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Oath of Office Showdown: Jim Pfaff on DSA Socialists in Congress | Jul 23, 2026

Published: July 23, 2026
Network: The Voice of Reason with Andy Hooser
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

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Four members of the Democratic Socialists of America have won congressional primaries this season, and Jim Pfaff has a direct answer for what should happen when they arrive to be sworn in: do not seat them. The oath of office is the reason. Joining Andy Hooser on The Voice of Reason, the President of The Conservative Caucus connected three stories from a busy week in Washington—the American Bar Association’s implicit-bias platform, the Save America Act still sitting in John Thune’s Senate, and a DSA platform that would dismantle the constitutional order its candidates are swearing to uphold.

Topics Covered

• The ABA and the Long March Through the Institutions
• A Bill 80% of Americans Support—and a Senate That Won’t Move
• Comfortable in the Minority: The Old Guard Problem
• The Oath of Office Test: Why DSA Winners Cannot Be Seated
• Key Takeaways

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The ABA and the Long March Through the Institutions

Hooser opened with the American Bar Association’s claim that we all carry implicit biases—that Americans are ingrained to be bigoted and racist. Congressman Brandon Gill challenged that claim in a House hearing, and Pfaff called him one of the hearing rock stars of recent years. The exchange, Pfaff said, reveals the disassociation from reality inside key institutions, private and public, across the country.

The ABA exists to set a standard for practicing law—a level of education and competence required of every attorney. Instead, it has adopted platform positions on abortion, DEI, implicit bias, and affirmative action. Pfaff placed that shift inside a specific strategy, one he says we can name more clearly today than at any other time in our recent history: communism’s long march through the institutions.

“the only way that you can get a society to conform to what you’re attempting to do to it outside of the constitutional principles that this country was founded on is to ingrain yourself in the institutions to manipulate society through the institutions”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The timeline matters. The ABA has carried some bias for most of our lifetimes, but Pfaff says it was never as radical as it has been in the last 20 to 30 years—the period when people carrying a socialist ideology antithetical to natural law and the Judeo-Christian ethic injected themselves into it. The same infiltration happened in the schools and through government. That is why hearings like Gill’s matter: the American people need to see what has been happening in these institutions, outside their daily view.

A Bill 80% of Americans Support—and a Senate That Won’t Move

The House is wrapping its session after passing the insider trading bill—with a few Democrats on board—and the framework for reconciliation 3.0. Pfaff’s verdict: they are leaving a little too early, because the House needs to serve as a backstop to a Senate that has been intransigent on election integrity. His bigger concern is Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

“only in Washington, D.C. can you find people who will not move quickly and decisively on a bill that 80% of the American people support”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Pfaff walked through the history. In spring of 2025 the House passed the SAVE Act—a modest bill, voter ID and a couple of small provisions. Mitch McConnell hid it in committee and refused to hear it. Then Speaker Mike Johnson executed a smart procedural move: Republicans took a Senate bill that had already passed and been sent to the House, stripped its language, and inserted the far more expansive Save America Act text—precisely so the bill would not have to go back through the Senate committee process. Pfaff gives Johnson credit for it, rating him superior to his predecessors Paul Ryan and John Boehner even while holding reservations about his speakership.

And there the bill sits. Thune is a McConnell protégé—he served in Senate leadership under McConnell for many years—and he is acting in the same manner. Pfaff called the inaction gross, sickening, and absurd, because this is a winning issue all Americans would be behind. He went further: it is almost like Thune is working to make sure the House or the Senate goes under Democrat control. TCC has already made the case for replacing Senate Majority Leader Thune over exactly this pattern.

“You fight for good things. That are good for the American people. And if you lose after a big fight, the American people also will stand with you because of that.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Senate Republicans say they are for the bill, but a few votes is not a fight. The fight Pfaff wants is the one Senator Mike Lee has urged courageously and rightly for a long time: put the bill at risk by working the filibuster process—the strategy we laid out in our analysis of the talking filibuster on the Save America Act.

