Boehner
faces conservative opposition in speaker vote
Send a link to a friend
[January 06, 2015]
By David Lawder and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Boehner is
expected to be re-elected as House of Representatives Speaker on
Tuesday, but a vocal and growing pocket of conservative opposition could
hamper his ability to pass difficult legislation this year.
|
Representative Steve King of Iowa and Marlin Stutzman of Indiana
on Monday became the latest prominent conservatives to announce they
would vote against Boehner for a third term as speaker.
Republican newcomer Dave Brat, a Tea Party favorite who defeated
former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary last year,
also said he would vote against Boehner.
"While I like Speaker Boehner personally, he will not have my
support for Speaker," Brat said in an opinion piece he wrote for the
conservative news website Breitbart.com.
"Washington is broken in part because our party’s leadership has
strayed from its own principles of free market, limited government,
constitutional conservatism."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Jan/06/images/ads/current/edward_jones_sda_pollice.png) With the 114th Congress scheduled to convene on Tuesday, Louie
Gohmert, a Texas representative aligned with the conservative Tea
Party movement, has said he will run against Boehner for the
leadership job. Representative Ted Yoho of Florida also said he
might challenge Boehner, who has been speaker since the Republicans
took a House majority in 2011.
Conservative House Republicans have criticized Boehner for not doing
enough to stop President Barack Obama's initiatives, but the
opposition has not reached a level that would block Boehner's
re-election as speaker.
With the strongest Republican majority since 1947, Boehner can now
afford to lose 28 Republican votes and still achieve the 218
majority necessary to become speaker.
[to top of second column] |
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Jan/06/images/ads/current/st_claras_lda_082114.png)
Thus far, the number who have announced their opposition to Boehner
has only approached the dozen Republicans who voted against him two
years ago. However, the dissident conservative faction could be
powerful enough to force Boehner to make concessions to them on key
votes.
"This is a symptom of a larger problem facing the Republicans," said
Paul Sracic, a political scientist at Youngstown State University in
Ohio. "The speaker's going to have to walk a fine line if he wants
to get things passed in the new Congress. It's a reminder that
conservatives want to fight Obama."
The opposition to Boehner partly reflects conservative anger at the
passage of a $1.1 trillion spending bill in December that failed to
deny funding to Obama's immigration order lifting the threat of
deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants.
(Additional reporting by Bill Trott; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, John
Whitesides and Andre Grenon)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Jan/06/images/ads/current/stacy_sda_121014.png) |