M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Boehner reelected as speaker despite throng of no votes House speaker reelected; 25 members dissent.

John Boehner was elected Tuesday to serve another two years as speaker of the House, beating back opposition from a surprisingly large group of conservatives who wanted a fresh face atop the Republican Conference.

The Ohio Republican got 216 votes out of 408 cast, while 25 dissenting Republicans voted for candidates as varied as Reps. Daniel Webster of Florida, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jeff Sessions of Alabama.


Boehner’s dissenters were well short of forcing a second round of voting, but the historically large number of votes against him — exceeding the 12 to 20 that had been expected — show the clear limits on his power inside the GOP Conference.

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Boehner, a 24-year veteran of Washington, will lead the largest Republican House since the Great Depression, while Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell will lead the Republican Senate for the final two years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The voting wasn’t as easy as Boehner had hoped, but his aides said the outcome was as expected. The speaker’s vote count fluctuated throughout the week, but there was no serious challenger to his role as the top Republican in the House.

Boehner also was helped by circumstance. With Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) resigning after pleading guilty to tax evasion, a dozen Democrats attending the funeral of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in Manhattan and several lawmakers unable to get to Washington because of inclement weather, only 408 members cast ballots. Boehner could have lost far more Republicans than he did and still won.

And Boehner benefited from the fact that while conservative hard-liners may always distrust him, no one running against him offered a realistic alternative for the overwhelming majority of GOP lawmakers.

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Boehner’s opposition grew Tuesday morning just a few hours before the vote. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) wrote on Facebook that he would “vote for a new speaker” after eight years of Boehner as leader. In 2013, Amash voted for Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) for speaker. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), who originally signaled he would vote for Boehner, announced he would oppose him. Huelskamp voted for Jordan in 2013. Duncan joined the “no” list on Tuesday morning. And Rep. Randy Weber, who voted for Boehner in 2013, said he would throw his support behind fellow Texan Gohmert.

“Let’s all get behind Judge Louie Gohmert for Speaker!” Weber wrote on Twitter. “He has my vote! He’s not afraid to take the fight to the president & his veto pen!” Rep. Curt Clawson (R-Fla.), who replaced Trey Radel after he was arrested for cocaine possession, also said he would vote against Boehner.

There was also some confusion about whether Webster was running for speaker. Webster was nominated and picked up a surprising number of votes (12).

To secure a third term as speaker, Boehner needed a majority of the votes from lawmakers present.

Republican dissenters had been plotting for days to oust Boehner. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie told reporters he planned to work Monday night to deny Boehner’s reelection. Almost no one believed the two declared candidates — Gohmert and Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) — would be the next speaker, but the anti-Boehner group thought that if it pushed the election to a second ballot, it could sweep Boehner aside and find someone else to lead the chamber. If the vote had gone to a second ballot, something that hasn’t happened in a race for speaker since 1923, chaos could have ensued.

Boehner had enough allies — upward of 100 — who privately vowed they would never vote for another candidate. That would have made a so-called compromise candidate almost impossible to elect. Many of Boehner’s allies had said for months that they would keep voting for Boehner until the opposition subsides.

Several sources said Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) was helping lead the effort to push the vote to a second ballot, though neither he nor his chief of staff responded to several emails. Other GOP members involved with trying to push Boehner out included Reps. Dave Brat of Virginia, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Steve King of Iowa, Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, Walter Jones of North Carolina and freshman Gary Palmer of Alabama.

Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) predicted that Boehner would be reelected, but he noted that the opposition to the Ohio Republican means Boehner’s problems with his conservative hard-liners haven’t gone away despite the big GOP victories on Election Day.

“I’m not the whip on their side, but my presumption is that the speaker is going to prevail and I think the speaker, like any leader, has to deal with any factions in his party, some of which who are more cooperative than others,” Hoyer said Tuesday morning. “You see in the Republican Party a very hard-line, ideological rigidity.”

Lauren French contributed to this report.

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