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Boehner survives leadership challenge from conservative members Boehner survives leadership challenge from conservative members
(about 4 hours later)
Republicans took full control of Congress Tuesday for the first time in eight years, and John A. Boehner was reelected as House speaker, after a group of hard-right conservatives tried and failed to deny him another term. Republicans took full control of Congress on Tuesday, but — even on a day of happy ceremony — GOP leaders were reminded of the limits of their power, first by a veto threat from the president and then by a historic rebellion by conservatives in the House.
Boehner’s election provided the only drama on a day of ceremony and swearings-in on Capitol Hill. But, in the end, even that drama didn’t last very long. His adversaries need to turn 30-plus other Republicans against Boehner to prevent him from winning a majority on the first vote. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was sworn in as majority leader, giving Republicans control of both houses of Congress for the first time in eight years. That was the day’s most important shift, but it was anticlimactic: McConnell spoke only briefly, conscious that he was holding up the post-oath receptions.
They got 25 — 24 votes for other candidates and and one simply voting present. As a clerk called 408 members one by one, those rebellious Republicans shouted out a variety of names: GOP House members, even two sitting senators. But the other Republicans all called out Boehner’s name, and that was enough. “Tomorrow, it’s back to work,” he said. “I yield the floor.”
[Read live updates on the new congressional session.] The day’s real drama was, instead, in the House. There, Republican control was not in doubt: After last fall’s electoral victories, the GOP has 246 of the chamber’s 435 seats, its largest majority since the 1940s.
In the Senate, Mitch McConnnell (R-Ky.) became majority leader, as the GOP took that chamber for the first time since 2007. He welcomed new members but spoke only briefly: this was a day for receptions, not for legislation. What was in doubt was which Republican would lead.
“Tomorrow it’s back to work. I yield the floor,” McConnell said. When a clerk called the roll, 24 Republicans voted for a candidate other than incumbent Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). The plotters couldn’t agree on their own candidate: they voted for each other, for sitting senators, even for former secretary of state Colin L. Powell.
The man whose job McConnell took, Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), was absent from the Capitol, recuperating from an accident on a home-exercise machine that left him with a concussion and broken facial bones. He was installed as minority leader anyway. In the end, their rebellion was not enough to unseat Boehner: The speaker won on the first round with 216 votes, 11 more than he needed. But it was far larger than a similar coup attempt against Boehner in 2013. In fact, it was the largest rebellion by a party against its incumbent speaker since the Civil War.
“Senator Reid is a former boxer. He’s tough. I know he’ll be back in fighting form very soon,” McConnell said of his longtime verbal sparring partner in the Senate. After he won, Boehner entered to a standing ovation and gave a speech calling this Congress to work together and end its gridlock. He finished with a stirring, though epically mixed, metaphor.
In the House, the group that had plotted a coup against Boehner had little hope of electing another Republican in the first round of voting. But they still hoped to humiliate him by splintering the votes so that no one won. “So let’s stand tall and prove the skeptics wrong,” Boehner said. “May the fruits of our labors be ladders our children can use to climb to the stars.”
That would have sent the speaker’s election to a second round of voting, for the first time since the 1920s. It would also have sent the House into recess, so Republicans could retreat into their basement meeting room for an epic airing of grievances. Then — maybe — the plotters hoped that Boehner would take himself out of the running, in favor of a new GOP candidate. Still, even before the day’s ceremonies were over, there was a sign of a coming fight with President Obama. One of the new Congress’s top legislative priorities is a bill to authorize the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. But Tuesday, a spokesman said Obama would veto such a bill, believing that it circumvents an established process for approving large pipeline projects.
“This is the result of a couple weeks of hard work,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the plotters, said in an interview. He said that Boehner’s team was “whipping,” or cajoling uncertain allies, to defeat the coup attempt. Boehner defeated a similar effort in 2013. “The leadership is nervous, they’re whipping, and they know if they don’t, they’ll lose.” “If this bill passes this Congress, the president wouldn’t sign it,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.
In the end, their effort seemed to show how splintered the anti-Boehner forces were, instead. Some of their group voted for Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), others for Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), and others for Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.). One cast a vote for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and an Alabama congressman voted for his home-state senator, Jeff Sessions (R). “This is simply another sign that President Obama is hopelessly out of touch,” Boehner said in a statement afterward.
That was 13 more than had voted against Boehner in a previous coup effort, in 2013. But, in part because more Republicans were elected last fall, Boehner still won with votes to spare this time. The effort to depose Boehner was led by a group of hard-right conservatives and libertarians, who did not believe the speaker was doing enough to fight Obama over spending and executive power.
Their intent was not to beat Boehner outright. It was to humiliate him, by splintering the party so that no Republican won on the first vote.
So they had a plan. What they didn’t have was a candidate.
