Associated Press
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) did not face a challenger in today's leadership election, so it didn't come as a surprise that he was re-elected to a second term.
But there was a little drama anyway. Boehner needed 214 votes, and with 233 House Republicans in the new Congress, that should have been pretty easy. He made it past the threshold, but not by much.
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has won re-election to a second term Thursday overseeing a chamber that has proved most difficult to manage, just days after several insurrections from rank-and-file Republicans left him in a less powerful posture heading into critical negotiations this year. He received 220 votes.
Boehner (R-Ohio) survived the defections of several Republicans from the most conservative wing of the caucus, defeating House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Pelosi received 192 votes.
Among the Republicans who supported someone other than Boehner, votes were spread out. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) received three votes; former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) received a couple of votes; Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) voted for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio); Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) voted for former Comptroller General David Walker; Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) voted for Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho); and Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.) voted for Amash.
Given that the Speaker has already taken some steps to consolidate power and enforce more party discipline, the folks who crossed him in this afternoon's vote probably shouldn't seek any favors from the leadership anytime soon.
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Bonehead even weaker than before, and unable to negotiate with the President. Can you say "the 113th Congress will be worse than the 112th"? I knew you could.
It is such a shame that GOP moderates did not revolt so that something interesting could happen. More of the same.
Too bad.
On a humorous note, the DNC was calling around yesterday after the generous tax treatment to high income individuals. The guy asked me for a thousand, and I told him I wasn't giving them another nickel after the stupid allocation of resources during the last election cycle.
I asked him why so much was sent on such a lopsided victory by the president that we knew by our polling was going to be the case, while the DCCC was pulling advertisements from House candidates in districts that did go for Obama. I told him it was inexcusable, that with a little more willingness to take risks that Nancy could have had a much better shot at gaining the Speakership back.
Old style politics. They thought I would be happy I got a tax break and would shove some of my "profits" their way.
Pathetic operatives- startled by "naive" Dems motivated by higher goods: they'll probably be whining at the coffee machine about how "ungrateful" the Dem base is about their "hard work".
Cue replay of Schumer talking about how a $1 million tax cut off would have been sufficient.
Glad you let them have it, John. At some point, Democrats are going to have to start feeling some heat concerning their party identification as the RepublicanLite party.
Frankly, it is doubtful my remarks will make it up his chain of command even if he did bother to write it up. The machine seems pretty clueless- I got my shiny Barack Obama Presidential partner embossed credit like card, and the business cards, even though I didn't give the campaign a nickel, and gave everything to the House races and my local senate race (Hirono during her primary challenge from a blue dog.)
I don't see any way for the party apparatus to be reformed. It's not cynicism about the corruption, which you would be justified in flaming about. Completely aside from those reasons, it is near impossible due to the big tent nature of their mission.
So I think you have to do funding and direct democracy pressure using outside progressive groups- totally out of the orbit of the White House or the DNC. This is the OFA type organizing in congressional districts idea I was promoting earlier.
Yeah, it's like shouting in outer space. You wonder what, if anything, is on the other end sometimes.
Ya got that right - cause they damn sure were not voting FOR Mitt Romney!
bonejob , what a poor excuse for an American ,, as R All of his constitu-Ants !
In the overgrown forest of overgrown dickweeds that is the GOTea, I guess that, for Republicans, Boehner stood as the tallest and thickest.
I don't know. But dickweeds don't come much taller or thicker than Boehner so I guess he'll do for them.
Thank you! LMAO!!! Thank you....
What to say about Boehner? The Koch Bros./US Chamber of Commerce 2010 disinformation campaign combined with the "betrayed" and "disappointed" on the left, and the "birthers" and "death-panelers" on the right put the gavel in his hands in the first place. Intensive gerrymandering has kept it there. If there's a definition somewhere of what "undeserving" looks like, there should be a photo of Boehner there.
You could say, "Wow, he has a really big gavel!"
Too bad he doesn't know how to use it.
We could always rename the Peter Principle to the Boehner Principle.
