Boehner resigns from speaker

Shocking announcement signifies a shift in the Republican Party leadership

Congressman John Boehner shocked the world Sept. 25 by announcing he would be stepping down from speaker of the House. Boehner becomes the fifth speaker to resign in U.S. history, according to the National Constitution Center.

Originally, Boehner rose to the speakership on the support of the tea party movement in 2010, yet throughout his six years in this position, he never garnered the full backing of the party’s most conservative factions. The group that pushed the speaker out, known as the Freedom Caucus, is on the far right of the Republican Party and was unhappy over Boehner’s unwillingness to shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood.

One of the more interesting comments in the post-Boehner fallout was from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is also running for the Republican presidential nomination. Speaking at the Value Voter Summit, Rubio announced the speaker’s decision and then said, “I’m not here today to bash anyone. But the time has come to turn the page and allow a new generation of leadership in this country.”

“I realized that none of the problems I got elected to solve are going to be solved if we keep promoting the same people to higher and higher ranks within our government,” Rubio said.

Rubio’s call for a “new generation of leadership” is what has been needed in the Republican Party now for a number of years. A new class of young, reform-minded Republican politicians is emerging across the nation, pushing against the establishment for change in policy and in leadership within the party. Governors such as Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Sam Brownback in Kansas used small-government policies to raise their states to prominence. Congressmen like Rubio, Tom Cotton, Paul Ryan, Tim Scott and Mike Lee have actively sought to restrict federal government expansion and enact laws that create growth across the nation.

Rubio’s comments are an appeal to unleash this class of politicians. Yet it does not seem this will happen in the case of Boehner’s successor. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the majority leader in the House and assumed successor to the speaker of the House, “is viewed more favorably by the House’s more conservative members” than Boehner, according to the New York Times.

However, McCarthy has not handled the new spotlight well, committing a number of gaffes over the past week. On Sept. 28, he appeared on “Hannity,” and when asked about what he will do differently than his predecessor, he launched into a discussion of how the Select Committee on Benghazi has primarily served to hurt Hillary Clinton in the polls, seeming to imply it was not only about discovering the truth.

“Many of us actually thought the Benghazi investigations were driven by a desire to get the facts of a tragedy in which four people died and the administration’s response veered from misleading to dishonest,” Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “Instead they’re driven by a merely partisan agenda?”

This incident and the congressional Republicans’ poor handling of the recent Planned Parenthood hearings are examples of the need for new leadership in Washington. Leadership that will not back down from challenges both at home and abroad. Leadership that does not seek to politicize events for its own political gains but seeks to work across the aisle for the benefit of the nation as a whole.

Sutherland is the opinion editor.