Comfortable in the Minority: The Old Guard Problem

Why does Senate leadership behave this way? Pfaff reached back to 1994, when Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. McConnell comes from the older way of thinking embodied by Bob Michael, the previous Republican leader—a man comfortable in the minority. McConnell’s whole approach as Senate leader was to keep your head down and do nothing too radical. Ostensibly that caution bought good judges, and McConnell did a pretty good job there—but as recent Trump cases are showing, he also put in some really bad judges, including some who came in under George W. Bush.

The standard Pfaff set is blunt: if you want to do anything good for this country, you have to fight for it as hard as Democrats will fight for evil—a party he describes as literally poisoning itself to overthrow the American Republic. Republicans who fail on constitutional principles at least pay them lip service. Democrats, he argues, have no intention of returning to them at all.

The Oath of Office Test: Why DSA Winners Cannot Be Seated

President Trump spoke the same day about stopping the communist ideology—we don’t want to even think about it for this country, he said. And the threat is not abstract: the Democratic Socialists of America have released a platform, and four DSA candidates Pfaff knows of have won primaries this season in heavily Democrat districts, making them likely members of the next Congress.

Asked whether this is what the 2026 midterm season is about, Pfaff answered plainly: he is not sure it is entirely at stake yet—but it will be, if these people gain the kind of influence they hope to have. His answer starts at the constitutional threshold every member of Congress must cross before serving.

“The moment that they come in and say that they want to take the oath of office to become a congressman, immediately, if Republicans keep Congress, they should not seat any of them.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Why refuse to seat them? Because the oath does two things at once: it binds the member to uphold the Constitution, and it requires that the oath be made without ulterior motives. That’s why the DSA candidates fail the test—their own statements prove they intend to overthrow the very structure the oath protects. Not because Pfaff dislikes them, but because they are going to lie about their oath. His remedy: do not seat them, and seat the Republicans instead. He added that Congress probably should have applied the same standard to the Squad already, since most of its members share the same idealistic way of thinking. You cannot take an oath you are unwilling to keep—it is a sacred rite of passage to becoming a congressman, something more than merely getting elected.

The contrast Pfaff drew is historical. John F. Kennedy was a liberal, and Pfaff disagrees with many of his ideals—but the Democrats of Kennedy’s day were able to take the oath, all of them, because they still believed in the Constitution. They just went about it the wrong way. That is a political debate a republic can have.

“you can’t have that kind of a political argument with people who sincerely want to overthrow the very institutions that they have been elected to”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

That is the line Pfaff draws between opposition and subversion. A constitutional republic can absorb disagreement about policy; it cannot absorb officeholders who swear an oath they have publicly promised to break. Pfaff says he will be calling for exactly this standard: if you are not willing to stand fully for the Constitution, you do not serve.

Key Takeaways

1. The ABA has joined the long march – An association that exists to set standards for practicing law now platforms on abortion, DEI, implicit bias, and affirmative action—the product of socialist infiltration Pfaff dates to the last 20 to 30 years.
2. The Save America Act is stalled by Republican leadership – The House passed the modest SAVE Act in spring 2025, McConnell buried it, Mike Johnson revived it in expansive form through a procedural maneuver, and now John Thune refuses to act on a bill 80% of Americans support.
3. The old guard is comfortable in the minority – From Bob Michael through McConnell to Thune, Senate Republican leadership has favored keeping its head down over fighting—a habit formed before 1994, when the GOP took Congress for the first time in 40 years.
4. Four DSA primary winners are headed toward Congress – All won in heavily Democrat districts on a platform that would remove the president, eliminate the Senate, stack the Supreme Court, and leave the House as the only functioning governing body.
5. The oath of office is the disqualifier – The oath requires upholding the Constitution without ulterior motives. Pfaff argues DSA members cannot honestly swear it, so a Republican Congress should refuse to seat them—and should have applied the same test to the Squad.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Jul 23, 2026 on The Voice of Reason.