Boehner to resign in October | The Hill |
Speaker John Boehner told GOP lawmakers on Friday he will resign at the end of October.
The embattled Boehner (R-Ohio) said he would resign from both his speakership and his House seat, he told GOP lawmakers at a closed-door conference.
“Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any Speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all,” a Boehner aide said.
The aide said Boehner had only been planning to serve through the end of last year, but decided to stay on after then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) suffered a stunning primary loss.
“The Speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution,” the aide said.
“He is proud of what this majority has accomplished, and his Speakership, but for the good of the Republican Conference and the institution, he will resign the Speakership and his seat in Congress, effective October 30.”
Boehner’s decision comes as Congress struggles to find a way to fund the government.
[Update: BooMan’s fp story] Yeah, I Saw This Coming
Whether the following is the whole story or not, it seems to be basically unassailable:
[Speaker John] Boehner, who capped his career with Thursday’s address by Pope Francis, met with a handful of the most conservative Republicans after the papal address to lay out his plan to fund the government. But those rebels continued to agitate and threaten to force a vote at sometime in the near future to vacate his speakership.
A believer in the institution, Boehner decided to walk away on his own terms rather than relying on Democratic support or becoming the first speaker to lose the gavel midterm.
I somewhat anticipated this in my recent piece “Bring the Republican Schism to the Fore,” in which I made two prescient observations.
More to follow …
