Republican congressman from Ohio announces he will resign from his seat next month after four years in the top post in the US House of Representatives
The House speaker, John Boehner, has been a congressman for three decades.
Friday 25 September 2015 10.58 EDT
John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives and a congressman from Ohio for three decades, has announced he will resign from his seat next month.
The Republican leader announced his resignation to a party meeting on Friday morning, where he told his members he didn’t want to become “the issue” amid reports of conservative infighting.
Boehner has been under intense pressure from House conservatives, who have repeatedly threatened to stage a coup against the speaker and expressed dissatisfaction with his leadership in high-profile fights on Capitol Hill.
Aides and members of Congress in the room, who were stunned by the announcement, said Boehner received a standing ovation during the meeting.
As speculation immediately soared over who would succeed Boehner, a number of influential Republicans took their names out of the mix.
Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the powerful House ways and means committee, told reporters he would not seek the job.
“I don’t want to be speaker,” Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill.
North Carolina representative Mark Meadows, a conservative who in July filed a motion to remove Boehner as speaker, also ruled out a run.
Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, is next in line as speaker but would have to secure the votes of his caucus in a formal leadership election.
The House speaker is second in line for the presidency after the vice-president and one of the most powerful figures in Washington. Boehner has thus shaped his party’s strategy for passing legislation, scheduled congressional business and been Barack Obama’s main foil on the Hill.
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Boehner has faced repeated challenges to his leadership from the right wing of his caucus since ascending to the top post in the House in 2011. He became the Republican leader in the House in 2006.
Predictions of Boehner’s demise abounded during the partial government shutdown of October 2013, which resulted from a showdown between hard-right Republicans who sought to deny funding for the president’s healthcare policy and the president, who refused to sign spending legislation that carved the policy up.
The eventual deal that Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, negotiated with Obama failed to achieve Republican demands.
On Friday at the Values Voters Summit, an annual conclave of social conservatives in Washington, the room erupted in a standing ovation when the news was announced on stage by Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio seemed to embrace the news in his speech, saying: “The time has come to turn the page.”
Jim Bridenstine, a representative from Oklahoma, introduced the Texas senator and 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
“The good news is we are going to get new leadership,” he said. “I want to share with you why that is happening. That is happening because there is a newly elected senator that showed up articulating principles of the GOP platform.”
Cruz has a famously contentious relationship with Boehner, who last month at a closed-door fundraiser referred to the Texas senator as “a jackass”. Since his arrival on Capitol Hill in 2013, Cruz has helped orchestrate a number of rebellions against Boehner – most notably the shutdown over the president’s healthcare law.
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In what were regarded as unprecedented moves by a member of the Senate, Cruz also routinely gathered House conservatives to plot strategies at odds with the will of Boehner and his leadership team.
Moderate Republicans were dismayed by what they said was a defeat for sensible voices within the party.
“To me, this is a victory of the crazies,” New York representative Peter Kingtold reporters on Capitol Hill.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House and a close friend of Boehner, said his departure was “seismic”.
“The resignation of the speaker is a stark indication of the disarray of the House Republicans,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill.
An aide to Pelosi said the California Democrat had not been informed of Boehner’s announcement in advance.
An aide said Boehner had planned to retire at the end of last year, but the stunning loss of then House majority leader Eric Cantor in his primary election “changed that calculation”.
“The speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution,” the aide said.
“He is proud of what this majority has accomplished, and his speakership, but for the good of the Republican Conference and the institution, he will resign the speakership and his seat in Congress, effective 30 October.”
“Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all,” the aide added.
The shock announcement came a day after a highlight of Boehner’s career, when Pope Francis addressed Congress at Boehner’s invitation. The speaker, a former altar boy, wept during the speech and later called it “a blessing for us all”.
Minutes before the announcement, Boehner tweeted pictures of the pope’s Washington visit with the caption: “What a day.”
Boehner, first elected to Congress from his south-west Ohio district in 1990, had a turbulent career before becoming speaker. He joined the Republican congressional leadership in 1994, after the party took control of Congress for the first time in 50 years. Four years later, after the GOP lost seats in midterm elections and Boehner participated in a failed coup against then speaker Newt Gingrich, he was ousted.
Boehner became chair of the House education and workforce committee, a position in which he worked with Senator Ted Kennedy to author the landmark No Child Left Behind bill, and worked in a bipartisan manner with another Democrat, his counterpart George Miller of California.
He returned to leadership in 2006, winning an election to be the No2 Republican in the House. A year later, after Democrats took control of Congress, he moved up to become his party’s leader.
