Lawmaker pushes for House committee on Mexican drug cartels

Tensions continue to burn as R-Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw continues to push R-LA's Mike Johnson onto the speakers and opens the gates of the Select Committee to crack down on Mexican drug cartels.

Crenshaw recently clashed with Johnson to vote for a resolution to create such a panel, and sources nearby Texas legislators accused the House Speaker of slow walking for budgetary reasons.

“In early February, speakers gave Crenshaw a roadmap, created a select committee to defeat Mexican drug cartels, and created a select committee to vote on the house floor, just like the Chinese select committee.”

“Dann is about securing support from the house chair, coordinating with the White House to ensure coordination, and even speaking directly with President Trump, who wants to defeat the cartel.”

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Sources say Johnson has insisted that the committee “is not enough space on the budget.”

“That's not a valid excuse for Congress to sit in his hand, rather than working with President Trump's mission to secure borders and stop the flow of fentanyl,” they said.

Crenshaw said President Donald Trump agreed to the need to “kill the cartels” in an interview with Fox Business's “Morning and Maria.”

“There should be no real opposition to this,” Crenshaw said.

Crenshaw will speak at a press conference held at the US Capitol on January 4, 2023. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Texas legislator runs a task force on the same issue, but the Select Committee claims he will give him the tools he needs to fight the cartel.

The Select Committee has many of the powers and staff that the usual Congressional Committee does, but is inherently non-permanent, and is usually created after the resolution has passed in the relevant room detailing the specific purpose of the panel.

Crenshaw's task force was one of several well-known initiatives in the last Congress. The Artificial Intelligence Task Force and Trump's attempted assassination have prepared detailed reports and legislative recommendations that Congress should follow, but neither has risen to select committee levels.

Promoting the task force will undoubtedly provide more resources, but it will require important coordination with existing panels that already oversee border security.

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The senior house GOP leadership aide pointed to Fox News Digital, which allocated funding levels to Congressional committees, which has been frozen for three years, making it difficult to find additional funds for the new committee, with the view of continuing successive resolutions and pushing Republicans to cut government spending.

The aide also noted that no new Select Committee investigation has been formed under Johnson's leadership.

Johnson will speak at a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on January 22, 2025. (J. Scott Apple White/AP)

Other Republican lawmakers who spoke with Fox News Digital agreed that Congress should support the fight against the cartel, but not everyone placed particular emphasis on the Select Committee.

However, R-Texas MP Pete Sessions said he was interested in being part of such a panel.

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“Mexican drug cartels have grown in power and height, because the Biden administration has allowed them to be a controllator for those who come to this country from not only from Mexico but from all over the world,” Session said. “So I'm a strong supporter of it and I hope to be a part of it.”

Rep. Ralph Norman (Rs.C.) told Fox News Digital, “I've never seen the bill, but whatever stops them.”