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The
Hill
Members:
Boehner will stay on
By Molly K. Hooper
04/08/14
Rep.
John Boehner (R-Ohio) will run
for Speaker again if Republicans win control of the Senate this fall,
according
to a survey of GOP lawmakers conducted by The Hill.
But
if Democrats retain their
Senate majority, all bets are off, the Republican lawmakers said.
Boehner’s
future is a hot topic in
the nation’s capital. The 64-year-old Speaker and his staffers have
repeatedly
insisted he isn’t retiring any time soon. They also point out that
Boehner has
filed to run for another term.
But
that hasn’t stopped the
chatter.
For
this article, The Hill
interviewed more than two-dozen GOP members, as well as former
legislators who
are close to Boehner. Most of them spoke off the record.
The
consensus is that Boehner will
stay. Twenty-two said Boehner will be Speaker if the GOP wins the
Senate. Only
four members said they believe Boehner won’t be Speaker in the next
Congress.
A
freshman GOP lawmaker said, “I’ve
had conversations with him about next year and he’s planning to be in
the
picture ... I don’t see any signal for him that he’s tired or he’s done
or he’s
fed up.”
“My
gut is, I think he will [run
for Speaker] if we have the Senate,” a second-term member said.
A
senior GOP House member said if
Republicans are calling the shots in both chambers, Boehner will stick
around:
“If we take them both, then hey, it’s fun, and [Boehner] goes for it,
but if
not, he’s [gone].”
It
is clear that Boehner, who has
battle scars from his fights with President Obama and Senate Majority
Leader
Harry Reid (D-Nev.), desperately wants to work with an upper chamber
that is
controlled by the GOP.
Amid
the 2011 debt-limit showdown,
a frustrated Boehner said, “I didn’t sign up for going mano a mano with
the
president of the United States.”
Should
Boehner run for a third term
as Speaker, it’s unclear whether he can get the 218 votes on the House
floor on
the first ballot, however.
In
January of 2013, Boehner fended
off a poorly planned coup attempt and secured enough votes on the
initial
ballot. A dozen Republicans opted not to support Boehner by voting for
someone
else, voting “present” or abstaining.
A
self-described conservative
“wacko” told The Hill he is likely to support Boehner for Speaker, but
said
there are two to three “ad hoc” groups of members meeting to discuss
the
possibility that Boehner doesn’t receive a majority of votes on the
first
ballot.
Some
have been discussing how to
ensure that Boehner falls short of that goal — and game-planning what
would
happen next. The biggest question is who would take Boehner on.
Names
mentioned include House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.), Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy
(Calif.),
Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Financial Services
Committee
Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Rep. Tom Price (Ga.).
But
most think this will never come
to pass, for a variety of reasons.
Lawmakers
note that no one has even
hinted at challenging Boehner, who is respected and liked by most in
the House
GOP conference.
Boehner
believes his Senate
counterparts will win the majority, and he has started planning for the
future…
Read
the rest of the article at The
Hill
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