By JOE RONCA
Staff Writer
During Pope Francis’s historic visit to the United States last month, another important news story broke.
Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner of Ohio planned on retiring at the end of October.
Boehner, known for his devout Catholicism, had made it a career goal of his to witness a sitting Pope deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress. After hearing the Pope speak last month, Boehner decided that it was time to step down from the Speakership which he had held since Republicans secured a majority back in 2010.
That wasn’t the whole story, though.
Boehner, known in part for his much-lampooned episodes of public tear shedding, was an extremely divisive Speaker, especially among Republicans.
The Ohio Representative became Speaker right as the Tea Party revolution, fueled by disgust with President Obama’s policies, was starting to shake the Grand Old Party to its core. Boehner has taken the brunt of the Tea Party’s disgust with established Republican leaders, and has been constantly challenged from the far-right wing of his own party.
As a consequence, Boehner was constantly facing tough re-election battles, mainly against Tea Party-aligned representatives, and was only able to tenuously hold his position in an election this year.
All of these factors combined to make Boehner the least-powerful Speaker of the House in recent memory. It was only a matter of time before Boehner stepped down.
The consensus favorite to replace Boehner as Speaker was his heir apparent, house majority leader Kevin McCarthy of California. However, McCarthy’s candidacy for the Speakership faltered quickly, with many seeing him as just a political clone of the unpopular Boehner.
He quickly faced challenges inside the Republican Party from Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who serves as the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Daniel Webster of Florida, a prominent ally of the House Freedom Caucus, the main Tea Party organization in the House. He then essentially signed his campaign’s death warrant when he went on Fox News and made a comment to host Sean Hannity that one of his main accomplishments had been knocking Hillary Clinton down a peg in the hearings held on the events in Benghazi in September of 2012.
The comment was widely seen on the left as an admission that the investigation into how Clinton’s State Department handled the attack in Benghazi was simply a Republican-driven witch hunt designed to ruin her campaign. McCarthy quickly dropped out of the running.
The Republicans now faced the possibility of electing Webster, who promised to pursue an extreme Tea Party agenda, or Democratic former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a choice which obviously would be unacceptable to them.
House Republicans found themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
In stepped Paul Ryan.
Ryan is one of the most prominent political leaders in the nation and was Mitt Romney’s running mate in the 2012 election. He is also the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is an important shaper of American tax policy.
His most notable political move before running for the vice presidency was authorizing “The Path to Prosperity,” widely known as the “Ryan Budget.”
The Ryan Budget, proposed for fiscal year 2012, would have allowed people under 55 the option to choose a government-subsidized private plan over Medicare starting in 2023; capped the Federal Government’s non-defense related discretionary spending at a shade over a trillion dollars per year; and would have reduced the tax code from six brackets to two.
The Ryan Budget eventually failed to become legislation, but firmly established Ryan’s reputation as a budget hawk who wished to see deficit spending cut while lowering taxes.
Ryan also firmly established himself as person who was willing to cross the aisle when he aligned with Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington to help pass the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.
Ryan seemed to be the only suitable Republican candidate for the Speakership. There was only one problem, though: Ryan did not want the job.
Ryan was reluctant at first to take up the mantle as Speaker, even urging Minnesota Congressman John Kline to run instead, according to CNN. Yet, Ryan was the only candidate who was palatable to both the Establishment and Tea Party wings of the Republican Party. Ryan began to be reluctantly coaxed into running for the Speakership by his colleagues, who saw him, in my view rightly so, as the only Republican who could possibly get anything done.
Ryan agreed to run, but he had some demands.
First, he stated that he would not agree to do, or not do, anything before becoming Speaker. This was a clear shot at the Freedom Caucus, who issued a list of demands that any future Speaker must agree to in order to get their votes.
Second, Ryan wanted the Freedom Caucus to publicly endorse his candidacy.
Kevin McCarthy’s bid failed largely because he failed to gain the support of the Freedom Caucus.
Last, and most importantly, Ryan wanted the Freedom Caucus to eliminate the ability to call a vote on “vacating the chair,” a motion that forces a new election for the Speaker of the House and was used several times against John Boehner.
Ryan demanded these concessions in order to ensure that as Speaker he does not end up without the support of his own party behind him.
Ryan believes, rightly, that the only way for the Republican Party to capitalize on their majorities in both houses of Congress is to unite behind a single leader.
Ryan negotiated with the Freedom Caucus for a few days, and in the end the talks were successful. Ryan agreed to give up his demand that the Freedom Caucus unilaterally disarm by removing the motion to “vacate the chair,” and in exchange the Freedom Caucus agreed to support, but not endorse him. Ryan also agreed to only back measures favored by all Republicans, hoping to put an end to the in-fighting within the Republican Party. Once the Freedom Caucus pledged its support, Ryan was virtually guaranteed to be Speaker. Now all that is left is for a vote to take place.
I personally view Ryan’s impending election to the Speakership as a political godsend.
In negotiating with the Freedom Caucus, he has successfully negotiated an armistice in the war between the Establishment and Tea Party wings of the Republican Party, at least for now.
Hopefully, this will result in a unified and conservative Republican Party that stands at odds with the progressive agenda of a Democratic Party that is being driven increasingly leftwards by the rhetoric of Bernie Sanders and a generation of millennials who were not raised to reflexively associate socialism with the brutal Stalinism of the former Soviet Union.
Do not get me wrong, I agree on a lot of issues with the Freedom Caucus. The size of government is too big, taxes are too high, regulations are too overbearing, marijuana needs to be legal, gay marriage needs to be allowed, and the NSA needs to stop collecting my phone and internet records.
The Libertarians in the Tea Party generally support these ideas, while the Establishment does not.
However, the Establishment has always correctly understood that the Democrats will block any change that shifts policy in this country too far to the right.
For example, Democrats would never allow Republicans to reduce the size of government by twenty percent across the board overnight. It just is not going to happen.
Pragmatism dictates that Republicans attempt to gradually shift policy rightward piece-by-piece instead of attempting a sweeping reform that is going to get cut down in either the Senate or by the threat of President Obama’s veto pen.
Ryan appears to be conservative enough to placate the Tea Party with his policies, but moderate enough to appease the Establishment’s calls for gradual action.
Hopefully Ryan will behave this way as Speaker and learn from Boehner’s mistakes. After all, the way I see it, gradual conservative reform over time is better than making grand proposals that will never get out of committee in the House.
I have high hopes that Paul Ryan can deliver as Speaker.
