American Majority Action: Boehner Should Resign as Speaker

Conservative group American Majority Action (AMA) has called on House Speaker John Boehner to resign his position after canceling his “Plan B” vote on Thursday.

AMA president and CEO Ned Ryun made the call in a Friday morning statement: 

Speaker Boehner embarrassed the Conservative Movement yesterday by pushing a plan which AMA told him he didn’t have the votes to pass. After the 2012 election, conservatives must take this opportunity to define the direction of our movement — and proposing a plan Pelosi wanted just months ago isn’t the solution.

Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor both claimed throughout the week that they had the votes to pass “Plan B,” but AMA has consistently pointed out that they didn’t have the votes. It turned out AMA was right, and Boehner and Cantor were wrong. Boehner surrendered late Thursday.

Boehner’s speakership is in jeopardy. He could still survive and recover from Thursday’s disaster, but there is blood in the water; the Speaker’s conservative opponents smell an opportunity to unseat him.

On January 3, the House will hold a vote for who the next Speaker of the House will be. Boehner will need to secure 218 votes to win reelection as Speaker. Since there are less House Republicans heading into the 113th Congress than there were heading into the 112th Congress, less than 20 conservatives are all that is needed to unseat Boehner as Speaker right after the new year. 

That’s less than the amount of conservative Republicans who already shot down Boehner’s “Plan B” on Thursday. At least 25 conservatives were needed to kill the vote on Boehner’s “Plan B,” but sources have told Breitbart News that upwards of 35 House conservatives were against it.

AMA spokesman Ron Meyer told Breitbart News: 

Speaker Boehner’s power is at an end, and it’s time to replace him with someone who is serious about fixing our debt and enabling job creators. This is a harbinger of January 3. More than 35 members stood against Boehner tonight, and we only need half that to end his reign. Conservatives won’t put up with him abandoning our principles and our bargaining position to President Obama in these back-room, smoke-filled negotiations.

Boehner disagrees. He thinks his Speakership isn’t in any jeopardy. “No, I’m not,” Boehner replied when asked at a Friday morning press conference about whether he thinks he’s in danger of losing his job. “Listen, you have all heard me say this, and I have told my colleagues this,” Boehner said. “If you do the right things every day for the right reasons, the right things will happen.”

Boehner said he doesn’t think he was the problem – he thinks his right flank saw his plan as a tax hike. “And while we may have not been able to get the votes last night to avert 99.81 percent of the tax increases, I don’t think — they weren’t taking that out on me,” Boehner said. “They were dealing with the perception that somebody might accuse them of raising taxes.”