Posted on 10/20/2015 5:35:16 PM PDT by cotton1706
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who for years has resisted a move into House Republican leadership, said Tuesday night he would serve as House speaker if he is the party's "unity candidate."
And Ryan, the Ways and Means chairman, wants to know by Friday if the 247 members of the House Republican Conference support him. If not, he is "happy" to continue as chairman of the powerful tax-writing panel, his spokesman said.
During a meeting of House Republicans Tuesday evening, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who counted Ryan as a volunteer on his 1990 congressional campaign, ceded the floor to Ryan. The 16-year veteran of Congress explained that his openness to serving as House speaker comes with serious caveats.
Ryan explained during the closed-door gathering that he wants support from all the major Republican caucuses. The House Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee and the moderate Tuesday Group will be especially important.
Ryan also wants Republicans to alter the procedure for "vacating the chair," which is essentially a referendum to remove the speaker from office. Conservatives threatened to force such a vote against Boehner earlier this summer, and Ryan believes it's destructive.
“Matt Fuller @MEPFuller
I ask Labrador if he sees 4/5ths of HFC supporting Ryan if he eliminates the motion to vacate the chair. “I don’t see 1/5th,” Labrador says.”
This story is over. Let the race for Speaker begin!
Don’t believe the tough talk from Ryan. He is all in on this. This is beltway warfare and with trillions at stake K Street won’t back down. They’ll use a few Dem votes if they have to push Ryan and their agenda through.
What he’s doing for K Street here is setting the stage to blame conservatives, because they wouldn’t accept his demands. Which he knew they wouldn’t.
So the media story is “Those mean conservatives are preventing the House from functioning, look what they did to sweet innocent Ryan!”.
K Street has to pat him on his head for that ‘meme’.
And that ‘meme’ will continue with the next RINO candidate for Speaker, and the next...
And the GOP once again demonstrates why it will die, die, die.
No 202-224-3121
Beautiful!
Let the congress sit there with no ‘leader.’ The Speaker’s position has become nothing more than a vehicle for implementing the GOPe wishlist.
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