Free Republic

In the private meeting inside the House Ways and Means Committee hearing room in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) promised the House Freedom Caucus the world to try to earn their official endorsement. He failed. Among the things that Ryan promised the members were a return to regular order, changes to the steering committee that decides committee assignments centralizing power in the Speaker’s office—Ryan even promised to give up the Speaker’s five votes on the committee—and an end to retaliation against Republican members who vote their conscience. He reiterated his promise made in the...

The House Freedom Caucus will not endorse Rep. Paul Ryan for speaker, but its leaders say a "super-majority" of the group will support the Wisconsin Republican's candidacy should he decide to continue his bid. Freedom Caucus rules require 80 percent of members to issue an endorsement. Ryan has said he would not seek the speakership without the backing of all of the major caucuses in the Republican Conference. It's not clear whether this will suffice. "We tried to reach a consensus but we were not able to reach the 80 percent threshold," said Freedom Caucus board member Raul Labrador of...

Since Ryan has failed to achieve the Freedom Caucus endorsement, the question now becomes if he will stick to his promise and drop out of contention for the Speakership.“No,” Ryan’s spokesman Brendan Buck told Breitbart News earlier on Wednesday when asked if Ryan would follow through with a Speakership bid without an official House Freedom Caucus endorsement.

A super majority of the House Freedom Caucus has voted to support Paul Ryan's bid to be the next Speaker of the House.

However, polling data reveals that a Ryan Speakership would do anything but unite the party. On two of the issues of immense importance to GOP voters — trade and immigration — polling from the Pew Research Center shows that most GOP voters oppose some of the key ideological stances to which Ryan is devoted. The issues of trade and immigration also take on an especial importance as the Ryan- immigration agenda led to the unseating of former Majority Leader Eric Cantor- which began the leadership shuffle – and the recent Ryan-led Obamatrade push helped bring the base’s criticism of the...

Just reported at the end of the show, the house conservatives have voted to support him. The fix is in.

Paul Ryan is a very arrogant man. People who run for Speaker have to campaign to get support. They try to appeal to members with promises do things. Not Paul Ryan. He doesn't want to campaign for the post, he wants to be coronated like a king, and wants his subjects to obey his conditions before he will graciously accept the throne. 1) He wants to change the rule that allowed conservatives to get rid of Boehner, making it impossible for a member to declare the speaker's chair vacant and challenge the Speaker. This would allow Ryan to continue Boehner's...

Good grief, Paul Ryan is a one man soap opera. First he doesn’t want it. Then he still doesn’t want it. Then he kinda, sorta, maybe wants it. Then he does not want it again. How many weeks into the saga of Ryan are we? Now, if only they will hand him the laurel crown he will take the burden begrudgingly, but they must be unanimous, fawning, and accommodating to the Princeps Ryan, our Immortal Beloved. Good grief. There are houses full of sorority sisters on great campuses within the SEC who have less drama within them than Paul Ryan...

Spokesman for Rep. Paul Ryan says 'For the next speaker to be successful, we need to unify now;' says Ryan believes rule changes are needed, including a change to the process for a motion to vacate the chair - @jamiedupree

As the donor class continues to push for a Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)58% Speakership, conservative activists have renewed their scrutiny of Ryan’s support for a radical Republican policy of open borders. Breitbart News has discovered yet another little-noticed video in which Ryan articulates his commitment to immigration policies that would dissolve America’s sovereignty. The video, uploaded by the Journal Times, shows Ryan at a July 2013 bilingual Hispanic Listening Session in Racine, Wisconsin. At the meeting, Paul Ryan told a predominantly Hispanic audience that the job of a U.S. lawmaker is to put oneself in the shoes of foreign nationals...

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)2% tells reporters he is “a Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)58% fan” and that he “hope[s]” the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman will be the next GOP Speaker of the House, according to multiple reports. FOX News reporter Kara Rowland tweeted, “Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to reporters: ‘I’m a Paul Ryan fan.’ Says he ‘appears to be’ someone ‘who could be reasonable.’” Bloomberg’s Derek Wallbank wrote, “Harry Reid on Paul Ryan: of all the speaker options, `I hope he gets it.'” PBS’ Quin Bowman tweeted, “Harry Reid volunteers that he hopes Paul Ryan...

House Ways and Means Chairman Paul D. Ryan just got an unwelcomed endorsement for speaker. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters Tuesday that he hopes the Wisconsin Republican is selected by his colleagues to succeed retiring Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio. “He appears to me to be one of the people over there that would be reasonable. I mean, look at some of the other people. I’m a Paul Ryan fan,” Reid said. “I don’t agree with him on much of what he does. I think what he’s done with Medicare and Medicaid, what he’s wanted to do...

Discharge petitions could be the answer to the impasse in the matter of a new House Speaker. I don’t much care for the current Speaker of the House John Boehner. If you are reading this, chances are you feel the same way. This said, we should acknowledge that our dislike for Boehner, while currently personal, has its origins in his lies and disregard for our wishes regarding illegal alien control, Obamacare and the passage of a federal budget. A layman’s review of whether or not the House can actually function without a Speaker reveals that doing so is pretty much...

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) acknowledged on Breitbart News Sunday that since no candidate has a clear pathway to becoming the next Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) could remain Speaker through January 2017.

An anonymous ally of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) told CBS News that the House Ways and Means chair is warming up to the idea of running for House speaker, but will not engage in any "horse trading" with the conservative hardliners who so far have roiled GOP leadership in recent months. According to the report, Ryan will only run if he can gain the support of his caucus on his conservative record alone, which has been questioned by some on the hard right. CBS News' source said Ryan would consider meeting with the hardliners -- oft associated with the House...

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, sounded off on the possibility of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Romney’s 2012 running mate, as the next Speaker of the House. Romney told show host Jake Tapper Ryan as Speaker of the House would lessen the possibility he could make a future run for president. “We need Paul in two spots at once,” Romney said. “You know, there haven’t been a lot of people that have gone on from speaker to the White House, so I’d hate to lose him as a potential...

This Tuesday, Rep. Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL Team Six commander, confirmed with Brandon Tyler Webb, founder of the SofRep special operations news site, that he is considering running for House speaker so as to take a stand “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” including President Barack Hussein Obama. “I think there are a few people who can do that,” the Montana Republican told Webb. “If folks like Paul Ryan and others step aside, and more of my colleagues ask me to run, I will hear the call to serve. Leadership is about service to country, not self. It’s...

Paul Ryan is still reluctantly mulling a bid for speaker. But his adversaries on the far right want to discredit his campaign before it even begins — and they’re using Ryan’s extensive pro-immigration record as their key weapon. From his days battling a restrictive California immigration ballot measure in the early 1990s, to his quiet efforts the past two years to help build GOP consensus for immigration reform, Ryan has a lengthy history of pushing for an overhaul that runs counter to the most conservative wings of his own party. There will be a “major intraparty battle over immigration if...

A spokesman for House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) confirms yet again that despite all the donor class and political establishment wooing, Ryan is not running to replace outgoing Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as Speaker of the House.

The U.S. Congress hasn’t elected an African-American as speaker of the House of Representatives since 1874, when South Carolina lawmaker Joseph Rainey became the first black speaker. More than 140 years later, the next person to be third in the line of succession to the Oval Office could be Washington lobbyist J.C. Watts, an African-American. A former college football star and former Republican representative from Oklahoma, Watts told current House members who approached him about running for speaker that he was interested . . .