Club For Growth Hits Boehner Ally, Idaho Business Lobby On Medicaid Expansion

FILE - This Oct. 24, 2012 file photo shows Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, in Boise, Idaho. Republicans have made the Mountain West a stronghold, which is why brewing party brawls in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah are bedevilin... FILE - This Oct. 24, 2012 file photo shows Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, in Boise, Idaho. Republicans have made the Mountain West a stronghold, which is why brewing party brawls in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah are bedeviling loyalists who yearn for GOP unity. Closely watched elections this month in Virginia and New Jersey did little to resolve the growing struggle between tea partyers and the Republican establishment. Now, some of the sharpest infighting is shifting to the rugged Big Sky region, where the tea party scored its first major victory, ousting a veteran Republican U.S. senator in a Utah party convention three years ago. (AP Photo/John Miller, File) MORE LESS
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The Club for Growth is hitting both Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) and Idaho’s largest business lobby over a push to expand Medicaid in the state. 

The Club for Growth, which backed tea partier Bryan Smith in the race for Simpson’s House seat, sent out an email Wednesday to supporters noting that “the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, which has already announced the creation of a Super-PAC to support Mike Simpson’s re-election, has also endorsed ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion in Idaho.”

“Does Mike Simpson support or oppose expanding Medicaid under ObamaCare in Idaho, just as his supporters in the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry do?” Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller said in a statement. “Medicaid expansion will cost taxpayers billions and stick future generations with the bill. Conservatives across the country are rejecting ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion, and Mike Simpson should have to answer if he joins with the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry in supporting ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion in Idaho.”

The statement comes a few days after Idaho’s Association of Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby, endorsed Medicaid expansion in the state. Idaho’s Gov. Butch Otter (R) opposes the proposed Medicaid expansion. 

Simpson’s re-election fight is seen as representative of the broader struggles for dominance between the tea party and more mainstream wings of the Republican Party. Simpson is a close ally of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Smith has been endorsed by a number of prominent tea party groups. 

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