Sept. 25, 2015

Conservatives had been moving against Republican leader again in recent weeks in battle over funding for women’s health organization Planned Parenthood

John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives, will resign from Congress next month, he announced on Friday, in a stunning move that follows intense pressure from conservatives in the House.

The top Republican on Capitol Hill announced his resignation at a party meeting on Friday morning and later confirmed in a statement that he will step down on 30 October. It brings to a close a career spanning nearly three decades, and a four-year speakership that has been marked by Republican infighting following the party’s taking control of the chamber in 2011.

While addressing the media on Friday afternoon, a tearful Boehner cast his decision as one designed to protect the institution of Congress.

“I’m doing this today for the right reasons,” Boehner said. “And the right things will happen as a result.”

Boehner, 65, has long been under intense pressure from House conservatives, who have repeatedly threatened to stage a coup against him and expressed dissatisfaction with his leadership in high-profile fights on Capitol Hill. Boehner has survived many rebellions from the hard-right wing of his party over the years, notably over bipartisan deals that raised taxes in 2012 and resolved a government shutdown in 2013.

House conservatives, many of them members of the so-called Freedom Caucus, were again moving against Boehner in recent weeks amid a battle over federal funding for the women’s health organization Planned Parenthood. The chamber’s right flank is pushing an effort to strip funding for the agency from a must-pass bill to fund the government, a strategy that would all but guarantee another government shutdown.

Planned Parenthood has long been targeted by Republicans, but their efforts have intensified after the release of secretly recorded videos that raised questions about its handling of fetal tissue provided to scientific researchers.

Aides to Boehner said the speaker ultimately made a decision to step aside “for the good of the Republican Conference and the institution”.

While the news of Boehner’s departure sent immediate shockwaves through Washington, the Ohio Republican said he initially planned to resign at the end of last year but stayed on “to provide continuity” after the stunning defeat of then House majority leader Eric Cantor in his 2014 primary election.

As news of his resignation broke, Boehner was praised by visibly shocked leaders in both parties.

“John Boehner’s a good man. He is a patriot. He cares deeply about the House … his constituents, and America,” Barack Obama said at a press conference, moments after speaking to Boehner on the phone.

“He has always conducted himself with courtesy and civility with me. He has kept his word when he has made a commitment.”

Aides and members of Congress in the room said Boehner received a standing ovation during the meeting at which he announced his resignation.

As speculation immediately spread over who would succeed Boehner, a number of influential Republicans took their names out of the mix.

Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the powerful House ways and means committee, told reporters he would not seek the job. “I don’t want to be speaker,” Ryan said.

North Carolina representative Mark Meadows, a conservative who in July filed a motion to remove Boehner as speaker, also ruled out a run.

Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, is next in line as speaker but would have to secure the votes of his caucus in a formal leadership election.

The House speaker is second in line for the presidency after the vice-president and one of the most powerful figures in Washington. Boehner has thus shaped his party’s strategy for passing legislation, scheduled congressional business and been Barack Obama’s main foil on the Hill.

Boehner has faced repeated challenges to his leadership from the right wing of his caucus since ascending to the top post in the House in 2011.

Predictions of Boehner’s political demise abounded during the partial government shutdown of October 2013, which resulted from a showdown between hard-right Republicans who sought to deny funding for the president’s healthcare policy and Obama, who refused to sign spending legislation that carved the policy up.

The eventual deal that Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, negotiated with Obama failed to achieve Republican demands.

On Friday at the Values Voter Summit, an annual conclave of social conservatives in Washington, the room erupted in a standing ovation when the news was announced on stage by Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio seemed to embrace the news in his speech, saying: “The time has come to turn the page.”

Jim Bridenstine, a representative from Oklahoma, seemed to give credit for Boehner’s resignation to Texas senator and 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz. “The good news is we are going to get new leadership,” Bridenstine said. “I want to share with you why that is happening. That is happening because there is a newly elected senator that showed up articulating principles of the GOP platform.”

Cruz has a famously contentious relationship with Boehner, who last month at a closed-door fundraiser referred to the Texas senator as “a jackass”. Since his arrival on Capitol Hill in 2013, Cruz has helped orchestrate a number of rebellions against Boehner – most notably the shutdown over the president’s healthcare law.

In what were regarded as unprecedented moves by a member of the Senate, Cruz also routinely gathered House conservatives to plot strategies at odds with the will of Boehner and his leadership team.

Moderate Republicans were dismayed by what they said was a defeat for sensible voices within the party.

“To me, this is a victory of the crazies,” New York representative Peter King told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House and a close friend of Boehner’s, said his departure was “seismic”.

“The resignation of the speaker is a stark indication of the disarray of the House Republicans,” she said.

The shock announcement came a day after a highlight of Boehner’s career, when Pope Francis addressed Congress at Boehner’s invitation. The speaker, a former altar boy, wept during the speech and later called it “a blessing for us all”.

On Friday, the speaker broke down while recalling his meeting with Pope Francis, an encounter that aides said moved Boehner closer to his decision to announce his resignation the following day.

“The Pope puts his arm around me and says, ‘Please pray for me,’” Boehner, a devout Catholic, said. “Who am I to pray for the Pope? But I did.”

He added: “I woke up and said I my prayers … and I decided, today’s the day I’m going to do this,” Boehner said. “It’s as simple as that.”

He nonetheless maintained that his departure was rooted in a desire to bring House Republicans together.

“When you’re the Speaker of the House, your No 1 responsibility is to the institution,” Boehner said, adding that a potential vote by conservatives to remove him from the post would tarnish that commitment.

“I don’t want to put my colleagues through this … for what?”

While Boehner will not participate in the vote on his successor, he said McCarthy “would make an excellent speaker”.

“His number one responsibility is to protect the institution,” he added.

Minutes before the announcement, Boehner tweeted pictures of the pope’s Washington visit with the caption: “What a day.”

Boehner, first elected to Congress from his south-west Ohio district in 1990, had a turbulent career before becoming speaker. He joined the Republican congressional leadership in 1994, after the party took control of Congress for the first time in 50 years. Four years later, after the GOP lost seats in midterm elections and Boehner participated in a failed coup against then speaker Newt Gingrich, he was ousted.

Boehner became chair of the House education and workforce committee, a position in which he worked with Senator Ted Kennedy to author the landmark No Child Left Behind bill, and worked in a bipartisan manner with another Democrat, his counterpart George Miller of California.

He returned to leadership in 2006, winning an election to be the No2 Republican in the House. A year later, after Democrats took control of Congress, he moved up to become his party’s leader.

Additional reporting by Kayla Epstein

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