White House and Hill react to news that conservative Republican representatives appear to actually accept conditions for a new Speaker.
Posted on 10/21/2015, 11:26:36 AM by 1010RD
It looks like Paul Ryan will do the job, but he’ll do it on his own terms.
He laid them out at a Republican-conference meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, telling his colleagues he wants the bickering to end. That means, Republicans said as they exited the meeting, he wants universal endorsements from the various caucuses, specifically from the conservative Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, and the more moderate Tuesday Group. He gave members until Friday to let him know if they could rally behind him, so that he could make preparations or give other candidates the opportunity to do so.
“If I can truly be a unifying figure, then I will gladly serve,” Ryan reiterated to reporters later. If not, he said, “I’ll be happy to stay where I am at the Ways and Means Committee.” Ryan told reporters the next speaker should be “a visionary one,” and said he told colleagues “we need to update our House rules so that everyone can be a more effective representative,” and to do so in a way that brought an end to the constant “crises.”
But he emphasized that he had grave concerns about the toll this would take on his family, especially his young children, and told members he would not be giving up weekends, or traveling as often as Boehner has done in the role. “He said he had to make it home on weekends for his oxygen, which included his family, his church, and a deer stand,” Representative Ann Wagner, of Missouri, tells National Review.
Ryan opened the speech by telling his colleagues he had written his remarks in a deer stand. The speaker has traditionally taken on heavy fundraising duties, helping to elect Republicans to the House. Wagner, who serves as finance chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, says the committee is fine with Ryan’s proposal and is working on a plan to ensure the committee’s fundraising remains in good shape. She says she was also heartened by his statement that when he did travel to help Republicans campaign, he would focus not just on fundraising but on communication, and would do more local press and grassroots events – activities past speakers have not usually engaged in.
The response to the speech, which Wagner describes as “uplifting” and “visionary,” was hugely positive. “Overwhelming applause,” said Representative Darrel Issa, of California, as he was leaving the meeting.
Ryan was the only one to speak at the meeting, Wagner says. She says that when Boehner introduced him, he said, “he’s been in the witness protection program now for a week, and we’re gonna hear from him.”
Though it wasn’t a night in which Ryan was making many concessions — aside from a nod that he was seriously considering taking a job he has said publicly he does not want — he also hinted strongly that he will not bring an immigration bill to the House floor. He told his colleagues the issue was simply “too divisive” and he wanted to focus on the things on which the conference is in agreement, like border security and internal enforcement, as opposed to a comprehensive bill.
Whether Ryan’s proposals will be enough to placate conservatives who have been clamoring for broader institutional reforms that would democratize the House remains to be seen.
Issa and Wagner say they did not see any opposition when Ryan concluded his speech, but in a conversation with National Review, Representative Tim Huelskamp, of Kansas, says he and others were “put off” by the “list of unmeetable conditions” Ryan had put forth, specifically his demand to repeal Thomas Jefferson’s motion to vacate the chair, which gives representatives the power to oust a sitting Speaker, as they did with Boehner.
“It was my understanding that Thomas Jefferson thought that was good for the House,” Huelskamp says, “and Paul Ryan thinks he doesn’t have to live by that?” Boehner’s failure, Huelskamp adds, was in his desire to “consolidate power,” and based on Ryan’s message, it seems he’s interested in doing the same thing.
“What Paul Ryan is asking for is even more power and less responsibility.” For Huelskamp, Ryan’s conditions, which also included “not traveling on weekends” and “not campaigning,” were “baffling.”
“The best thing I can assume is that he really doesn’t want the job,” he says. “You put forth a list of conditions that nobody is going to throw their weight behind, and force people to tell you ‘no,’ rather than the other way around . . . that’s the only thing that makes sense to me.”
Wagner saw it differently. Ryan seemed excited, not reluctant, she says, and said if he won the speakership, he would fully embrace the role.
“He said, ‘Hey, I’m in for a dime, I’m in for a dollar. I’m all in,’” she recounts.
According to House rules, any member can offer a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair and force a de facto ‘vote of no confidence’ in the Speaker. Under normal circumstances, an individual member has no power to force a vote on any bill or resolution, but the motion to vacate is “privileged.” It must be voted upon.
Keep in mind that it has functioned since the very beginning of our nation and that it cuts both ways. This means that a Speaker can only be so conservative or the other factions of the GOP coalition will use it as a tool against that Speaker just as is happening now.
This is in large part why a Speaker cannot be very conservative. The job naturally involves compromise to appease all factions of the GOP coalition.
The key to conservative victory is acting on all those areas of agreement within the GOP coalition and there are hundreds of areas of agreement. Keep winning yard by yard, issue by issue.
Whether this politburo bureaucrat wrote his speech in a deer stand or on the toilet taking a dump where the rest of his ideas belong makes no difference in the obedience he is demanding.
“I’ll deign to take the Speakership if you’ll capitulate and accede to my agenda - IOW, NO DISSENT.”
Ryan is purported to be a budget expert because he can talk bureaucratese for spending and funding. They’ve been spending and financing it off our backs for a hundred years - other peoples’ money, What Me Worry?
Capitulate is another word he’s familiar with - very. His Capitulation Budget in tribute to Obama is the prime example.
Mr. Ryan, you are a losing also-ran and your ‘conditions’ are completely out of line. Instead of making your potential voters meet your demands, start thinking about how these 40 or so rebels got that way and who ELECTED them in the first place.
I wouldn’t vote for you for dog catcher.
Conditions? When you buy a car do you accept the dealer’s conditions? That one word alone tells me to tell him to go to h*ll.
Breathtaking. What an entitled b$tch. I’d like to see him lose his Wisconsin seat, and have to compete for work amongst the illegals. And his spoiled brat wife, too
Paul Ryan can go to HFIL
Might as well just submit tot he executive under his “leadership”..... frickin moron
In other words, support ME, or I will go around with all the other GOP toadies and blame YOU.
Did Ryan consult with his pal Patty Murray before making his ‘demands’?
Kevin McCarthy suffering from terminal foot & mouth disease dropped out, Jason Chaffetz decided he did not really want to be Speaker. Now after being courted for two weeks, Paul Ryan is being crowned as Speaker.
My question is, what happened to the third candidate? Daniel Webster.
If memory serves, he was the first one to enter the race. Then Ryan and Chaffetz. Did he drop out? Was he pushed out? Or was he just not important enough? Important enough translating to liberal enough
White House and Hill react to news that conservative Republican representatives appear to actually accept conditions for a new Speaker.
Ryan is a non-starter.
He loves illegals and hates veterans: active, retired, and honorably discharged.
Need I comment?
If being Speaker means not be conservative, explain why Pelosi continually pushed further and further left.
You can’t can you.
The REAL reason the left wants a moderate is the moderates in congress have so many RATS working for them, they know EXACTLY what the GOP-e plan is way before it goes public.
Scary. Paul sets a deadline for all to obey him.
My guess would be nobody outside of the Freedom Caucus would support him.
Paul Ryan just another name for Obama Butt kisser and a user of Alinsky’s tactics. Come now where are the Wisconsin Voters and are the ticked how this POS has used the tea party connections and than shoves their goals down heir throats in spite and becomes ye another DC political insider. Wisconsin needs to recall this POS!
Bingo! Ditto!
I so agree with you.
I do not care about his conditions about traveling or working weekends. But he is NOT going to push amnesty and budgets that exacerbate our debt problems with a “Support me or else” bs attitude.
Eff him. Conservatives need to stand tough and make THEIR ideas part of the solution.
We the people outside the beltway expect and demand it.
Webster is still running. Boehner broke Conference rules when he allowed only Ryan to speak last night.
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