A civil war is brewing inside the most influential conservative group in Congress. 

The Republican Study Committee, which has long served as the conservative policy nerve center for the House GOP, has been beset by infighting and disputes over the group's mission.

In the past few months, at least three lawmakers have quit the group, an unusual number of defections, according to longtime RSC members and GOP aides. Several others are considering leaving and are speaking openly about their discontent with Chairman Jim Jordan's (R-Ohio) handling of the organization, which has constantly challenged GOP leaders on spending issues. And members say Jordan and the RSC staff unilaterally set broad policy positions without consulting the membership.

The internal battle within this group of 170 lawmakers reflects a larger debate in the GOP over how far right the party can push before its unity cracks. The RSC fight is also a dispute about tactics - one camp believes the group's leaders have pushed too far for ideological purity, aiming its fire inward at the expense of team unity. On the other side are those who think the organization has become too bloated with moderates to really work without dissension.

Alabama Reps. Jo Bonner and Martha Roby as well as Louisiana Rep. Bill Cassidy have dropped out of the group. At least one other, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, is in the process of leaving, according to a source familiar with his thinking. Bonner, who met with Jordan privately before he dropped out, said he'll "be damned if I am going to sit by and watch our members fight against each other." Roby, Cassidy and Kinzinger refused to comment on their departures.

"There's a bit of an überconservative environment that's going on, and we can't continue to shoot ourselves in the foot or have what I call a circular firing squad," said Florida Rep. Allen West, a freshman member of the RSC who is remaining in the group.

Since its founding in 1973, the RSC has always pursued its core objectives - serving as a petri dish for conservative policy and pressuring its leadership from the right within the Capitol - in tandem. With two-thirds of the Republican majority in its ranks, the organization should be enjoying unprecedented influence. But many have gotten tired of the provocations and constant rightward push from the RSC, leading some to question whether the organization's primary goals might now be at odds - and whether the group has become too large for its own good.

In an interview, Jordan said the attrition and grumbling are to be expected in an organization with 170 politicians. And he pointed to the RSC's high-profile successes, namely, pushing leadership to adopt the Cut, Cap and Balance pledge and for deeper cuts in government funding battles.

"I would look where the conference has been most unified," Jordan said. "[It] has been where the RSC is pushing for certain positions."

The tensions first boiled over this summer in a Republican conference meeting at the height of the debt ceiling debate, when members discovered RSC staffers were encouraging outside conservative groups to target its own members in an effort to kill Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) debt proposal.

Conservatives at all levels of the conference say they're taking another look at their membership in the wake of the debt ceiling fiasco and other missteps, according to more than a dozen interviews conducted by POLITICO. Chief Deputy Whip Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) declined to say where he came down on the conflict but hinted that he would reconsider his membership the next time payments were due, saying that everyone was going to be looking at their office budgets next year and that while he's still a member "like everyone else, I'm going to be looking at every outlay." Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), who this summer penned a letter criticizing the "intolerant and short-sighted" perspective "pervasive" in the RSC, has stopped attending the group's meetings.

"We're continuing to fire inside the tent," Rooney said of the caucus.

The consternation has reached the highest levels of RSC leadership. Twice in the past few months, the founders of the group have met about the group's problems. Jordan offered an amendment to the group's bylaws to formalize the process by which the RSC establishes legislative positions. It was roundly rejected by the RSC leadership. Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), a founder of the group, said "we're addressing the problem, and that's all I'm going to say."

"I'm not going to talk to you about it, OK?" Johnson said. "I'm aware of it."

In essence, lawmakers are beginning to feel like they are paying - at a time of shrinking office budgets - for an organization that is going to stab them in the back. Newly elected lawmakers pay $2,500 to join, rank-and-file members pay $5,000 and founders and steering committee members pay $10,000. Since members have already paid their dues, there is little incentive to leave the organization now - though the RSC has offered to pro-rate dues for those who decide to quit.

Conservative movement godfather Paul Weyrich founded the Republican Study Committee to hold its leadership to account the same year he co-founded the Heritage Foundation, and there's long been overlap between the two groups. Heritage pays for RSC lunches, and a former RSC staffer helps run the newly formed Heritage Action for America, an activist arm of the free-enterprise think tank. The group issues a tough legislative scorecard, grading on a scale that often lines up with the RSC's positions, making it much more difficult for Republican rank and file to do well than on other conservative scorecards. One Republican complained that he had a sky-high American Conservative Union score and a Heritage Action score of only around 50 percent.

Their rankings have real results. Shortly after Roby left the RSC, prominent conservative blogger Erick Erickson posted on his RedState blog that the Alabaman should face a GOP primary challenge - based in part on her weak showing in Heritage's rankings.

Other offices say they've sometimes received emails from RSC staffers pointing to harshly critical blog posts by Erickson and other blogs, in-case-you-missed-it notes that they felt amounted to thinly veiled threats about their members' standing among the conservative base.

"These guys are basically an adolescent street gang - they talk you into joining their club saying it'll be a conservative family working together. Then they beat up their own members. When someone finally gets fed up and decides to leave, they have their bullies in the blogosphere blow you up and call you a liberal or RINO and threaten primaries. They basically jump you out," said one senior Republican aide whose boss considered quitting.

Jordan and RSC staffers flatly deny any intent to scare other members, arguing that they always consult with members before issuing policy positions and only mean to reassure members and staff that they are not working with outside groups.

"There's certainly no targeting of members," Jordan said. "It's just not appropriate, and we don't want that to ever occur and I have never done that and [we're] not ever going to be a part of that."

Defenders of Jordan and the RSC staff say there's a different reason for the criticism from some GOP members.

"There are many people on RSC who use that organization's name as a cover to hide their own moderation," said another member of the group, who thinks there should be some voting record requirement to determine membership in the RSC. "To those who threaten to resign, my thought is, 'Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.' You either believe in the organization or you don't."

Jordan said "it doesn't matter" if people think the RSC is too big. He said he "inherited a large organization."

"It matters what they think about what the organization should be," Jordan said. "We're way past that. We're a large organization."

No one denies that the group is succeeding in its efforts to push the GOP conference to the right.

"The RSC has led the way in creating a far more conservative conference. Sometimes spats are a result of how much more conservative can we get, but I consider that a healthy discourse for the conference," said South Carolina Rep. Tim Scott, a freshman RSC member and leadership liaison.

Jordan said he'd welcome the deserters back into the fold. But the evidence suggests that some fences can't be mended.

"I've never in my life seen the RSC completely eat their own like this," one GOP aide said.

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