Speaker John Boehner to resign from Congress

Republicans in the House of Representatives are locked in a long, grinding civil war. The rebels will never win power, but the establishment can’t fully annihilate them either.

The rebels have organized themselves into the House Freedom Caucus, a group that successfully pressured Speaker John Boehner to give up his gavel. But the group doesn’t have the numbers to elevate one of its own to a top position when Republicans choose new leaders on October 8.

Earlier this month, Washington journalists were reporting that Congress might be headed for another government shutdown at the end of the month. But the risk of shutdown has evaporated: A bill to fund the government through mid-December is sailing through the Senate and is expected to pass the House.

This isn’t how shutdown fights usually go — over the past few years, Congress has marched right up to (or even past) deadlines before making a decision. But what’s different this time is that Speaker of the House John Boehner announced on Friday that he’ll resign in mid-October.

As he announced his resignation Friday, House Speaker John Boehner tallied up his accomplishments, including major spending cuts and preventing most of the Bush tax cuts from expiring. But the chart below shows that there was a lot Boehner didn’t get done: namely, enacting laws.

Congress enacted a lower percentage of bills during his two full terms as House speaker than at any time in the previous 40 years: 2.3 percent in the Congress spanning 2011-‘12, and 2.8 percent in the one that spanned 2013-‘14. Obviously, that can’t all be attributed to Boehner. There are 534 other members of Congress who have a say in what makes it into law — and Boehner’s resignation is in part a symbol of his inability to control even the House Republican contingent. It’s also worth noting that many Republicans see an absence of new laws as a sign of progress.

House Speaker John Boehner’s surprise decision to resign was a gift to the heavy favorite to succeed him: Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

While Boehner will be sticking around for another five weeks or so, he didn’t give Republican dissidents an eternity to coalesce around a rival to McCarthy and round up votes. McCarthy, who was the party’s whip before becoming majority leader, has his own vote-counting operation in place and longstanding relationships with the lawmakers who will choose Boehner’s successor.

On Friday morning, Speaker John Boehner shockingly announced that he’d step down from Congress at the end of October. Watch his press conference explaining his decision above.

Due to John Boehner’s shocking decision to resign from Congress at the end of October, the House of Representatives will have to elect a new speaker to replace him.

So far, it’s unclear how dramatic the contest will be. Despite constant rumblings of conservative dissatisfaction with Boehner’s leadership, and talk of coups in January 2013 and January 2015, no challenger to him has ever gotten more than 12 votes. The early chatter among Hill reporters is that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who’s philosophically quite similar to Boehner, is the clear favorite. It’s not clear who will emerge as a challenger from the conservative wing, but there will likely be someone.

Last weekend, Politico’s Jake Sherman interviewed John Boehner. Boehner was, at that moment, facing a possible coup from House conservatives and a possible government shutdown over Planned Parenthood, and he was doing it all while on a relentless fundraising trip through the Pacific Northwest.

Boehner’s job was a nightmare. And one of Boehner’s particular charms was that he always seemed to know it. He didn’t even pretend he was having fun. Asked about the rigors of his role, Boehner’s response to Sherman was typically piquant. “Garbage men get used to the smell of bad garbage,” he replied.

This morning, House Speaker John Boehner announced he’d resign from Congress. And here’s how the Value Voters Summit in Washington, DC — a gathering of conservative Christian activists — greeted the news, according to Steve Peoples of the Associated Press:

You can watch the reaction for yourself here:

The New York Times’s Jennifer Steinhauer reports that Speaker John Boehner will resign from Congress at the end of October. So Boehner isn’t just giving up his speakership — he’s giving up his seat in Congress altogether.

The report, sourced to aides in his office, follows other reporting suggesting Boehner had lost interest in what looked to be, by all measures, a truly unpleasant job.

According to Politico, House Republicans are obsessed because a number of them are openly threatening a coup attempt against Speaker John Boehner unless they get what they want. Last week, John Patty proposed a procedural escape for Boehner. But I think Boehner has a variety of good options for stemming the revolt. I begin by summarizing the rebels’ strategy, then explain why it is doomed.

Of these six steps, only the first is foolproof. Any House member can introduce a resolution to vacate the chair. Of course, any House member can introduce a resolution to do anything, even praise cheaters. The next five steps are problematic.

Donald Trump has a new target for the “low energy” brand of insult he’s been hurling at rival Jeb Bush: House Speaker John Boehner.

“He’s been very disappointing in terms of his vigor and in terms of stopping Obamacare, and certainly in terms of even this,” Trump said, referring to the Iran nuclear deal that brought Trump to the Capitol for a Tea Party rally Wednesday.

John Boehner has been through debt-ceiling fights, a government shutdown, and increasingly bitter challenges to his authority. But never has his job as speaker of the House seemed to be in so much jeopardy as right now.

Top Republicans expect that one of Boehner’s adversaries within the Republican conference will try to force a vote on whether to dump him from the speakership this fall, according to Politico. If he survives that, which might require support from some House Democrats, many Republicans think Boehner should or will step down at the end of this Congress.

Speaker John Boehner is facing the boldest challenge yet to his job, but one that’s highly unlikely to end up costing him the House gavel.

He’s been fighting with the far-right wing of his caucus, and on Tuesday Rep. Mark Meadows, a hard-line North Carolina conservative, introduced a resolution that would “vacate” the chair — meaning oust Boehner.