Speaker John Boehner resigns (yay?)

[The Romulan Republic]

Huh. Looks like he really was falling on his sword to prevent a shutdown. Doesn't exactly redeem him in my eyes or anything, but all the people (especially Cruz) who are railing against this should be on their knees thanking him for stopping the part from throwing itself off a cliff and thoroughly spiking any chance of 2016.

Well, its nice to know that, as much as I despise him, at least one Republican Congressman apparently has a sense of duty that exceeds either personal ambition or hard line conservative ideology. Though weather its duty to the welfare of the nation or simply duty to the party, or both, I can't say.

[Zaune]

Or a desire to be on a plane to a nice sunny tax haven before the scorched-earth hardliners bring about the end of civilisation as we know it.

[Welf]

Or he just leaves to get a well-paid job as consultant. From what I read the big fight won't be in October but in December when the new budget for 2016 will be decided. The current attempt to defund Planed Parenthood isn't very popular, so he trades a minor fight with the ultra-right wingers for recognition as "statesman". Good deal all in all.

[The Romulan Republic]

I suppose that's possible.

[Napoleon the Clown]

The guys they're proposing as replacements are, if anything, worse.

Considering the Tea Party considers Boehner a RINO because he's willing to negotiate with Democrats, rather than holding his breath and stamping his feet until the Tea Party's demands are met, is this any surprise?

[Simon_Jester]

The lunatic caucus just isn't that large... how is it that their candidate(s) can have a lock-in on the Speaker's chair?

[Napoleon the Clown]

Quite simply, they'll refuse to go along with someone that isn't in lock-step with them. I don't know that they have enough people on their side they'd be able to completely block someone that doesn't adhere to their cult, but even if they don't you'd need every other Republican to agree on the same candidate and to hell with the Tea Party.

So while I don't think they have the manpower to force a specific candidate in against the rest of the GOP's wishes, they may be able to gridlock things bad enough for the GOP to throw up their hands and let baby have his bottle. The GOP is becoming fractured because of extreme ideologies. So many candidates are terrified of their constituents thinking they're not far enough right and once election rolls around for them, someone more extreme will get the primary votes and displace them.

[Gaidin]

Or he just leaves to get a well-paid job as consultant. From what I read the big fight won't be in October but in December when the new budget for 2016 will be decided. The current attempt to defund Planed Parenthood isn't very popular, so he trades a minor fight with the ultra-right wingers for recognition as "statesman". Good deal all in all.

The December thing came around because mostly Boehner's retirement timing and their grandstanding during the questioning of Cecile Richards. One, Boehner literally was not playing ball after letting them have their fun in 2013. And two, not even conservatives as conservative as these people are were looking on very impressed and were more asking why they couldn't at least run a damn investigation and ask relevant questions.

[Channel72]

So... Paul Ryan it is.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/artic ... se-speaker

Paul Ryan Nominated to Be Next U.S. House Speaker

House Republicans nominated Paul Ryan to succeed Speaker John Boehner, choosing the budget wonk and 2012 vice-presidential nominee to lead them following months of division between moderates and hard-liners willing to shut down the U.S. government.

Ryan of Wisconsin won his colleagues’ support in closed-door Republican balloting Wednesday, a day before the full House, including Democrats, is scheduled to vote. At age 45 and known to have presidential ambitions, he is poised to shape the Republican Party for years to come.

He has promised to give rank-and-file Republicans a stronger say in running the House, but also backs the bipartisan two-year budget accord the hard-line Freedom Caucus calls a “fiscal monstrosity.”
“What I’ve heard from members over the last two weeks is a desire to wipe the slate clean, put in place a process that builds trust, and start focusing on big ideas,” Ryan, currently chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement earlier Wednesday.

Ryan only agreed to run for the job last week after initially telling colleagues he didn’t want it. He decided to run after winning support from key Republican factions, including most of the three dozen hard-line conservatives known as the House Freedom Caucus.

The Freedom Caucus’s push to shut down the government rather than continue funding Planned Parenthood played a major role in pushing Boehner, 65, to announce he would resign. Revolts by conservatives led to a 16-day partial government shutdown in 2013, and the U.S. neared the brink of default in 2011 and 2013 as conservatives battled to attach policy changes to a debt-limit increase.
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California dropped out of the race to succeed Boehner amid conservative opposition, and for a while it seemed as though no one wanted the job.

