Despite the potential challenges Ryan may face, Neal said he expects the new speaker to enjoy somewhat of a honeymoon period since the House has dealt with issues like the debt limit and possible government shutdown.
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“But let’s be frank: The House is broken”.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) was officially elected Speaker of the House Thursday morning, completing an unorthodox journey to the position.
“He turned to me and said, ‘Paul is the right guy, and we will support him 100 percent, ‘” said Salmon. “I’m not interested in laying blame”.
Ryan takes over for John Boehner, who brought out tissues in his farewell speech in a nod to his famous propensity for tears.
Ryan was the running mate of the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012.
The House of Representatives has been plagued by dysfunction, but I believe a new day is upon us with the election of Speaker Paul Ryan.
The other five New Jersey House Republicans also backed Ryan (R-Wis.). Ryan got 236 votes; Nancy Pelosi got 184, and Colin Powell and John Lewis each got a single vote.
He is second in line to the USA presidency after the vice president, should the commander-in-chief be impeached or vacate the Oval Office.
He had served as Ways and Means Committee chairman since January, and previously chaired the Budget Committee for four years.
But he heeded pleas from colleagues who argued that he was perhaps the only person who could fix a deeply-divided and dysfunctional House Republican conference.
But after intense pressure from establishment Republicans including Boehner – and lengthy conversations with the conservatives who helped fell first Boehner then McCarthy – he relented.
Ryan laid out early that his family time will go untouched despite the influx of responsibility he’s accepting by taking on the speakership. Indeed, the House Speaker is the third-highest of all elected federal officials and the higher paid member of Congress (the president earns $400,000, while the vice president earns just over $230,000).
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“This week’s bipartisan votes on the budget and Export Import Bank show that Congress can still get things done”, he said in a statement.