Friday 25 September 2015 10.58 EDT
John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives and a congressman from Ohio for three decades, has announced he will resign from his seat next month.
The Republican leader announced his resignation to a party meeting on Friday morning, where he told his members he didn’t want to become “the issue” amid reports of conservative infighting.
Boehner has been under intense pressure from House conservatives, who have repeatedly threatened to stage a coup against the speaker and expressed dissatisfaction with his leadership in high-profile fights on Capitol Hill.
Aides and members of Congress in the room, who were stunned by the announcement, said Boehner received a standing ovation during the meeting.
As speculation immediately soared over who would succeed Boehner, a number of influential Republicans took their names out of the mix.
Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the powerful House ways and means committee, told reporters he would not seek the job.
“I don’t want to be speaker,” Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill.
North Carolina representative Mark Meadows, a conservative who in July filed a motion to remove Boehner as speaker, also ruled out a run.
Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, is next in line as speaker but would have to secure the votes of his caucus in a formal leadership election.
The House speaker is second in line for the presidency after the vice-president and one of the most powerful figures in Washington. Boehner has thus shaped his party’s strategy for passing legislation, scheduled congressional business and been Barack Obama’s main foil on the Hill.
Advertisement
Boehner has faced repeated challenges to his leadership from the right wing of his caucus since ascending to the top post in the House in 2011. He became the Republican leader in the House in 2006.
Predictions of Boehner’s demise abounded during the partial government shutdown of October 2013, which resulted from a showdown between hard-right Republicans who sought to deny funding for the president’s healthcare policy and the president, who refused to sign spending legislation that carved the policy up.
The eventual deal that Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, negotiated with Obama failed to achieve Republican demands.
On Friday at the Values Voters Summit, an annual conclave of social conservatives in Washington, the room erupted in a standing ovation when the news was announced on stage by Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio seemed to embrace the news in his speech, saying: “The time has come to turn the page.”
Jim Bridenstine, a representative from Oklahoma, introduced the Texas senator and 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
“The good news is we are going to get new leadership,” he said. “I want to share with you why that is happening. That is happening because there is a newly elected senator that showed up articulating principles of the GOP platform.”
Cruz has a famously contentious relationship with Boehner, who last month at a closed-door fundraiser referred to the Texas senator as “a jackass”. Since his arrival on Capitol Hill in 2013, Cruz has helped orchestrate a number of rebellions against Boehner – most notably the shutdown over the president’s healthcare law.
Advertisement
In what were regarded as unprecedented moves by a member of the Senate, Cruz also routinely gathered House conservatives to plot strategies at odds with the will of Boehner and his leadership team.
Moderate Republicans were dismayed by what they said was a defeat for sensible voices within the party.
“To me, this is a victory of the crazies,” New York representative Peter Kingtold reporters on Capitol Hill.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House and a close friend of Boehner, said his departure was “seismic”.
“The resignation of the speaker is a stark indication of the disarray of the House Republicans,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill.
An aide to Pelosi said the California Democrat had not been informed of Boehner’s announcement in advance.
An aide said Boehner had planned to retire at the end of last year, but the stunning loss of then House majority leader Eric Cantor in his primary election “changed that calculation”.
“The speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution,” the aide said.
“He is proud of what this majority has accomplished, and his speakership, but for the good of the Republican Conference and the institution, he will resign the speakership and his seat in Congress, effective 30 October.”
“Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all,” the aide added.
The shock announcement came a day after a highlight of Boehner’s career, when Pope Francis addressed Congress at Boehner’s invitation. The speaker, a former altar boy, wept during the speech and later called it “a blessing for us all”.
Minutes before the announcement, Boehner tweeted pictures of the pope’s Washington visit with the caption: “What a day.”
Boehner, first elected to Congress from his south-west Ohio district in 1990, had a turbulent career before becoming speaker. He joined the Republican congressional leadership in 1994, after the party took control of Congress for the first time in 50 years. Four years later, after the GOP lost seats in midterm elections and Boehner participated in a failed coup against then speaker Newt Gingrich, he was ousted.
Boehner became chair of the House education and workforce committee, a position in which he worked with Senator Ted Kennedy to author the landmark No Child Left Behind bill, and worked in a bipartisan manner with another Democrat, his counterpart George Miller of California.
He returned to leadership in 2006, winning an election to be the No2 Republican in the House. A year later, after Democrats took control of Congress, he moved up to become his party’s leader.
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