Exploit exit

Conservatives' plan to exploit Boehner's exit

With their longtime adversary gone, hard-liners look to promote one of their own into leadership ranks.

By Lauren French

With John Boehner’s resignation, House conservatives got their wish.

The question now is what they’re going to do with it.

The members of the House Freedom Caucus have the broad outlines of a plan — unify behind their fellow conservatives who have the best shot of securing a leadership position, and, in a sign that headaches over a potential government shutdown are not over, keep up the fight to defund Planned Parenthood.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said he imagines conservative members will make a deal among each other to better any candidate's chance of winning, rather than splitting their vote as they have in the past.

“Conservatives will be working together. It's not going to be one or two of us. We're going to make a deal,” he said. “We need a conservative speaker, one who understands the principles of the Republican Party. What conservatives will be looking for is promises about procedure.”

These hardline Republicans have labored for months to shake up the GOP leadership team in the House with endless criticism of the Ohio Republican — and even threatened to mount an attempt to oust him from the speaker’s chair early in the summer. Now that’s over and the 40-or-so members of the House Freedom Caucus will have to navigate the cut-throat, high-stakes race for leadership posts and see if they can get one of their own into power.

And leaders of the Freedom Caucus wasted no time, huddling on Friday just hours after Boehner stunned the conference with the announcement that he plans to resign on Oct. 30.

There are many within the group who have tried to enter leadership before. Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) unsuccessfully ran for majority leader in 2014, and Florida Republican Rep. Daniel Webster launched his own quixotic bid for speaker in January.

Webster, according to other lawmakers, is once again considering running for speaker.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), the former chief deputy whip who is not a member of the House Freedom Caucus but has gained favor in recent weeks with conservatives, is also expected to consider trying to return to the leadership table.

The Freedom Caucus plans to meet with any candidate who announces a run for speaker for endorsements meetings. The group will hold off endorsing any candidate until those meetings are complete.

And in another sign that it may not be a sprawling race among conservatives, some of the most respected leaders of the caucus said they have no plans to run. When asked by reporters Friday if he planned to make a bid for any leadership post, Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said no.

“No, I’m not going to run,” Jordan said.

Still, some members of the caucus acknowledge it will take banding together to have a shot at getting one of their own in the top slot. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is heavily favored to succeed Boehner, and plenty of other lawmakers are said to be eyeing leadership positions, including Georgia Rep. Tom Price and Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin.

“I don’t think the conservative wing of the party has enough mass to get one of our own elected,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C). “We certainly have enough mass to influence the outcome.”

Despite the challenge before them, conservatives are emboldened by Boehner’s exit.

Five leaders of the Freedom Caucus met with the House speaker Thursday night to discuss a stop-gap spending bill to avert a government shutdown. The conservatives balked at the plan to first vote on a resolution to end federal funding of Planned Parenthood and then take up a clean government funding bill.

Boehner stressed during a press conference Friday afternoon that he made the decision to resign to avoid putting the Republican conference through an agonizing leadership struggle — but he was confident he had the votes to win any coup attempt against him.

Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) said Friday morning that during that closed-door meeting it seemed clear that Boehner knew there was trouble stirring over the government funding vote.

“He just realized that maybe he was becoming the issue,” said Salmon. “I think he did the right thing and stepped down.”

And it’s clear that Boehner’s resignation won’t change the conservatives’ adamant opposition to a so-called “clean” funding bill, despite the consensus view that Boehner’s resignation greatly increases the chances of averting a government shutdown. Jordan said he can’t imagine the House Freedom Caucus supporting any stop-gap funding measure that doesn’t defund Planned Parenthood.

The House is expected to vote on that legislation next week.

The conservative members are also setting their sights down the road. Mulvaney said Boehner’s resignation this was not a “victory” for the House Freedom Caucus but rather an opportunity to push the overall Republican Conference to the right.

“[Boehner] was unwilling to use the power of the purse. He was unwilling to push back against a continuously assertive executive branch. John was fighting the 21st century battles with 1990s tools. You just can’t do that,” Mulvaney said. “I will not use the term victory…that is just mean-spirited and that’s not what this was about. If the House Freedom Caucus wanted to move the chamber a little further to the right this was a necessary step.”