Congressman Raul Labrador of Idaho emerged from a meeting of the House Freedom Caucus tonight to announce that a supermajority of the caucus supports Paul Ryan as speaker of the House. “We tried to reach a consensus but we were not able to reach the 80 percent threshold” needed to issue a formal endorsement, Labrador said.
According to Ryan’s spokesman, Ryan told members of the House Tuesday night that he would run for speaker and serve if he receives “the endorsement of all the conference’s major caucuses.” It was not immediately clear if the supermajority support–described as “more than two-thirds” of the 36-member caucus–was good enough for Ryan without a formal endorsement.*
Labrador also said that those Freedom Caucus members who do back Ryan did not reach a consensus on Ryan’s conditions to serve. Ryan called Tuesday for a “change to the process for a motion to vacate the chair.” The current process allows any single member to force a floor vote to oust the speaker.
Labrador reiterated it was a “nonstarter” to abolish the motion to vacate (something Ryan hadn’t actually proposed). But what about increasing the number of sponsors needed to bring a vote to the floor? “We can have that discussion. We’re open to whatever rules change process is. We’re open to a lot of different ideas,” Labrador replied.
Congressman Ken Buck of Colorado, a Freedom Caucus member, told me before the meeting that “some of the outside groups have focused on” changing the rules regarding this process, but Buck said he didn’t “think it’s going to be a major sticking point.”
“I think everybody agrees that in the case of a crime or some other bad activity by a speaker there’s got to be a mechanism to take a speaker out. So whether it’s one vote or whether you have some threshold at 50 signatures or something, there has to be some way to take out a speaker,” Buck said.
“I haven’t heard many Freedom Caucus members say that is a major issue,” he added.
The Freedom Caucus issued the following written statement following its Wednesday evening meeting:
*Update: The news seems to be good enough for Ryan. “I’m grateful for the support of a supermajority of the House Freedom Caucus,” Ryan said in a statement Wednesday night. “I look forward to hearing from the other two caucuses by the end of the week, but I believe this is a positive step toward a unified Republican team.”
