Boehner (R-OH), received 216 votes out of 408 that were cast, Politico reports. There were 25 dissenting Republicans who voted for such diverse candidates as Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), Jim Jordan (R-Oh.), Louie Gohmert (R-Tx.), and Jeff Duncan (R-SC.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
While Boehner’s dissenters didn’t quite have it together enough to force a second round of voting, the large number of votes against him exceeded the 12 to 20 votes that had been expected, and this shows how limited his power is inside the GOP Conference, Politico reports.
Boehner will lead the largest Republican House in decades, while Sen. Mitch McConnell will helm the Republican Senate for the rest of President Barack Obama’s term.
Boehner addressed the House chamber after the vote, and didn’t mention the rancor within the party, reports The New York Times. Instead, he implored his colleagues to brush aside their differences and prove the skeptics wrong.
However, the defections from right-wing land are double what he dealt with when he was elected two years ago, and the Republican party will be smacked with some serious challenges that come with the political liability of being the majority on Capitol Hill, especially at a time when unhappy voters are likely to turn on the party in power, the Times reports.
House Republicans now have the largest majority since the end of World War II, with 246 seats, SF Gate reports. In the Senate, 12 freshman Republicans were sworn in Tuesday and the Republicans have 54 seats compared to the Democrats’ 46.
While things got off to a bumpy start for Boehner, he survived a fractious and frequently disloyal bunch of 80 freshmen in 2011, and many of them had no legislative experience whatsoever. So he took a different tack this time, becoming more involved in recruiting new blood as he sought to find center-right candidates that were more geared towards compromise.
The public questioning of his leadership was a direct slap for Boehner. During the beginning of the last Congress in 2013, the speaker lost the votes of a dozen members. There were more defections than any other speaker suffered in an election in more than twenty years, SF Gate reports.
His opposition spiked on Tuesday, just hours before the vote. Michigan Republican Justin Amash wrote in a Facebook post that he would “vote for a new speaker” after eight years of Boehner as a leader. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), who originally said he would vote for Boehner, changed his mind and announced he would oppose him, per Politico. To add further fat to the fire, Duncan hopped on the “no” train Tuesday morning. Then Rep. Randy Weber (R-Tx.) voiced his support for Gohmert.
“Let’s all get behind Judge Louie Gohmert for Speaker!” Weber posted on Twitter. “He has my vote! He’s not afraid to take the fight to the president & his veto pen!”
What’s become really clear is how disorganized the Republicans were in their attempts to unseat Boehner. Besides voting for Paul, another voted for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.); two dissenters voted for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Oh.). Gohmert received three votes, Politico notes.
With this much disorganization within their ranks, can we expect more of this for the next two years?
