Big Business! Except, um, when libertarian-leaning Republicans are actually in power, in which case the Chamber of Commerce agitates to replace them with more traditional GOP types. Cato Executive Vice President David Boaz rounds up several examples in this helpful Daily Beast column:

Why, for instance, did big companies spend so much money to defeat a Republican Georgia legislator last month? Apparently Rep. Charles Gregory was just too libertarian for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the companies like Coca Cola, Delta Airlines, Georgia Power, and AT&T, who suddenly set up a the "Georgia Coalition for Job Growth" to oppose him and other tea party legislators. It's not the only example this primary season.

In Kentucky, business leaders lobbied hard though unsuccessfully to persuade Steve Stevens, head of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, to run against Rep. Thomas Massie. Massie, a businessman himself, is a strong fiscal conservative, but some local business leaders don't like what they see as his stand-off approach.

A Washington business consultant has moved to northern California to challenge anti-earmarks Rep. Tom McClintock, because he "thinks representatives should deliver for folks back home," in the words of a local reporter. […]

In Michigan business leaders are funding financial consultant Brian Ellis's primary challenge to Rep. Justin Amash. […]

In an interview with the Weekly Standard, Ellis strikingly dismissed Amash's principled, constitutional stand: "He's got his explanations for why he's voted, but I don't really care. I'm a businessman, I look at the bottom line. If something is unconstitutional, we have a court system that looks at that."

Plenty more at the link. Brian Doherty wrote yesterday about the challenges of making the Republican Party more libertarian. Boaz came on The Independents Tuesday night to talk about David Brat's upset victory over Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and also about the current state of play in drug-sentencing reform efforts: