Snubbed By GOP, Tea Partiers Still Mad as Hell

The 112th Congress hasn't even been sworn in yet, but Tea Partiers are already mad: They say legislators passed over their candidates for leadership positions, then passed too much legislation during the Congress' lame duck session. “For them to legislate when they’ve collectively lost their mandate just shows the arrogance of the ruling elite," a founder of a Tea Party group tells the New York Times. And he's not just mad at Democrats: “The Republicans, frankly, have been a disaster."

Despite having more than 40 candidates win in November, Tea Partiers did not get important leadership positions, including the House Appropriations Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee. "As long as you have a Democratic president and a Democratic-controlled Senate, I don’t think there are many people who are expecting that the government’s going to be transformed overnight into something in the image of the Tea Party," said Mike Lee, Tea-Party-backed incoming senator of Utah. "That would be delusional.”
(More Congress stories.)