As has become recent tradition the Speaker is facing familiar criticism from conservative members, who complain he isn’t being aggressive enough in responding to the President’s executive actions on immigration. But he’s also getting flak from centrist GOP members, who are showing a new willingness to resist going along with legislation they think those in the right wing of their party is pushing too far.
The result: votes on two major politically significant bills to Republican activists — one banning late term abortions and one on border security — have been postponed indefinitely.
In the last four weeks Boehner had to beat back a challenge in his re-election to a third term as Speaker, manage a divisive vote on immigration policy, defend a late night decision to pull an abortion bill after several GOP women complained it was too extreme. He was also forced to shelve a GOP border bill, which he hoped would be the first step in his effort to reform the immigration system.
“There have been a couple of stumbles,” the Speaker admitted to reporters Tuesday.
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The measure will pass easily, but bringing up the issue raises the question about how the GOP would replace the health care law. The Speaker has committed to coming up with an alternative, but the internal divisions among his members about who would need to be covered and how to structure a new system will likely showcase the splits among House Republicans.
But the Speaker doesn’t appeared to be phased by the rough first month, or the fights ahead over immigration, the debt ceiling, tax reform and other issues.
Asked in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday if this would be his last term, Boehner waved off the question, saying, “No, I’ll be here for a while.”
