Rep. John Boehner took the helm as House speaker Wednesday, promising to chart a new course dictated by an angry electorate that helped usher in his GOP majority. “Our aim will be to give the government back to the American people,” said Boehner, R-Ohio, as 10 of his 11 brothers and sisters looked on from the speaker’s gallery above the chamber.
If there was a message in last November’s election, in which Boehner said voters “humbled us,” it was that a free-spending, bitterly partisan Congress had lost touch with the country at a moment of economic uncertainly during which Americans wanted much more attentive and relevant leadership.
“What they want,” Boehner said, “is a government that’s honest, accountable and responsive to their needs, a government that respects individual liberty, honors our heritage and bows before the public that it serves.”
With Boehner’s promise to create such a government, the 112th Congress officially convened with a historic number of new members, including 99 freshman Republicans, most of them intent on reducing government spending and repealing the nation’s new health care law.
“The fact that there was such an overwhelming majority of Republicans elected, I think we have a duty to respond to the will of the American people,” freshman Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., said after being sworn in. Republicans also picked up six Senate seats last November, though Democrats retain control of the chamber.
Boehner was elected speaker with 241 votes. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., now the minority leader, garnered 173 votes. About 20 members of her greatly diminished caucus voted for other Democrats, including Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina. Moderate Democrats have complained that Pelosi’s leadership contributed to the party’s historic losses in last year’s election.
Before handing an oversized speaker’s gavel over to Boehner, Pelosi spoke of the accomplishments of her four years at the helm, including passage of health care reforms, new Wall Street regulations and the repeal of ban on gays serving openly in the military.
“We have made the largest-ever commitment to making college more affordable, enacted Wall Street reform with the greatest consumer protections in history and passed a strong patient’s bill of rights,” Pelosi said.
Boehner delivered a brief inaugural speech in which he promised more transparency, accountability and a renewed focus on the Constitution.
The first order of business for the House was approval of new rules for its two-year session. Republicans crafted a package intended to appeal to an electorate that gave them the majority in large part out of concern over government spending and a ballooning deficit. The new rules require lawmakers to pay for every new spending item with budget cuts, but not tax increases. The rules also impose greater transparency by requiring all legislation to be posted online in advance of any votes and are intended to help shrink government by downsizing many House committees and limiting chairmen’s terms.
Democrats, who held a 255-180 majority in the 111th session, are now outnumbered by Republicans, 242-193, and were powerless to oppose the new rules package. But they complained before the vote that the GOP plan would allow tax breaks that would add to the deficit.
“It is a fiscally reckless blueprint,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said, “and the American people know better.”
