On Tuesday, after a loss of 25 votes on the House floor from fellow Republicans, John Boehner was elected to a third term as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He began by retaliating against a few of the representatives who voted against him.
The New York Times reported that the 25 Republicans who voted against Boehner compiled the “largest number of votes against a speaker from members of his or her own party in at least two decades.”
Once he secured the title for the third time, Boehner removed Florida representatives Daniel Webster and Rich Nugent from the House Rules Committee, as a demonstration that what was “accepted during the last Congress is no longer acceptable, not with the House’s biggest GOP majority in decades,” according to Politico.
Webster was one of the candidates who ran against Boehner. He received 12 votes, which was more than any of the other opposing candidates.
The New York Times reported that while the opposition from Louie Gohmert of Texas and Ted Yoho of Florida were expected, Webster’s last-minute entry “came as somewhat of a surprise,” and did the most damage, due to the fact that Webster is a “more pragmatic Republican who has a cordial relationship” with Boehner.
According to Bloomberg, Representative Randy Weber of Texas claims Boehner “won’t let him sponsor a bill headed for House floor consideration because he voted for Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas for speaker.”
“I’ve already lost the authorship of one bill,” said Weber, “Look, it shouldn’t be that way. It was going to be a bill on regulation of clean nuclear energy.”
Politico reported that upon hearing about the growing opposition, Boehner met with representatives Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Justin Amash of Michigan, and Matt Salmon of Arizona on Monday night, and with Raul Labrador of Idaho on Tuesday, prior to the vote. While Meadows voted for Webster, and Amash voted for Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, both Salmon and Labrador voted in support of Boehner.
According to the New York Times, although Boehner has always faced some opposition from other Republicans, Tea Party conservatives “felt betrayed anew late last month” after Boehner ignored their pleas to deny funding in the federal spending plan to enforce Obama’s new immigration orders.
Politico reported that while members are “already making noises about reversing any punitive action by Boehner and the leadership,” the speaker’s allies “warn that further retaliation could be on the way.”