Reset Button

In Ryan, some members see an opportunity to press a reset button to unite the party. During a closed meeting Wednesday morning, Ryan assured fellow Republicans that was what he intended to do.
“He did the thumbs up, thumbs down thing, and he said ‘I don’t plan to be Caesar -- calling all the shots around here,’” said Representative Matt Salmon of Arizona, a Freedom Caucus member.
When he decided to run for speaker, Ryan told fellow Republicans he wanted them to unify behind him, end leadership crises and let him continue spending time with his family. Ryan said he didn’t want to spend weekends away from his wife and children for the extensive travel and fundraising that have been a major part of the House speaker’s job.

Ryan said he wanted to make it harder to remove the speaker through a process known as a motion to vacate the chair. Freedom Caucus members’ threat to try to remove Boehner last month led to his Sept. 25 announcement that he will give up the job. Freedom Caucus members didn’t back Ryan’s proposal to change the process, and it’s unclear so far whether any revision will be made.
‘Regular Order’

Freedom Caucus member David Brat of Virginia said Tuesday he wanted assurances that Ryan would end “the complete absence of regular order” that led to “five people just determining the budget for the United States of America.” Brat unseated Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary election last year.
Ryan announced earlier Wednesday he would support the bipartisan budget deal even though he said the secret process in which party leaders negotiated it “stinks.”

The budget agreement, set for a House vote later Wednesday, would extend U.S. borrowing authority until March 2017 and prevent a default as soon as next week. It would include a two-year deal on defense and non-defense spending levels, with details to be worked out before current funds expire Dec. 11. Spending caps would be increased by $80 billion and paid for with later-year savings and revenue.
Shortly after Ryan announced that he backed the budget, the Freedom Caucus said its members opposed it. Still, caucus member Trent Franks of Arizona said he thinks Ryan “has the unique ability to create a compelling message and to disseminate it in a way that people understand it.”

Salmon said he was voting for Ryan and predicted before the vote that most of his Freedom Caucus colleagues would do so. Not all caucus members agreed, and at least one said he would vote for the other Republican candidate, conservative Daniel Webster of Florida.

“I’ve committed to vote for Dan Webster in conference and that’s as far as I’ve gone,” said another caucus member, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who led the effort to oust Boehner.

Ryan’s political trajectory has been upward in a Congress based on seniority. In college, he interned for U.S. Senator Bob Kasten and spent time as a Capitol Hill staffer. Elected to the House in 1998 at age 28, this year he became the youngest chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee since 1861.

He forged a reputation as a no-nonsense legislator guarding against spending he deemed profligate. During four years as Budget Committee chairman, Ryan proposed repealing Obamacare, cutting business tax rates, ending the estate tax and consolidating programs for low-income households.
He sought to overhaul Medicare by giving future recipients a fixed amount of money to either buy private insurance or use in Medicare. Democrats say his plans would shred the social safety net.

Immigration Policy

He also has supported allowing 11 million undocumented immigrants to eventually become U.S. citizens, a stance backed by most Democrats and passed in a bipartisan 2013 Senate vote but strongly opposed by most House Republicans. Freedom Caucus members said he promised them he wouldn’t bring up such a bill while President Barack Obama is in office.

In his 2014 book “The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea,” Ryan argued that the previous year’s government shutdown -- led by Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz in an unsuccessful attempt to defund Obamacare -- "wasn’t a disagreement over principles, or even policies.”
“Rather, it is proof of what happens to a party when it’s defined primarily by what it opposes, instead of by its ideas,” Ryan wrote.

At least one other nominee, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, will be offered in Thursday’s vote by the full House. Ryan’s election is assured because Republicans hold a 247-188 member advantage and some party hard-liners who might have voted for other candidates say they will back him.

Bleh... so an Ayn Rand fanboy is now Speaker of the House.

++craziness, I guess. But at least his immigration policy doesn't suck.

[Thanas]

Oh great, the guy who got elected as the golden boy of the Tea Party.

[Broomstick]

I do not view this as good news

[Zaune]

I'm going to start stocking up on tinned food.

[Gaidin]

Meh. If he can make them work together for more than a Obama's term and follow Hastert's rule I'll be shocked.

[Borgholio]

Ryan is a pussy. He got eaten alive by Biden during the VP debates. The Far-Right will wipe their asses with him. At best he'll function as a rubber stamp.

[Adam Reynolds]

Ryan is a pussy. He got eaten alive by Biden during the VP debates. The Far-Right will wipe their asses with him. At best he'll function as a rubber stamp.

