Paul Ryan elected House speaker

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., flanked by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., left, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, October 28, 2015, after a Special GOP Leadership Election. Ryan spent many hours discussing the writings of conservative economic thinkers with professor Rich Hart, was in a fraternity, and joined the College Republicans. That put him second in line to the presidency and atop a chamber that has been awash in tumult ever since defiant conservatives hounded Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, into announcing his resignation from that post last month.

It is one of two events in the past week that give Republicans at least a few hope of a functional speakership under Ryan.

Ryan sounded an optimistic note.

In brief remarks after the vote, Ryan told reporters, “We are not going to have a House that looks like it looked the last two years”. “Our party has lost its vision, and we are going to replace it with a vision”.

Just nine hard-line conservatives voted against Ryan, instead backing a little known Florida lawmaker.

Minority Democrats supported former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime California congresswoman, but were easily outvoted by Ryan’s Republican colleagues.

A full vote on the floor of the Republican-controlled House is scheduled for Thursday.

The Republican leader, who voted in support of the deal Wednesday, will leave Congress Thursday, after the official House vote on his successor.

He’s offered a few advice to Ryan, who agreed to run for speaker only after Boehner and other lawmakers pleaded with him to step in. He is the architect of conservative budget plans that sought to rein in federal spending in part by cutting federal retirement and health insurance plans.

Boehner has refused to bring antidiscrimination legislation to the House floor, despite the passage of such bills in the Senate.

“Another last-minute, back-room spending deal by the White House and congressional leaders that busts the budget caps and allows unlimited debt for the next 18 months”, said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Ryan did not oblige.

“It’s risky to hold America’s military hostage to politics, as President Obama repeatedly does”, Brady said in a statement after the vote.

Conservatives are howling about the deal, which passed the House on Wednesday, but have been mostly unwilling to blame Ryan.

President Obama is expected to sign the legislation into law.

Asked if he was confident that he will get to 218 votes in the House, he replied: “Oh, yeah”. Ryan had preferred to stay as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, his dream job, and was also concerned about the impact on his wife and three school-age children in Janesville, Wisconsin.

Watching the vote from the visitors’ gallery was Mitt Romney, the GOP’s unsuccessful 2012 presidential nominee who vaulted Ryan, 45, to national prominence by selecting him as his vice presidential running mate.