Winners and Losers: Boehner's Retirement

John Boehner, Speaker of the House and third in line for the Presidency, just announced he would be retiring at the end of October.  This surprising decision will have repercussion that may seriously affect the 2016 Presidential election.  There are still a lot of moving parts but here is my early take on the winners and losers of Boehner’s announcement.

John Boehner – Winner

There is something to be said about going out on top.  Perhaps Boehner took a cue from another famous John, Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway.  In his 14^th season in the NFL and his 4^th Super Bowl appearance Elway finally got his ring, he came back for one more Super Bowl championship then retired on top.  By leaving office now, Boehner avoids the potential embarrassment of losing his speakership to another Republican.  Boehner held on to the top spot in the House after the last election by the smallest margin in speakership history, he has been vilified by the ideologues in his party and there is no guarantee he could have held the post through another election.  As it stands, however, Boehner cannot be called anything but a great success.  His announcement comes at the heels of an accomplishment two decades in the making, a Papal address to a joint session of Congress.  As a proud Catholic, this must feel like one of Boehner’s greatest achievements.  More importantly, though, Boehner leaves office with the strongest Republican majority in the House of Representatives during the modern era.  He now has the option to go make buckets of money as a lobbyist or to retire comfortably to his recently purchased Florida property.  I don’t know if he has any intention of running for office in the future, but the inevitable GOP inter-party train wreck might make Boehner an appealing Presidential candidate in 2020 or 2024.

President Obama – Loser

Obama and Boehner have had a rocky relationship to say the least.  But there is little doubt that Boehner’s replacement will be more conservative and principled than he was.  The conservative faction of the GOP has been itching to replace the pragmatic institutionalist and they are now likely to get their way.  There is still a great question as to who will replace Boehner, but in all likelihood his replacement will be more combative towards the President.  My guess is that we will see another government shutdown before the end of Obama’s term.  During the last fight Obama spent a lot of time using his bully pulpit to argue against this tactic and he is likely going to have to do that again.  This means less time to work on the rest of Obama’s lame duck agenda.

Conservative Republicans – Winners

Boehner’s announcement coincided with the Value Voter Summit in Washington D.C., a conservative conference that attracted many GOP Presidential hopefuls.  Marco Rubio was the speaker who got to break the news to the crowd who enthusiastically cheered for the departure of the highest-ranking Republican.  While Rubio was tempered with his remarks, saying only that it was time for “a new generation of leadership in this country,” others were not so tepid.  Ted Cruz claimed Boehner had joined the “Democrats to implement all of President Obama’s priorities” and that this is “not the behavior one would expect of a Republican speaker of the House.”  The GOP frontrunner, Donald Trump, said, “We want to see… people that are going to get it done,” indicating he did not approve of the job Boehner had done.  This is all coming just two months after North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows offered a motion to vacate the chair, a move that would have stripped Boehner of his speakership had it prevailed.  Now that Boehner has decided to retire, it is quite likely that the GOP will elect a candidate that is less pragmatic and more conservative.  The ‘just say no’ caucus will finally have their chance to lead.

Conservative Republicans – Losers

Having a chance to lead is about the worst thing that can happen to this caucus.  They function best as outsiders causing a ruckus and complaining about leadership in Washington.  I don’t know that any of the truly conservative members will actually want to be in Boehner’s position.  They are relatively safe in their conservative districts.  They have been safe to vote no on everything knowing that the moderate Republicans will fall on their swords by working with Democrats to keep the government running.  If the conservative caucus really does win the speakership they are either going to have to capitulate now and then, an unforgivable sin within their group, or they are going to cause irreparable damage to the Republican party and potentially be viewed in the future as the cause of the second President Clinton.  This is a lose-lose situation for any member of the conservative caucus looking to take over the speakership.

Hillary Clinton – Winner

This is assuming that she holds onto her lead and wins the Democratic nomination for President in 2016.  I think it is quite likely that the conservatives will push through a less pragmatic Republican as next speaker of the House (even if not the most conservative) and s/he will have to repay that favor by letting them have their government shutdown.  This is good for the conservative Representative drawn into safe districts, but it is also good for Clinton.  Government shutdowns are not popular and Republicans will be the ones to take the blame.  This gives Hillary the chance to make the election a referendum on Congress, a much better option than a referendum on Obama.  If the House GOP goes wild, Hillary’s chances just went up.

The Republican Party – Loser

With or without John Boehner the GOP was likely to lose seats in both houses of Congress in 2016.  In the House, Democrats always do better during Presidential elections rather than Midterms; this advantage was likely to earn them a few seats, though far from a majority.  In the Senate, Republicans have a lot more vulnerable seats than the Democrats; this is because this is the first re-election campaign for Republican Senators who took over traditional Democratic seats during the GOP wave of 2010.  Whether the Democrats win enough seats to take over the Senate is still up in the air, but it is likely they will increase their numbers.  Now, say what you will about John Boehner, but he helped the Republican Party win more seats than anyone would have predicted in 2008.  I think it is inevitable that the next Speaker will have to appease the conservative caucus, and this will hurt the Republican Party in the 2016 election.

Government Workers - Winners (for now)

John Boehner’s resignation effectively ends the imminent threat of a government shutdown.  Without fear of political backlash, Boehner can now push through a funding bill that will keep the government opening at least until December.  Boehner will have to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, but there is no way he wants his last action as Speaker to be a government shutdown.  This means that all the ‘non-essential’ government employees who would otherwise stop working andstop getting paid will continue to work.  The question now, is for how long?