Congratulations go out to Representative John Boehner of Ohio who was elected minutes ago to succeed Tom DeLay as the new Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives on a vote of 122 – 109.  On the first ballot, the ‘reform’ vote was split between John Shadegg of Arizona (the former head of the conservative Republican Study Committee) and Boehner.  Shadegg’s dropping off after the first ballot moved all of the ‘reform’ votes over to Boehner, who defeated the Majority Whip, Roy Blunt, who was trying to move up.

I’m sure that there are a lot of ways to read and interpret the results of this closed-door voting session, but Californians can be hopeful that it means that we are going to see a CHANGE in the way that Republicans do business in the Beltway.  Perhaps it means that we will see an end to an era that has seen a 33% growth in federal spending since Republicans re-claimed control of the House in 1994.  Perhaps it means that the explosion of pork-spending and earmarking will see an end.  But I won’t get my hopes up.  A Shadegg victory, as a dark-horse late entry would have meant a majority of Republicans support a drastic change.  Still, to quote someone I know well in their analysis of whether Boehner’s win was better for the conservative cause than a Blunt victory:  "1000% better."

Good luck John Boehner.  May you usher in an end to the "Rule of 218" that only empowers moderate Republicans — may you start an era that acknowledges that the "K Street Project" served only to get Republican legislators to crumble to special interests by methodically making sure that these interests hire Republicans (like Jack Abramoff) — and may we start to see real floor votes on cutting away the layers of fat, pork and largess that have given us the largest Federal government in the history of our democratic republic

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.