Paul Ryan officially declares Speakership bid

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, announced Thursday he is officially running for Speaker of the House after Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, abruptly resigned from the position. “And I am ready and eager to be our speaker”, Ryan wrote in a letter to fellow Republican lawmakers.

Speaker Boehner scheduled the vote for his successor for 29 October, a day before his intended resignation.

Ryan earlier this week said he was open to replacing retiring House Speaker John Boehner, but only if he could win the unified backing of his divided party colleagues in the House.

Yet Ryan may be on a short leash with the Freedom Caucus.

“We are not solving the country’s problems; we are only adding to them”, he says.

Eleanor Powell, assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, said Ryan is known for his work in drafting budget proposals, which is where his strongly conservative – and sometimes controversial – agenda comes through.

With his national profile and bona fides with the right, Ryan was perhaps the only Republican who could make that pitch, showcasing strength that will immediately be put to the test when he’s expected to be elected speaker next week. “What I told members is, if you can agree to these requests and if I can truly be a unifying figure, then I will gladly serve, and if I am not unifying, that is fine as well – I will be happy to stay where I am”. And that proposal, from the conservative Republican Study Committee, was hardly a concession to President Barack Obama.

Paul Ryan finally made it official Thursday – he will run for House speaker.

However, a few members of the Freedom Caucus have publicly acknowledged their hesitancies, including Brooks. And I don’t want anybody’s eyes to glaze over, but there was definitely a lot of talk about process this week – less about what kind of person Ryan was, more about what kind of process he could guarantee or promise.

Ryan was reluctant, but eventually responded to these pleas – and on Tuesday, he laid out a set of conditions he said were necessary for him to run for speaker.

There are still signs the hard right could complicate life for a Speaker Ryan. He’s a lock for the job now in that he’s secured support from all factions of the Home GOP, together with the hardline Freedom Caucus.

But the key piece fell into place Wednesday evening when the hard-line Freedom Caucus announced that a large majority of its 40 members would support Ryan.

The Freedom Caucus did not officially endorse him because Ryan didn’t command the four-fifths support from its members that the group requires for an endorsement. “And I think he needs to see if this is good enough for him and if he can work with us”. But I did. I turned over every single stone and I was told by many members – before he was even running – ‘If you get somebody like Paul Ryan, it’s going to be the same business as usual.

“Paul’s a uniquely capable communicator and it will be an asset for us to have his ability to frame the issues that we all care about”, said GOP Rep. Patrick Meehan of Pennsylvania.