Just think we pay over $4M to keep one of those guys up there to represent us. That is direct cost. $1.74B direct cost, do you think we get our monies worth? I don't think so.
Allen West got votes.
Yikes.
That would be the best of three options between GOP Leadership, Military Prison, or a civilian Psych Ward.
How in the world did Allen West get votes? He wasn't elected to the 113th. Methinks there are at least two folks in there who are too stupid to be there (aside from West himself).
#6, Yes! Alan (still crazy after all these years) West got three votes. These three people are in my country's government, making laws.
OMG.
Do they even know he's gone?
I mean, we hung the flag out that day and we're not in congress! That day is marked with a blue ribbon on my calendar! On that date is marked: He is gone!
I love how the President wins election by about 4 percentage points (popular vote) and you call it a landslide and a mandate but the Speaker is re-elected by about 8 percentage points and it is a narrow victory. Too funny.
As I recall, W was elected by one Supreme Court justice after losing the popular vote, and he claimed he had a mandate.
Boehner won his caucus by 5 votes; ie, 2 1/2%. He won the total House vote by just over 50%; 43.5 x 5 = 217 and he got 220.
Well, we've never said the GOP was good at math...
Republican control of the House is illegitimate. Boehner shouldn't even be the Speaker.
Doug, thank for your help but you are approaching it from a different view. My position:
Boehner got almost 51% of the vote to Pelosi's 45% (I original had 416 votes cast, my mistake, there was 426 votes cast) So the difference was 6+ percentage points (not "about 8" as I stated).
This compares with Obama's 51% of the popular vote to Romney's 47%, a difference of 4 percentage points.
Other than the total vote correction, my math is correct.
Of course, the comparison between the general public and the partisan house vote has tremendous flaws in and of itself....but my math skills are above par, thank you very much.
As was pointed out this morning on Morning Joe, repubs were quite willing to look to someone other than Boehner, but they realized they literally had no one else to put up for the job. This is evident in the vote totals, with Cantor getting only 3 votes, and other votes going to people who weren't even in Congress, like Allen West and David Walker. Even so, I feel bad for Mr. Orange. He has literally no power over anyone, either in his own party or in the nation as a whole. He proved to be a powerless laughingstock during the fiscal cliff debacle, to the point where he was no longer seen as someone worth negotiating with, as he had no power to deliver what he agreed to. At this point, he looks like nothing more than a powerless figurehead. When he says he will no longer do one-on-one negotiations with Obama, one has to say, "who cares?". It's the equivalent of Bachmann saying she won't negotiate with Obama...neither has the power to deliver on anything they negotiate, and everyone else knows it.
You actually watch Mourning Joe? And you post here?
I don't even have my eyes functioning at that hour. I don't turn on the TV till Bashir comes on, then it goes off till Ed comes on. I shut it off after O'Donnell. I like MSNBC!
I will be watching Downton Abbey, but luckly it's on on Sunday night!
And it's not yet baseball season. Have a while to wait for that.
The Speaker is not the real problem folks. The obstructionist Tea Party wing, and its cowardly sympathizers are the root of the problem. Gerrymandered districts are the problem. Jim DeMint, and his threat of running primaries against members that try to actually work, is the problem.
Governor Christie was very upset and understand him. Speaker Boehner does not bear all the responsibility for no movement on the aid package for his State, however. The Speaker was trying to avoid being embarrassed, once again, by his own radical caucus. My guess is that he wanted to wait one more day, and vote on this package with a new Congress. In his place with coo coos like Allan West still around, and a supposed ally that's drooling for my job (Cantor), I would do the same.
Some GOP members have already echoed their famous talking points on the issue, " who's going to pay for it?" People are still suffering and it needs to get done, period. That State pays more in taxes than it receives, I'd say they've earned the aid.
John Boehner made re-election by three votes, Jim Beam, Johnny Walker, and Jose Cuervo
The John Boehner is bad at his job hypothesis should be considered a proven theorem by now.
The start of this blog could just as easily read:
"Obama re-elected president, but not by much."