WASHINGTON — Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, was elected speaker of the House on Thursday and proceeded to declare the institution he now leads “broken” and in need of reform.
The problems Ryan identified had less to do with partisan gridlock between Republicans and Democrats and more to do with divisions within his own party stoked by differences over tactics and ideology.
Those fissures drove out Speaker John Boehner, who bid a tearful farewell Thursday, and prompted Ryan to pledge to return some of the power amassed in recent decades by House leadership to the rank-and-file.
“We are not solving problems; we are adding to them,” he said in a short address after his election Thursday morning. “I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean. Neither the members nor the people are satisfied with how things are going. We need to make some changes, starting with how the House does business.”
There was early evidence that Ryan might be the unifying force most Republicans hoped he would be.
He won the support of all but nine of his Republican colleagues a day after 43 had voted for another candidate in a closed-door nomination vote.
Ryan won 236 votes Thursday, while Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., who won a following among staunch conservatives for his procedural reform agenda, received nine votes. All but three Democrats, meanwhile, supported House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
After the vote, Ryan began his remarks to the House with a call for unity — and not only among the divided Republican conference.
“Let’s pray for each other: Republicans for Democrats and Democrats for Republicans,” he said. “And I don’t mean pray for a conversion. Pray for a deeper understanding.”
He nodded to demands of back-bench conservatives who felt marginalized by Boehner, calling for committees to take the lead in writing major legislation: “We need to return to regular order,” he said, embracing a watchword of Boehner malcontents.
“We have nothing to fear from honest differences honestly stated,” Ryan added. “If you have ideas, let’s hear them. A greater clarity between us can lead to a greater charity among us.”
Ryan, who at 45 is the youngest speaker elected since 1869, took the oath of office from Rep. John Con yers, D-Mich., 86, the longest-serving member of the House.
Looking on were his family, including his wife, Janna, and three children, Liza, 13, Charlie, 12, and Sam, 10. Also seated in the speaker’s box were former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who tapped Ryan as his running mate for his ill-fated 2012 presidential run, and current Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who employed Ryan as a legislative aide before he returned to Wisconsin in 1998 to run for the House.
Brownback said afterward that Ryan exemplifies the cerebral, “happy warrior” brand of conservatism laid out by longtime GOP congressman Jack Kemp — a political hero of Ryan’s. And Ryan, he said, will occupy a key role advocating for Republican priorities before next year’s presidential election.
