| Washington Post | - |
Rep.
Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) is ready to begin a “new day in the House of
Representatives” after being elected speaker. Ryan won the support of
236 House members in a vote Thursday morning, securing his election.
Paul Ryan elected House speaker
Outgoing
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announces that Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) will take over his role. Ryan received 236 votes. (AP)
Ryan won the support of 236 House members in a vote Thursday morning, securing his election. The Wisconsin Republican on Wednesday won the nomination of the House Republican majority, who united around one of their party’s brightest stars after weeks of uncertainty about their next top leader.
[Boehner’s exit breaks up the long-running ‘Big Four’ of Congress]
Ryan began his remarks to the House following the vote with a call for unity — not only among the divided Republican conference.
“Let’s pray for each other,” he said. “Republicans for Democrats, and Democrats for Republicans. … And I don’t mean pray for a conversion. Pray for a deeper understanding.”
“We are not settling scores,” he added. “We are wiping the slate clean.”
He nodded to demands of back-bench conservatives who felt marginalized by his predecessor, John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), calling for committees to take the lead in writing major legislation: “We need to return to regular order,” he said, embracing a watchword of Boehner discontents.
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On Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) received 184 votes for speaker and Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), the only Republican to challenge Ryan, received 9 votes.
Ryan officially became speaker after taking the oath of office, which was administered by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), dean of the House.
Thanking his fellow lawmakers after Wednesday’s closed-door party ballot, Ryan said his nomination “begins a new day in the House of Representatives.”
“Tomorrow, we are turning the page,” he said. “We are not going to have a House that looks like it’s looked the last few years. … Our party lost its vision, and we are going to replace it with a vision.”
Ryan, who at 45 is the youngest speaker elected since 1869, struck a similar note in his first floor address as speaker Thursday, calling for greater unity between GOP wings divided over tactics and ideology.
“We have nothing to fear from honest differences honestly stated,” he said. “If you have ideas, let’s hear them. A greater clarity between us can lead to a greater charity among us.”
He is also called for a renewed vision for his party and for the House, delivering on the hopes of colleagues who hope he will be able to set a new tone after years of sometimes petty infighting.
Looking on as he spoke were his family, including his wife, Janna, and children Liza, 13, Charlie, 12, and Sam, 10. Also seated in the speaker box were former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who tapped Ryan as his running mate for his ill-fated 2012 presidential run.
Bidding farewell Thursday, Boehner, who cast the final vote for Ryan, said he leaves the House as “the same regular guy that came here.” He recited a list of his accomplishments, including major spending cuts, ending earmarks and preserving the D.C. school voucher program.
“I leave with no regrets, no burdens,” he said.
Equipped
with an entire box of tissues to dry his teary eyes, outgoing House
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) gave his farewell address to lawmakers on
Oct. 29. (AP)
[Budget deal could end the fiscal wars until after the 2016 elections]
Ryan bucked pressure to oppose the deal from conservatives who worked to force Boehner from office, saying in a statement that the agreement would help “wipe the slate clean” as he ascends to the top job.
While Ryan won support from 80 percent of his GOP colleagues, there were signs Wednesday that the party’s fissures may persist. Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), who has gained a small but loyal following among hard-right lawmakers drawn to his pledges to change House rules and procedures, earned 43 votes to Ryan’s 200.
Most Webster backers — many of them members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus — backed the party nominee after Ryan spent the past week reassuring them that they will play a more prominent role in lawmaking.
“The ideas that Daniel Webster’s been talking about, the House Freedom Caucus is talking about, is exactly what Paul Ryan agreed to do,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), who voted for Ryan Thursday.
The nine lawmakers who voted for Webster on Thursday were Reps. Dave Brat (R-Va.), Curtis J. Clawson (R-Fla.), Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.), Waler B. Jones (R-N.C.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Bill Posey (R-Fla.), Randy Weber (R-Tex.) and Ted Yoho (R-Fla.).
Among the party’s larger group of mainstream conservatives, there was widespread relief that weeks of uncertainty over who would succeed Boehner ended with Ryan agreeing to take the job. There was also open excitement about the type of leader Ryan might be.
Ryan has spent much of the past decade burnishing his credentials as a conservative ideas man, from his 2008 “Roadmap for America’s Future” though his four-year tenure as House Budget Committee chairman, his 2012 vice-presidential nomination and his ascent earlier this year to chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
“Paul Ryan is the right person to lead our team at this time,” Boehner said Wednesday. “He’s an innovative thinker who’s focused on giving more Americans more opportunity to achieve the American dream, and I think he’s got the skill set to do this job. Frankly, I’m very confident he’ll do it well.”
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Ryan would be “more visionary” than Boehner and the other three sitting congressional floor leaders.
“He’s thought through what he wants to do, and, you know, I think he knows where he wants to take us,” Cole said. “And, frankly, because he’s been so clear and compelling in his own vision, I think most of us know where he wants to take us.”
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said: “We’ll have a mixture of Newt Gingrich and John Boehner. Gingrich was a very good communicator, a big idea guy. John Boehner really fixed the institution, brought integrity to it.”
Still, Ryan faced a difficult task in persuading the roughly 40 House hard-liners who helped push Boehner out of office to give him their backing.
He eased minds during private meetings last week, and he began making more-public commitments to quell lingering concerns. On Tuesday, for instance, he endorsed a review of House and party rules and said he was committed to implementing changes by January: “It’s clear that members of the House and the American people have lost faith in how this place works. And naming a new speaker alone isn’t enough to fix it. We need a robust dialogue about improving the process so that each member has a greater voice, and we need a firm deadline to implement changes.”
Ryan also addressed doubts about some of his policy positions that have left conservatives wary — mainly his past support for an overhaul of immigration law. In a conference meeting Wednesday morning, Ryan pledged not to pursue any immigration bill unless it had the support of a majority of House Republicans.
“He won my vote by coming across as a very honest broker and someone we can work with to move the ball forward,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), a Freedom Caucus member. “We’ve had enough conversations with Paul to understand he has a different idea about how to govern going forward.”
Karoun Demirjian, Juliet Eilperin, Paul Kane and Kelsey Snell contributed to this report.
Mike
DeBonis covers Congress and national politics for The Washington Post.
He previously covered D.C. politics and government from 2007 to 2015.
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