The newly elected House Republican conference voted to nominate Paul Ryan for speaker on Tuesday, a little more than a year after first being elected speaker. Ryan will now face a full vote of the House of Representatives in January, when the new Congress is called into session.
According to reports, Ryan’s nomination by a voice vote was approved unanimously, with “no nays heard in the room,” as one House Republican source put it. Ryan was running unopposed for speaker, and that doesn’t mean he won’t have Republicans voting against him in January. As the Washington Post reported, several members of the Freedom Caucus are expressing skepticism about Ryan’s role as the Republican leader on policy during the Trump administration.
“Our leadership needs to understand that the American people sent a message to the House. They sent somebody like Donald Trump to change the way Washington works,” Raul Labrador of Idaho told the Post. “I hope they understand that business as usual is not going to work.”
Other members of House Republican leadership—Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, majority whip Steve Scalise, and conference chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers—were also selected by the conference Tuesday to remain in their current roles.
