House speaker candidate talks basics: highways, agencies

Hours after Rep. John Boehner abruptly announced Friday that he’d resign his speakership, the California Republican has spoken to almost every GOP lawmaker in his caucus, seeking their input and calling for party unity, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations.

Boehner has withstood years of pressure from insurgent Republicans who urged him to be more confrontational with the White House. But they want to see leaders who will take the fight to President Barack Obama and the Democrats, not compromise with them as the realities of divided government led Boehner to do. That approach would immediately be put to test in what will likely be a contentious fall and winter, when Congress will have to deal with a spate of fiscal matters.

McCarthy has had a lightning-quick rise through the Republican leadership, becoming majority leader after his predecessor, former Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, suffered a stunning primary defeat to a conservative challenger.

Boehner said his imminent retirement will not change his decision-making process in any way, and “if there’s a way to get a few things done so I don’t burden my successor, I’ll get them finished”.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., center, laughs as…

All House Republicans will huddle Tuesday evening for a special conference meeting to discuss what comes next in a post-Boehner House, but no date has been set yet for the leadership election. He has not yet formally announced that he would run for the post, but no clear rival has emerged.

Tension between the House and Senate is nothing new, of course, given the different rules of the respective bodies. He’ll do that over the objections of a few in his caucus who profess to believe that a shutdown could help to defund Planned Parenthood. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and Tom Price of Georgia. Now the same conservatives who pushed him out are maneuvering to yank the next leadership team to the right.

A Roskam aide said Monday that the Illinois Republican now is not making calls for a leadership position. This group wants more time to develop a plan for how the House GOP would operate going forward before holding an election for a new slate of leaders. Conservatives on and off Capitol Hill served notice that they would not settle on the status quo from their leaders even as Democrats and a few more moderate members warn the result could be more crisis and gridlock.

McCarthy said he reached out to each members of the Republican conference over the weekend to seek their opinions.