Monday Edition: Who Will Replace Speaker Boehner?
The state of the race for the gavel
72 hours since Speaker Boehner’s surprise resignation announcement and the replacement field is beginning to take shape. Some who took the weekend to mull a gavel run and test support announced their decisions Monday.
Here’s what we know as of now:
Shocking no one, Majority Leader Rep. McCarthy is definitely in the race:
After hearing from my colleagues, I have decided to run for Speaker of the House. Let’s work together to make a difference for our country.
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) September 28, 2015
McCarthy's letter, signed "Kevin" pic.twitter.com/udyDSjZApO
— Robert Costa (@costareports) September 28, 2015
Paul Ryan endorses Tom Price over Steve Scalise for Majority Leader:
All the shuffling will likely leave openings in more than the Speaker’s chair. If McCarthy’s spot is vacated, a new Majority Leader will be selected. Tom Price announced he’s running for that spot and now has the endorsement of Paul Ryan. From Politico:
House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan is throwing his weight behind Rep. Tom Price for majority leader, a significant boost for the Georgia Republican, and a blow to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and others who are vying for the spot.
Price is quickly gathering a good deal of conservative support for his bid for the No. 2 House GOP leadership slot. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) also endorsed Price Monday.
“Tom Price is a committed conservative and a good friend,” Ryan said in a statement. “He and I have served for years together on the Budget and Ways and Means Committees, working to pay down our debt, fix our tax code, and grow our economy. Tom has a proven record of advancing conservative solutions and principles. He has the knowledge and skills needed to be an effective Majority Leader, and I’m proud to support him.”
Price is facing Scalise (R-La.), the House majority whip, and House Republican Conference Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) for the second-ranking position in GOP leadership. Ryan endorsed Price in his 2014 race for conference chair, which he lost to McMorris Rodgers.
Hensarling Out:
Last week, Rep. Hensarling indicated he would announce his decision early this week. Today the Texas Chairman of the Financial Services Committee said he will not seek the speakership. Like Ryan, Hensarling is backing Price for the No. 2 leadership spot. The Hill reports:
Hensarling will pass on a bid for both Speaker and majority leader following Ohio Republican John Boehner’s surprise announcement Friday that he would relinquish the Speaker’s gavel and step down from Congress on Oct. 30.
He will instead back a fellow conservative, Budget Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) in the race for majority leader, the No. 2 job, according to a senior GOP lawmaker who received a call from Hensarling over the weekend.
A Hensarling spokeswoman had no comment. But Hensarling passed on a leadership bid as recently as last year, ultimately deciding not to challenge Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the race for the No. 2 job after then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was ousted from office in his GOP primary.
Also not running:
Gowdy, Issa, Jordan, Gohmert, Labrador, and Meadows.
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Comments
HELL NO! NO ONE on the Boner “leadership team” should be voted into “new” leadership. Doing otherwise would be doing the same thing over and over and wondering why NOTHING HAS CHANGED! McCarthy will just continue the “go along to get along” GOPe stance of “we’ll fight the next battle, let’s line our pockets first” tactic that has gotten us to THIS POINT! YES, it will be a fight. But this is the by-god fight WE ELECTED YOU TO DO! Now quit WHINING ABOUT IT and get it on!
So only now you realize the whole “oust Boehner” movement – whether just the 28 who publicly joined it, or the 50ish Labrador claimed (in past, always close to double what he delivered anyway) – had no plan at all if they succeeded?
Heh. The next Speaker will be to Boehner’s left because there is no credible candidate on the right who could put together 124 votes. So it is likely McCarthy. I have no big problem with him, but he is clearly not as conservative as Boehner.
Be careful what you wish for.
Newt Gingrich. Prior experience, plus an attitude that snarls when appropriate.
I’m just wondering how much you really know about Newt?
Or maybe you agree with him, which is the source of your endorsement of him.
Newt is on record — from which he has never distanced himself — to being a full-throated endorser of Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave theory of the geo-political landscape.
The “Third Wave” is, in case the concept is new to you, the belief in and support of, the theory that the concept of the nation state will be eclipsed by one-world government.
Is this the Newt you so heartily recommend to us?
Harriet,
You may want to read a book before critiquing it.
“Despite the forecast of the obsolescence of the order of nation-states, and the rise of super-national entities, what was not forecast was the emergence of a world political union cast in the form of the United States of Earth. In the framework of the Wave Theory of Toffler, such an institution, if constituted along lines similar to present-day nation states, would represent the very archetype of the Second Wave writ large. Curiously, the potential of a federal world union cast in the mould of a heterogeneous mix (e.g. nations, labor unions, religions affiliations, businesses, popular assemblies, IGO’s, etc. all brought together in an overlapping mix) was left open.”
-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(Toffler)
Newt was brilliant in opposition, and carried through the pledge to get the Contract items to a floor vote in 100 days. After that, he became a total pain in the side of conservatives, being a self-promoter who enjoyed making secret deals with Democrats while banging the help.
Your ignorance is showing.
Anyone know if Boehner is retiring to free up his time for a run at the White House? He’s got enough favors he can call in from his Dem friends and everyone else in the GOP is running, so why not try?
As to his replacement, Allen West comes to mind, but we know the party of stupid will feel obligated to replace dumb with dumber. Let’s hope the showdown in the GOP comes now, over this election, so that we can be focused for 2016.
Isn’t Webster running for Speaker? From Florida. Former Florida house speaker.
Webster is in.
Yes, it will be noted he “also ran.”
What difference would that be, exactly, Rep. McCarthy? How would you distinguish yourself from the Tanner in Chief of the House we got stuck with before?
McCarthy would throw the conservative caucus a bone by sending it some bill or amendment they like to the Senate, but he’ll ultimately backslide to the Boehner style of cronyism and serving the donor base. Agreeing to McCarthy gets conservatives very little. It is unclear if the GOPe understands that if the speaker won’t fight either, he or she will be pressured out like Boehner.
Conservatives hate that the GOPe won’t fight, but that lack of fight is helping the conservative caucus take over, little by little. We’re talking 3 or 4 dozen conservative House members fighting and winning against hundreds of more establishment members, including the party leadership.
That’s quite an accomplishmment (assuming one isn’t among the losers) by the conservative caucus and a direct result of the Tea Party philosophy and works.
“…if the NEW speaker won’t fight either…”
Based upon their lifetime voting records, he is clearly to the left of Boehner. But Boehner is the most conservative member ever elected Speaker, having recorded the 8th most conservative voting record in the House in the decade preceding his winning the gavel. There is and has been no one nearly as conservative with any chance to win a majority of the caucus.
I thought everyone knew this stuff.
Why, Boehner was Tea Party before there was a Tea Party, said so himself!
So, how many other GOPe cheerleaders believe Boehner is a staunch conservative? Six? Eleven?
Conservatism is as conservatism does. Boehner sold out his conservatism and now he’s gone.
So who is McCarthy??? I don’t anything will change.