The media sure didn't see it that way. They saw it as a draw. Ryan proved himself to be competent enough. Not that it would ever have had any impact on the election one way or another.

Though I agree that he will likely not really be able to stand up against the Tea Party types.

[Gaidin]

Ryan is a pussy. He got eaten alive by Biden during the VP debates. The Far-Right will wipe their asses with him. At best he'll function as a rubber stamp.

The media sure didn't see it that way. They saw it as a draw. Ryan proved himself to be competent enough. Not that it would ever have had any impact on the election one way or another.

Though I agree that he will likely not really be able to stand up against the Tea Party types.

It's not about what the media sees. It's about what legislation comes out and what votes happen. You're seeing this from the wrong direction.

[Esquire]

The lunatic caucus just isn't that large... how is it that their candidate(s) can have a lock-in on the Speaker's chair?

The short answer is, "because they actually vote."

[Simon_Jester]

Did the other House Republicans NOT vote?

[Knife]

Did the other House Republicans NOT vote?

Apparently only 9 GOPers voted against him. More than likely a lot of the fight went out of the crazies when Boehner made the deal taking care of the debt limit. Nothing to camera whore about right now. I don't really expect them to give Ryan a free pass on the next issue, but for now the GOP can pretend to be united.

[Simon_Jester]

Meh. If he can make them work together for more than a Obama's term and follow Hastert's rule I'll be shocked.

What's Hastert's rule?

Ryan is a pussy. He got eaten alive by Biden during the VP debates. The Far-Right will wipe their asses with him. At best he'll function as a rubber stamp.

The media sure didn't see it that way. They saw it as a draw. Ryan proved himself to be competent enough. Not that it would ever have had any impact on the election one way or another.

The media has a strong incentive to portray all electoral competitions as evenly matched horse races, and is desperately afraid of being accused of anti-Republican bias to the point where they'd rather uncritically accept outright lies from the right than call them on it.

Therefore, the media is very likely to portray as a 'fair fight' something that in reality is no such thing.

[Terralthra]

Meh. If he can make them work together for more than a Obama's term and follow Hastert's rule I'll be shocked.

What's Hastert's rule?

An informal rule dating from the GOP takeover of the House during Clinton's terms. Speaker Hastert wouldn't bring any bill to a floor vote unless it had a majority of his party on board. The idea was to avoid any bill proposed by the minority party with a fraction of the GOP pushing it over the line into passage. In practice, it's a stupid rule that contributes to fractiousness of the majority party, increased polarization, and an inability to govern by compromise.

[Simon_Jester]

Ah. Yes, sounds both stupid and fully in keeping with the spirit of post-2010 Republican politics in the House.

It vaguely reminds me of Kerensky's stance of "no enemies to the Left-" basically saying that he would not denounce or oppose anyone to the left of his own, including the Bolsheviks. Trouble is, the Bolsheviks didn't return the favor, and violently overthrew his government when it proved it could never be radical enough for them.

It is generally NOT a good idea to act in ways that empower a radical faction whose worldview is a violent and exaggerated version of your own worldview. They'll either discredit your cause, betray you, or both.

[LaCroix]

I feel strongly disturbed by the notion that a speaker can prevent notions be brought forward unless it has a majority in the majority party. This would mean that the minority party could never propose anything that might get a compromise, and is continually forced the fight against proposals that only half+1 people of the majority party can bear to stand behind. It just feel highly undemocratic that someone would have that much power.

This is almost guaranteeing that legislation would either gridlock or veer strongly towards a radical position, depending on who is in charge and how big the majority is.

[Wild Zontargs]

This is almost guaranteeing that legislation would either gridlock or veer strongly towards a radical position, depending on who is in charge and how big the majority is.

Your ticket has been resolved with "NOTABUG WONTFIX" and closed by the GOP. Have a nice day.

[Broomstick]

I feel strongly disturbed by the notion that a speaker can prevent notions be brought forward unless it has a majority in the majority party. This would mean that the minority party could never propose anything that might get a compromise, and is continually forced the fight against proposals that only half+1 people of the majority party can bear to stand behind. It just feel highly undemocratic that someone would have that much power.

This is almost guaranteeing that legislation would either gridlock or veer strongly towards a radical position, depending on who is in charge and how big the majority is.

^ Which pretty much describes what's been happening in the US Federal legislative branch for while now.