RYAN’S HOLD ON PARTY SLIPS AS RIVALS JOCKEY FOR HIS POSITION
Since the Republican Speaker decided not to serve again, he’s been struggling to stave off a vote for his job
Seven months before his planned retirement, US House Speaker Paul Ryan is facing growing disruption among the Republican ranks, raising questions about his ability to lead a divided party through a tough election.
Mr Ryan sought to quell infighting on Tuesday, dashing back to Washington from Wisconsin and abandoning plans for family time, as he tried to unify the factions and reassert control over the majority.
The speaker acknowledged restlessness among Republican politicians and said an internal election to replace him at the helm would be a distraction.
For now, he said: “We all agree the best thing for us is to complete our agenda and not wedge into the middle of the completion of our agenda a divisive leadership election.”
Mr Ryan’s job leading the House Republicans has never been easy but it has become more difficult since he turned himself into a lame-duck speaker by announcing he will not seek re-election to Congress in the autumn.
The move prompted questions about whether his status would undermine his efforts to set a legislative agenda and jeopardise Republican hopes of holding the House majority in November’s midterm elections.
Those questions intensified in recent days after Mr Ryan tried and failed to pass a farm bill – the casualty of an unrelated immigration stand-off.
At the weekend, a top cabinet official mused openly about replacing Mr Ryan. Republicans are publicly at odds, blaming one another for squandering the time before the elections.
It is not at all clear how much longer Mr Ryan will be able to stick around.
Behind closed doors at Tuesday’s meeting, the speaker made a plea for Republican unity, expressed his frustration over their divisions and encouraged Republicans to work together to score legislative accomplishments, politicians at the meeting said. One said Mr Ryan received a standing ovation.
Joe Barton, from Texas, said Republicans did not want Mr Ryan to leave but they wanted him to lead.
“Nobody I know is pressuring Paul Ryan to step aside. We just want results,” Mr Barton said.
He said that with the largest House majority in almost a century, Republicans have their best chance before the midterms, when their numbers are likely to shrink.
“If we really want to accomplish things there is no better time than right now,” Mr Barton said.
The latest dust-up is a familiar one, pitting the conservative House Freedom Caucus against more moderate Republicans over immigration.
But some legislators are tired of the almost unending churn of leadership power struggles and factional infighting that have become the norm among the House Republicans.
Ryan Costello, who is retiring in the autumn, said it made sense to revisit the leadership issue after “things blow up” as they did on Friday. “But things blow up every couple of weeks around here.”
The Republican next in line for Mr Ryan’s job as House majority leader is Kevin McCarthy, from California. He has not yet secured the votes needed, ensuring a messy battle if early elections were held now.
Rank-and-file legislators say they have no interest in facing two rounds of leadership elections – one now and another after the midterm election – with each race giving the party factions another opportunity to extract demands before giving their support.
For now, the choices for Mr Ryan are fraught with problems as he tries to resolve the stand-off over immigration.
On the one side are moderate Republicans who are close to having the signatures necessary to force a vote on their bill to provide a citizenship path for “Dreamers”, the young immigrants brought illegally to the US as children.
On the other is the Freedom Caucus, which will reject any bill they perceive as amnesty for immigrants in the US illegally.
Mr Ryan could simply allow the Dreamer bill to proceed. It would probably pass the House with support from most Democrats and some Republicans.
But he would break a promise made to the Freedom Caucus when he became speaker – to not bring forward immigration legislation unless it had support from most Republicans.
The Freedom Caucus could move to oust Ryan – as it did his predecessor, John Boehner – although it is unclear that such threats matter to Mr Ryan.
It makes sense to revisit the leadership issue after things blow up. But things blow up every couple of weeks here RYAN COSTELLO Republican congressman