Ryan, elected House speaker, vows not to duck tough issues
WASHINGTON — Rep. Paul Ryan was overwhelmingly elected House speaker by fellow Republicans on Thursday, closing a bitter and protracted leadership battle but not fully resolving the internal divisions that have upended the GOP majority. • After the vote, the Wisconsin congressman and 2012 GOP vice-presidential nominee offered a tough-love outlook for the road ahead.
“Let’s be frank: The House is broken,” Ryan told his colleagues. “We are not solving problems. We are adding to them. And I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean.”
The vote came more than a month after Speaker John A. Boehner abruptly announced that he planned to resign rather than continue fighting his conservative flank.
That same hard-right faction doomed the candidacy of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who dropped out of the race for the post.
Ryan is the 54th House speaker and, at 45, the youngest since 1869, in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Ryan won the gavel with a convincing 236 votes from his
GOP colleagues. Nine Republicans cast votes for a rival.
In a nod to his detractors, Ryan promised to allow rankand-file lawmakers a greater role in shaping legislation, a key demand of the conservative wing.
“If there were ever a time for us to step up, this would be that time,” Ryan said. “The cynics will scoff and say it’s not possible. But you better believe we are going to try. We will not duck the tough issues.”
As lawmakers voted, Ryan’s wife, Janna, and their three small children watched from the Speaker’s Box in the chamber. His former running mate, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, also looked on.
In many ways, Ryan represents a new generation of Republicans, who came of political
age during President Ronald Reagan’s administration and adhere to more conservative social and economic ideals than their mainstream colleagues.
Ryan is known for the “Ryan budget,” an austerity blueprint that has guided GOP thinking, and for his grueling P90X workouts and preference for hardrock music and Miller beer.
Before passing the gavel, Boehner advised his successor of the challenges he probably will face leading the largest Republican majority in decades.
“This is the loneliest place in the world, almost as lonely as the presidency,” Boehner said during an exit interview with reporters.
Ryan faces obstacles even after Boehner tried to “clean up the barn“on his way out by winning House passage of a two-year, $80 billion budget deal that also extends the debt ceiling into 2017, well past next fall’s presidential election.
The hope was to give Ryan breathing room. The Senate is expected to approve the budget measure after a protest from conservative Republicans led by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
At the top of the agenda for Ryan will be passage by Dec. 11 of a bill to fund the government at the new budget levels and avert a shutdown.
Conservative lawmakers, including those in the influential House Freedom Caucus, also want to see Ryan put into practice the rule changes they demanded that would loosen the leadership’s grip on House procedures.
Ryan and the conservatives came to a truce over the rule changes without agreeing to many of the specifics. But the leadership has promised upcoming party votes to put changes in place by 2016.
But the GOP remains divided. Some of the more mainstream members worry about diluting control and handing too much power over to the factions.