John Boehner was reelected Speaker of the House without much resistance. Although a faction of conservatives in the House wanted to see him unseated, no one stood up to the plate to take his place.
In a vote that opened the 113th Congress, Boehner received 220 votes, compared to 192 for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the minority leader. Fourteen members voted for other candidates or present. Boehner needed 218 votes to win reelection.
Defectors from Boehner included Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who voted for Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho). Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and two freshmen, Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) and Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), all voted for Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), but Cantor himself voted for Boehner.
“To our new members and their families”, Boehner said, “let me just say, welcome. I know you’re feeling a bit awestruck at this moment. History runs through this building, and now you’re among a select few who share in this privilege, and those of you are returning, who have walked these aisles before, maybe it’s time we get a little awestruck, again.”
Boehner went on to talk about upcoming challenges, the most important of which is reducing the debt. He got choked up again as he noted the House’s constitutional duty to represent the people, not self interest or party agendas.
“If you’ve come here to see your name up in lights or to pass off political victory as accomplishment, (he’s talking about all Democrats, here) you’ve come to the wrong place – the door’s right behind you. (Choking back tears) If you’ve come here …humbled by the opportunity to serve, if you’ve come here to be the determined voice of the people, if you’ve come here to carry the standard of leadership not demanded by our constituents but by our times, you’ve come to the right place.” That line actually drew applause.
Via Hot Air:
A conservative group aiming to oust John Boehner as speaker of the House said on Wednesday that they have commitments from enough Republicans in Congress to deliver the political surprise of the year and deny the Ohio Republican another two years with the speaker’s gavel.
“I have confirmed with a group of congressmen that Speaker Boehner will not be elected speaker tomorrow,” Ron Meyer of the group American Majority Action wrote in an email Wednesday evening. “He will either resign or be forced out tomorrow.”
In a phone interview with The Daily Caller, Meyer said “more than 20” Republicans have told his group they won’t vote for Boehner during elections Thursday. American Majority Action is a conservative organization based in Virginia that is active in the tea party movement. It is run by Ned Ryun, the son of former Republican Rep. Jim Ryun of Kansas.
SEE ALSO:
Boehner earlier this week: CNBC: Boehner Told Reid to Perform a Physically Challenging Feat
Mediate: Harry Reid Threw Obama Proposal Into The Fireplace During Fiscal Cliff Negotiations
Yuval Levin, the Corner: The Left and the Cliff
Ace of Spades HQ: Plan C: Boehner Says He’s Done Negotiating Directly With Obama
Nice Deb 
Well I do disparage him. A lot. He became Speaker for one reason and that was the groundswell of Tea Party disgust at what Obama was doing. And after we gave him the biggest ass whopping in 70 years what does he do? He gave us the crazy uncle treatment. He’s a terrible negotiator, has caved in time after time and opens talks by giving away the farm.
Congressmen that won’t play along? They lose their leadership roles. Congressmen that are outspoken like Col West? Thrown to the wolves in Florida. Or Ms Bachmann? Ignored in her last race against a deep pocketed REgressive.
Yeah, he’s just the guy I want. If he had ONE testicle, he’d be all over Obama today when he said he would personally raise the debt ceiling without any debate. Yeah, he’s a fighter for the Constitution.
Pitiful-all of these pols get in there and never want to leave.
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I understand the frustration – (I’m listening to Mark Levin rail, as I type.)
But Boehner was dealt a very bad hand in the last election and I would argue that he has played that hand as well as anyone could have. His strategy was to give Republicans a chance to survive as a party until the political landscape becomes more forgiving.
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Sorry, ND, but I’m with Michael on this one. I don’t believe he was “dealt a bad hand” either in the last election or the one before (2010), unless one considers the election of conservatives being “dealt a bad hand.” He just either didn’t have the man-parts to stand up to the jackasses or, more likely, was irritated that the conservatives expected him to do as he said he would (be a conservative leader) when voted in as Speaker back in 2011. At least Nazi Pelousy had the man-parts to cram through what she believed in, even though it was terrible for the country.
BTW, not to change the subject, but my beloved Ducks just won the Fiesta Bowl! Go Ducks!!!
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Congrats to your beloved ducks.
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Boehner, Ryan and all the R’s who voted yes on this monstrosity of a bill have failed Conservatives and America again. There was a ‘frantic’ lobbying effort to diminish the no votes against Boehner. One Conservative was told he would lose his committee position if he voted his conscience. I don’t think Boehner is helping the Republican Party by his complicity, I think he is hurting it bigtime. Boehner and the R’s who keep surrendering to Obama are complicit in the destruction. I do not believe they are stupid or naive people, so the only conclusion I come to is that they are complicit at this point. It reminds me of the betrayal of Justice John Roberts last summer with the Obamacare ruling. When we need an R in power to stand firm and vote for our Founding principles, they capitulate and ‘We The People’ lose. Other than a very few brave souls in DC, these people no longer represent me. They are in it for themselves, heck their not hurting. They’ve got good incomes, healthcare and pensions.
