SPEAKER RYAN RETIRING
Decision to leave House at end of this year adds to uncertainty faced by Republicans
House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Wednesday he will retire rather than seek another term in Congress as the steady if reluctant wingman for President Donald Trump, sending new ripples of uncertainty through a Washington already on edge and a Republican Party bracing for a rough election year.
The Wisconsin Republican cast the decision to end his 20year career as a personal one — he doesn’t want his children growing up with a “weekend dad” — but it will create a vacuum at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. It will leave congressional Republicans without a measured voice to talk Trump away from what some see as damaging impulses, and it will rob Trump of an influential steward to shepherd his more ambitious ideas into legislation.
It’s unusual for a House speaker, second in line to succeed the president, to turn himself into a lame duck, especially so for Ryan, a once-rising GOP star who is only 48 and was the party’s vice presidential candidate in 2012. His decision fu-
The Wisconsin Republican cast the decision to end his 20year career as a personal one — he doesn't want his children growing up with a “weekend dad.”
eled fresh doubts about the party’s ability to fend off a Democratic wave, fed by opposition to Trump, in November. And it threw the House into a leadership battle that could end up pushing Ryan aside sooner that he intended and crush any hopes for significant legislation before the election.
Ryan, though, said he had no regrets after having accomplished “a heckuva lot” during his time in a job he never really wanted. He said fellow Republicans have plenty of achievements to run on this fall, including the tax cuts Congress delivered, which have been his own personal cause and the centerpiece of his smallgovernment agenda.
“I have given this job everything
I have,” Ryan said.
Mid-Hudson Valley Rep. John Faso called Ryan “a dedicated public servant.”
“I regret his decision to retire but fully understand his desire to not miss the teenage years of his three children,” Faso, R-Kinderhook, said in a prepared statement. “I wish him and his family well and thank him for his service to the nation.”
Lower Hudson Valley Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-Cold Spring, said that while he and Ryan do not share the same political philosophy, “I believe he is a good man and I appreciate his service to his constituents and the country.”
Speculation over Ryan’s future had been swirling for months, but as he dialed up colleagues and spoke by phone with Trump early Wednesday the news stunned even top allies.
Ryan announced his
plans at a closed-door meeting of House Republicans. Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina said an emotional Ryan “choked up a few times trying to get through” his remarks to colleagues and received three standing ovations.
He later briefly thanked Trump in public for giving him the chance to move GOP ideas ahead.
While Ryan was crucial in getting the tax cuts passed, a prime Trump goal, he and the president have had a difficult relationship. Trump showed impatience with Congress’ pace in dealing with his proposals, and Ryan had to deal with a president who shared little of his interest in policy detail.
Still, for many Republicans, Ryan has been “a steady force in contrast to the president’s more mercurial tone,” said Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina.
“That’s needed.”
The speaker had been heading toward this decision since late last year, said a person familiar with his thinking, but as recently as February he had considered running for another term. His own father died suddenly of a heart attack when he was 16, and though Ryan is in good health, the distance from his family weighed on him. A final decision was made over the two-week congressional recess, which he partly spent on a family vacation in the Czech Republic.
Ryan, from Janesville, Wis., first was elected to Congress in 1998. Along with Reps. Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy, he branded himself a rising “Young Gun” in an aging party, a new breed of hardcharging Republican ready to shrink the size of government.
Ryan was pulled into the
leadership job by the sudden retirement in 2015 of Speaker John Boehner, who had struggled to control the chamber’s restless conservative wing. He has had more trust with the hardliners in the House.
“That’s probably his greatest gift to us,” said Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. “His ability to bridge the vast divide.”
House Majority Leader McCarthy, a Californian known to be tighter with Trump, is expected to again seek the top leadership post that slipped from his reach in 2015. He will likely compete with Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Both men spoke at the closed-door meeting Wednesday, delivering tributes to Ryan.
Ryan’s announcement came as Republicans are bracing for a potential blue wave of voter enthusiasm for Democrats, who need
to flip at least 24 GOP-held seats in November to regain the majority.
As the House GOP’s top fundraiser, Ryan’s lame duck status could send shockwave through donor circles that are relying on his leadership at the helm of the House majority. He has hauled in $54 million so far this election cycle.
“It injects some more uncertainty to be sure,” said the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas. “It’s just another issue that’s floating out there, and obviously there’s going to be some competition for his successor.”
But a top GOP fundraiser, Eric Tanenblatt, expects Ryan to remain a force in a tough cycle. “Donors who are committed to making sure Republicans hold onto the majority will do whatever they have to do to make that happen,” he said.