The two who had declared themselves early on failed to inspire. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) is a former judge famous for telling a congressional witness not to cast “aspersions on my asparagus.” And Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) is a large-animal veterinarian known for folksy language and colorful comparisons — like equating the work of a congressman to the squeezing of a rottweiler’s anal glands.
“Good gentlemen,” said Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), a would-be rebel, talking about Gohmert and Yoho. But, he said, they lacked “the temperament to be speaker.”
Then another challenger emerged: Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), a former leader of the Florida state house and Senate. In an interview Tuesday, Webster said he’d received private entreaties to run but didn’t decide to do it until the last minute.
“This happened in a 24-hour period. That’s when we really got some momentum. We had been talking about it for a while, about how I could do it. But I didn’t say, ‘Yes, I’m in,’ until Monday,” Webster said.
Webster handed out a mini-manifesto, called “Widgets, Principles, and Republicans.” It argued that the GOP, like any struggling company, needs to improve the way it operates, picks its leaders and sets its agenda. And it criticizes the leadership for, from his perspective, too often making decisions without seeking input from those who are not close to Boehner and his inner circle.
“If a widget’s gone bad, you can go on social media and try to promote it, you can change the color, you can lower the price. It’s still the same widget. It’s still flawed,” Webster said, summing up the argument.
The election began at 12:37 p.m., when members were asked to be seated and a hush fell across the floor.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) nominated Boehner and highlighted his blue-collar background. “He grew up mopping floors and waiting tables at his family’s tavern,” she said. She called Boehner a “regular guy with a big job.”
Nearby sat some of the plotters : Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), and a group of other opponents. King, looking tense, had his fist under his chin. Gohmert (R-Tex.) stood alone in the center aisle.
The House was packed with people. All of the aisles were full, with members’ children climbing over seats, their sneakers occasionally scuffing the brown leather seats. The roll call began. Members were called alphabetically and stood up to shout out their votes.
In all, 408 names were called. The plotters fell short. Instead of the 30-plus GOP defectors they needed to get, there were 25 — 24 votes for other candidates, and one member who simply voted “present.”
Those votes seemed to demonstrate something unintended: how splintered Boehner’s opponents were, even among themselves.
Twelve of them voted for Webster. Three voted for Gohmert, and two for Yoho (Gohmert and Yoho both voted for themselves, providing one-third and one-half, respectively, of their vote totals). Another member cast a vote for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and an Alabama congressman voted for his home-state senator, Jeff Sessions (R).
Shortly before 2 p.m., after a brief wait while the votes were tallied, the House clerk declared Boehner the winner, leading to a wave of cheers from some Republicans and a standing ovation from nearly the entire House chamber, Democrats and Republicans.
With a dark tan from his vacation and wearing a blue tie, Boehner walked slowly as he made his way to the front, patting children of members on their shoulders and winking at a few of his friends. He said little other than “thank you.”
After the vote, Gohmert, Yoho, King and their crew hovered in the back, their faces sullen. From the gallery, several of them were spotted checking their cellphones, eyeing the political coverage on Twitter and elsewhere, and signing off on news releases about their uprising.
Boehner was emotional as he began his remarks to the House. He said he was “feeling pretty good” until he ran into the daughters of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), one of whom ran up and gave the speaker a kiss. “I was a mess,” Boehner said to chuckles, acknowledging his reputation for tearing up when moved by children.
Afterward, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a Boehner confidant, said the vote should send a “message” to the anti-Boehner faction.
“I would hope they are reflecting,” Cole said. Then he put himself in the shoes of a failed plotter: “Nine out of every 10 Republicans voted against me, against my position. Maybe I’m the one that’s out of step.”
Afterward, Webster — the dark-horse candidate who got in so late — was indeed reflecting, about whether this twice-failed coup strategy could ever work.
Webster and Rep. Richard B. Nugent, both Florida Republicans, were removed from the House Rules Committee on Monday night, hours after voting against Boehner. The House speaker has long maintained expansive control over the Rules Committee and carefully selects its members because of the committee’s enormous control over the floor.
“Maybe that’s wrong, maybe that whole idea of making changes on the floor is gone. I don’t know,” he said. At the time, he was in a basement cafeteria at the Capitol, standing next to the soda machine and trying to decide what to order. Somewhere above, Boehner — the speaker once again — was happily posing for pictures with new members of Congress.
In the Senate, one key figure was missing Tuesday: Sen. Harry M. Reid (Nev.), the chamber’s top Democrat. Reid was absent from the Capitol, recuperating from an accident on a home-exercise machine that left him with a concussion and broken facial bones. He was installed as minority leader anyway.
“Senator Reid is a former boxer. He’s tough. I know he’ll be back in fighting form soon enough,” McConnell said of his longtime verbal sparring partner in the Senate.
Aaron Blake, Ed O’Keefe and Paul Kane contributed to this report.