Republicans nominate Ryan to be speaker
Fixing GOP divisions in the House will be his main challenge
House Republicans nominate Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to be speaker, and he is set to be installed in a formal vote on the House floor today.
WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday nominated Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to be the 62nd speaker of the House, turning to the young chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to replace John Boehner of Ohio, who was driven into retirement by an angry uprising of conservative hard-liners.
Ryan, an architect of sweeping budget and tax reform proposals who gained national prominence as the Republican Party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, won the overwhelming support of his colleagues in the nominating contest and now is set to be installed as speaker in a formal vote on the House floor Thursday.
Republicans said the vote was 200-43 over Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida, his closest rival.
Although Ryan was short of the 218 votes needed to win Thursday’s floor vote, supporters said he would pick up backers now that he is the nominee.
“Anything over 218 wins; I think we’ll be well above that,” said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma.
In reluctantly accepting the gavel, Ryan, 45, will be tasked with healing the bitter divisions that have bedeviled House Republicans from virtually the moment they reclaimed the majority in the midterm elections of 2010.
“This begins a new day in the House of Representatives,” Ryan told reporters Wednesday after the vote. “We are not going to have a House that looked like it did the last few years. We are going to unify. We are going to respect the people by representing the people.”
Rank-and-file conservatives, including the rebellious hardliners of the House Freedom Caucus, had long complained that Boehner was too conciliatory in negotiations with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. They also complained that Boehner did not give them enough say in the running of the House,
On Wednesday afternoon, the House passed and sent to the Senate a bipartisan budget agreement, negotiated by Boehner, that Ryan has criticized but that will nonetheless allow him to take the speaker’s chair with a clean slate. The bill sets spending limits for the next two years and raises the federal borrowing limit through March 2017 — essentially eliminating the risk of a government shutdown or a debt default through the end of Obama’s second term.
Still, other challenges loom. Most immediately, some crucial highway programs are due to expire next month. And the budget agreement must now go through the appropriations process, where contentious issues are almost certain to arise.
After Boehner unexpectedly announced his retirement on Sept. 25, Ryan repeatedly denied any interest in the speaker’s post. But party leaders pleaded with him to step up after the majority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, abandoned his own bid for the position in the face of sharp criticism from the same conservatives who had hounded Boehner.
Ryan ultimately said he would accept the nomination but only if his colleagues rallied behind him, which they did.