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If the republican party is going to continue nominating the ‘next man up’ for president, rather than the best man/woman available – what is the point of it surviving? Had Boehner gotten behind the Fast & Furious investigation, had he pushed the Banghazi fiasco, had he thrown his weight behind eliminating voter fraud, had he done any number of things a real conservative leader would have done – then I might consider whether he deserves the speakership. On too many real issues which could have weakened Obama, Boehner has been all but invisible. As for the fiscal cliff, Boehner had agreed to let Obama build that cliff to new heights. If going over the cliff today would be bad, imagine what it will be like when the debt is $20 trillion. It isn’t that Boehner is not a good man but rather that he has proven himself to be the wrong man.
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@John: On the contrary, sir, I think Boehner HAS proved he is not a good man, by flat-out lying about being a conservative and a leader, by removing conservatives from committee assignments, by any number of measures one could recite. If I violated my conscience as much as he claims to (by promising one thing and delivering another), I’d be weepy all the time, too!
And, just like California imposing their will on the rest of the country by returning Pelousy, Babs and DiFi well beyond their expiration/spoil dates, Ohio has done the same to us with this person who, if a tire, wouldn’t even be used as a retread because he’s so dangerous.
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I would not argue against your well made points, Carlos. I do believe governing to be very difficult and very often results in compromises I do not agree with. I don’t believe Boehner has malice in his heart – he is just not capable of eliciting compromise from his opponents. The result is all compromise under his leadership comes form the right and none from the left. That said, as a society we have swung so far to the left that it is high time for an unrelenting push back toward the center and beyond – if the nation is to survive.
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I’m with you ND. I think Boehner did a pretty good job with a very bad hand. The Democrats have railed for years about the Bush tax cuts,yet they were made permanent (as permanent as anything gets in DC), the CLASS Act part of ObamaCare was repealed (allright it was unworkable, but it is still gone, and that’s a big money savings). Obama didn’t care if we went over the proverbial cliff. He got more tax increases, and could “save” the middle class by shrinking, but not removing them. He really had the Republicans over a barrel. Boehner has learned again the Obama cannot be trusted. It’s a bad situation when you’re trying to save the country and your opponent simply wants to win, and to hell with the consequences.
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Thank you – I think we’re in the minority, here, but I think going over the cliff would have been a disaster for Republicans. I was advocating for weeks that Republicans do pretty much what they ended up doing – (I would have preferred Plan B, but the “true conservatives” wouldn’t have it.)
Now, it’s been made clear that Obama made Republicans capitulate on the tax increase (less than Obama wanted) and people will know who to blame when things get worse. Obama’s post cliff deal victory dance will come back to haunt him in 2014, mark my words.
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Carlos, dang-it, say what you will about Boehner, but he’s not a bad guy. We need to focus our anger on our real domestic enemies, not guys with whom we may disagree on tactics.
The Republican circular firing squad is just what Obama and his minions want.
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@ND: I don’t think I called Boehner “a bad man” – just that he’s not a good one. To me, he’s like a piece of lint on the floor, obvious as heck and of absolutely no use, but no one has the temerity to bend over and put it in the trash since the owner (the people who voted him into office) won’t. That doesn’t make him “bad,” just useless and, in the end analysis, walked all over.
Hardly what we need for the “leader of the opposition.”
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He’s clearly not the man we need for these trying times – a steadfast Reaganesque or Churchillian figure – but men like that a few and far between.
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Out of the approx. 41M Republican male voters in this country (since you limited it to “men like that” in your last comment) I can’t imagine there not being a single one not being “Reaganesque” or “Churchillian.” And if one adds in the give-or-take 41M women voters, I can’t imagine there not being at least one “Thatcheresque”-type person available, either.
Personal opinion is that we don’t see them because the Republican establishment is as afraid of such folks as the jackass Democraps are, and pound them into piles of pulp before they are ever able to splash onto the national scene. The reason Reagan was able to buck the trend is he was wealthy to begin with and had his own funding when he started and there was little the R establishment could do to stop him after the demise of the incumbent Ford in ’76. The R establishment is even more effective now in stopping such people because of the aid they get from the complicit (and pro-socialist) LSM.
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I think this short clip from Neil Cavuto expresses accurately what is wrong with Rebuplican leadership.
http://www.therightscoop.com/must-watch-have-republicans-forgotten-who-they-really-are/
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Hi ND, boy did I make a mistake. is it possible to remove my e-mail address from the comment above? Thanks, Lily.
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Got it. Sorry about that, Lily.
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Thanks so much!
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I came across this post from Scott Rasmussen while reading. If what Rasmussen
is stating is true, the Republican Party is alienating it’s base and will continue to lose them and elections.
“That’s why more than two-thirds of Republican voters believe GOP officials in Washington have lost touch with the party’s base. The Republican establishment has two choices. They can act as mature party leaders of a national political party, or they can protect their own self-interest.”
http://www.newsmax.com/ScottRasmussen/GOP-Voters-Party-Establishment/2013/01/11/id/470997
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