Throughout his memoir, Boehner called such decisions “getting things done,” made by “serious people” (like himself) who had to be “the adult in the room.” Conservatives, on the other hand, called it a consolidation of power and centralized decision-making that “bypass the majority of the 435 members of Congress and the people they represent.” Rather than wait for the vote, Boehner stepped down. Key Obama priorities like Trade Promotion Authority were jammed through the House Republican majority with little input or say by the wider conference, while key conservative priorities like defunding Planned Parenthood were given only marginal consideration. Members were stripped of their committee positions for voting in opposition to their leadership. Indeed, that motion was filed reflected the unhappiness that significant segments of the GOP felt with Boehner’s leadership, characterized by autocratic control over GOP House members.Ĭlosed rules, which bar all amendments, had become the norm. Mark Meadows right before the August recess in 2015, would have forced a referendum vote on Boehner’s leadership. Namely, a motion to vacate the chair, filed by Rep.

It’s also notable that Boehner talks nothing about the circumstances under which he left the speakership, saying only that he felt “the presence of the Holy Spirit” during a visit by Pope Francis, which “gave me the idea to announce my retirement … the very next day.” With deference to the Holy Spirit, there is some key context left out of that discussion. Perhaps because Boehner was pushed into accomplishing it by the “jackasses” who populated “Crazytown.” Boehner also conveniently leaves out the fact he undid much of that signature spending achievement in 2015 as a way to “clean out the barn” for incoming House Speaker Paul Ryan, cutting a deal with President Obama that included erasing the caps on discretionary spending and hiking the defense budget. Yet, curiously, the Budget Control Act - arguably the most significant win for conservatives on spending reductions in decades - makes no appearance in the book. Several parts of the book reference Boehner’s passion for fiscal restraint and responsibility and include more than a few lectures about the hypocrisy of the “crazy caucus” that claimed to be against government spending but did little to stop it during the Trump years. What makes the book most interesting, however, are the topics Boehner chooses not to fully address. Why is everyone still complaining? What Remains Unsaid America’s biggest device manufacturing companies will no longer have to pay a 2.3 percent tax. Thanks to him, “there isn’t really much of Obamacare left,” he says (after all, he muscled through a repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax).

While expressing justifiable outrage at the partisan way Obamacare was shoved down the throats of Americans, Boehner aims his rage against GOP members who led the 2013 government shutdown in a last-ditch attempt to leverage raising the country’s debt ceiling for the law’s repeal or significant reform.īoehner doesn’t understand why Republican voters weren’t happy with his efforts. Bob Goodlatte - who tanked the 2013 immigration reform bill instead of the bill’s amnesty provision, questionable border security measures, and giant giveaway to the Chamber of Commerce for cheap foreign labor, none of which merit his mention. In Boehner’s telling, it was the unbending Republican “demagogues” and “hard right hardliners” on immigration - like Rep. One pictures him with a lit Camel gripped in a rage-clenched jaw, sloshing his tenth glass of Merlot onto the keyboard as he furiously denounces Mick Mulvaney, Mark Meadows, Tim Huelskamp, Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, and, of course, the villainous Ted Cruz. Rather than writing a book that engages in even a passing attempt at self-reflection on this point, however, Boehner descends into a litany of bitter commentary a man desperately determined to prove how right he is by angrily insisting everyone else is a lunatic.

Instead of that story, however, we witness a man whose country and political landscape change while he’s stubbornly determined not to notice - one who grips the reins tightly and presides over the era of passive nothingness that leads a fed-up Republican base to send Donald Trump to the White House in 2016. The differing factions that arose in the Republican Party - factions that still exist to this day - needed a leader with the self-confidence and courage to evolve both the party and the political process in a way that allowed voters to be heard. History - and the end to Boehner’s career as speaker - demonstrate how badly he misread the moment, largely by failing to take seriously both the concerns and the urgency expressed by a significant segment of Republican voters. The country changed under Boehner’s watch, and organic political movements like the Tea Party rose in response to it.

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