UPDATE II: Hensarling spokeswoman Sarah Rozier told Breitbart News he isn’t planning a Speaker run either. “The only leadership position Congressman Hensarling plans to hold in the 113th Congress is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee,” Rozier said in an email.
UPDATE: Price spokesman Ryan Murphy told Breitbart News he will not challenge Boehner. “Congressman Price is not running for speaker,” Murphy said in an email. “He is focused on real solutions to get America back on track. Those solutions reside in fundamental principles that embrace individual opportunity and economic freedom.”
Conservative group American Majority Action (AMA) will endorse three conservative Republicans to replace current House GOP leadership later on Monday, Breitbart News has learned.
The group will endorse Republican Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Tom Price of Georgia to replace House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Whip Kevin McCarthy. AMA has been pushing the #FireBoehner hashtag on Twitter and encouraging people to stand up against the Speaker for abandoning conservatism.
“Activists have been asking us, ‘If not Boehner, then who?’ American Majority Action suggests Congressmen Jeb Hensarling, Tom Price, and Jim Jordan,” AMA’s Celia Bigelow told Breitbart News. “All three have a proven record of standing on strong conservative principles–something our current leadership clearly lacks.”
All three are likely to consider it. The National Review’s Rob Costa reported Monday morning that Price was mulling a bid against Boehner for Speaker. “Should a debt deal go sour, the buzz is that Tom Price, a 58-year-old physician from Georgia, may challenge John Boehner for the speaker’s gavel,” Costa wrote.
Costa quoted an aide close to House GOP leadership who confirmed the rumor mill is swirling: “Price is the person we’re all watching. We know he’s frustrated, but we don’t know much else.”
Hensarling, the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, threw Boehner and company under the bus for his recent purge of conservatives from fiscally influential House committees. A spokeswoman for Hensarling told Breitbart News that Hensarling had nothing to do with the purge, despite anonymous GOP leadership aides claiming he did. And, according to North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones, one of the conservatives Boehner purged from the House Financial Services Committee, said Hensarling told him he was “offended” by the leadership move.
Jordan, the outgoing chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, has been a constant thorn in the side of current GOP leadership over the past several years.
Spokespersons for Jordan, Hensarling and Price haven’t responded to requests for comment, nor have spokespersons for Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy.