The House formally reelected Paul Ryan to the speakership Tuesday in a vote that was tamer than what the GOP majority has endured in recent years, with only one of his party colleagues defecting.
The Wisconsin Republican secured the support of 239 representatives, and just one of his members, Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, chose differently. Massie’s selection was Floridian Daniel Webster, who was a candidate in 2015 to take the speaker’s gavel from the outgoing John Boehner partway through Congress’s session. Webster received only nine votes that year after Ryan entered the race as the consensus pick, a development that occurred upon current House majority leader Kevin McCarthy withdrawing his name from consideration.
There was no such intrigue and maneuvering this time around. Ryan informally received the support of his entire conference during a post-election meeting in November, and Tuesday’s proceedings cinched his first full term as speaker.
But he did acknowledge the intrigue from last year’s presidential campaign—one that was “pretty intense,” he cracked—and how it would shape the coming two years.
“It’s no secret that millions of Americans across the country are deeply dissatisfied with their current situation. They’ve looked to Washington for leadership, and all they’ve gotten is condescension. For years, they’ve suffered quietly—quietly amid shuttered factories and shattered lives. But now they have let out a great roar. Now, we, their elected representatives, must listen,” he said in his opening address of the House session Tuesday. “And so I want to say to the American people, ‘We hear you, we will do right by you, and we will deliver.”
Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi received 189 votes from her members, and four voted for someone else. Two of them backed Ohio’s Tim Ryan, who waged a strong challenge to Pelosi’s minority leader post in November.
More from the Washington Examiner:
Ryan assumed the speakership not even a year and a half ago after hardline conservatives grew increasingly wary with Boehner’s leadership. The Ohioan received just 216 votes in the initial speaker’s election in January 2015—Republicans began the year with a 247-188 majority—a harbinger of his ultimate downfall.
