Republicans "need to move from an op­pos­i­tion party to be­ing a pro­pos­i­tion party," said Rep. Paul Ryan.

Republicans "need to move from an op­pos­i­tion party to be­ing a pro­pos­i­tion party," said Rep. Paul Ryan. Andrew Harnik/AP

Ryan Willing to Serve as Speaker—if He Gets What He Wants

The Ways and Means chairman told his GOP colleagues what it would take to get him to “yes.”

Rep. Paul Ry­an still isn’t a yes. But he’s get­ting close.

After weeks of an­guish with­in his con­fer­ence over who could feas­ibly lead the frag­men­ted Re­pub­lic­an con­fer­ence, Ry­an presen­ted his GOP col­leagues Tues­day night with a series of con­di­tions un­der which he would be will­ing to serve as speak­er. Though it’s not a done deal, his state­ment offered Re­pub­lic­ans their clearest glim­mer of hope since Speak­er John Boehner an­nounced his plan to resign and Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Kev­in Mc­Carthy de­cided not to run for the top job.

“To­night, Con­gress­man Ry­an laid out to his col­leagues why he be­lieves we are in this situ­ation and what he thinks is needed for us to move for­ward as a team,” Ry­an spokes­man Brendan Buck said in an email after Tues­day’s meet­ing. “He did not an­nounce a fi­nal de­cision on the speak­er­ship, but he did dis­cuss what’s ne­ces­sary, in his view, for the next speak­er to be suc­cess­ful.”

Ry­an, Buck said, made clear that the next speak­er needs to lay out a clear­er policy vis­ion, needs to es­tab­lish a bal­ance that al­lows time with fam­ily, needs party unity, and needs to not face the con­stant threat that a mem­ber can move to va­cate the chair—the threat that helped prompt Boehner to quit.

Ry­an ex­pan­ded on those pro­pos­als in a press con­fer­ence after the meet­ing.

“We need to move from an op­pos­i­tion party to be­ing a pro­pos­i­tion party,” Ry­an said.  “Be­cause we think the na­tion is on the wrong path, we have a duty to show the right one.” He voiced sup­port for up­dat­ing House rules to en­sure that “every­one can be a more ef­fect­ive rep­res­ent­at­ive.”

The 45-year-old, in dis­cuss­ing rules changes, signaled that he’s not in­ter­ested in serving un­der the threat of chal­lenges from with­in the GOP ranks. “We need to do this as a team, and it needs to in­clude fixes that en­sure that we do not ex­per­i­ence con­stant lead­er­ship chal­lenges and crises,” Ry­an said.

Fi­nally, he in­sisted that he would serve in a way that en­sured he could spend ample time with his fam­ily, which in­cludes school-age chil­dren. “I can­not and I will not give up my fam­ily time. I may not be on the road as of­ten as pre­vi­ous speak­ers, but I pledge to try and make up for it with more time com­mu­nic­at­ing our vis­ion, our mes­sage,” Ry­an said.

“What  I told mem­bers is, if you can agree to these re­quests, and if I can truly be a uni­fy­ing fig­ure, than I will gladly serve,” he said.

Ry­an hopes the con­fer­ence will de­cide by the end of this week wheth­er it can sup­port him and his re­quests, Rep. Dar­rell Issa said.

Soon after the meet­ing, an­oth­er con­tender for speak­er, Rep. Jason Chaf­fetz, said he would give way. “I am out, and in with Paul,” Chaf­fetz said.

Ry­an’s entry in­to the race would help quell con­cerns com­ing from many mod­er­ate and es­tab­lish­ment mem­bers in the party that Boehner’s exit would leave be­hind a power va­cu­um and make the party look splintered just a year be­fore a pres­id­en­tial elec­tion.

Yet, even as many in the con­fer­ence would cheer, Ry­an will still face many of the same obstacles that Boehner was up against over the past five years. He will have to con­tend with the Free­dom Caucus, a group of 40 or so House Re­pub­lic­ans who rep­res­ent the most con­ser­vat­ive wing of the party. That seg­ment of the party has said it will sup­port Rep. Daniel Web­ster for speak­er and has called on a series of rules changes to make the le­gis­lat­ing pro­cess more rep­res­ent­at­ive.

Rep. Bill Flores, chair­man of an­oth­er con­ser­vat­ive fac­tion—the Re­pub­lic­an Study Com­mit­tee—said the RSC would meet Wed­nes­day to dis­cuss wheth­er it could sup­port Ry­an.

Rep. Marlin Stutz­man said he was open to con­sid­er­ing Ry­an, and that the Free­dom Caucus would take a look.

Rep. Matt Sal­mon ad­ded: “I can’t speak for the en­tire Free­dom Caucus. As far as I am con­cerned, I think he made some very reas­on­able ob­ser­va­tions about how any­body would need to have the sup­port of the en­tire con­fer­ence if they are go­ing to be suc­cess­ful as speak­er.”

Asked if he is per­son­ally sold on Ry­an, Sal­mon said, “Not yet, but I am cer­tainly open. I have not closed any doors what­so­ever.”

Rep. Peter King told Na­tion­al Journ­al that Ry­an told the con­fer­ence that he would “take ar­rows to the chest, but not in the back” and he would not be will­ing to be the “third log in the fire,” a ref­er­ence to con­ser­vat­ives’ push­back against Boehner and Mc­Carthy.

And con­ser­vat­ive Rep. Mark San­ford said: “I think he could well be the uni­fy­ing fig­ure the con­fer­ence has been look­ing for.”

While Ry­an’s style is far dif­fer­ent from Boehner’s, Ry­an re­mains close to the party’s lead­ers and has un­veiled mo­nu­ment­al budget blue­prints, hashed out budget com­prom­ises with Demo­crats, and ushered in a bi­par­tis­an trade deal through Con­gress with the bless­ing of the pres­id­ent.

Ry­an is also a ma­jor fun­draiser for Re­pub­lic­ans. He has raked in $40 mil­lion over the course of his ca­reer, ac­cord­ing to a re­port from the Cen­ter for Re­spons­ive Polit­ics.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.