A crazy week in the life of John Boehner

Congressmen John Boehner’s Week in Review – September 9^th to September 16^th

In what was supposed to start out as a relaxing, slow week in order to ease Congress back into its job after a recess turned out to be another typical hectic week in the machine that is Washington. Speaker of the House John Boehner had one of the more crazier weeks during his tenure as Speaker of the House as he faced a potential vote on military action in Syria, continued party talks on the government shutdown that is looming as well as a public relations nightmare as to if he is resigning from his post as Speaker of the House.

Over the week or so, President Obama has been lobbying congress to grant him the ability to order military action in Syria for the gas attacks on its citizens for a period of 60 days, with a possible extension to 90 days. With a decision of this magnitude, President Obama has had trouble-finding members on both sides of the isle who are in agreement with this proposal as many of the congressmen have been hesitant to throw support behind a proposal where many of their constituents are not in favor of intervention in Syria. The struggle between voting in favor of what your constituents want and what you believe is best for the country can be a tough decision. When you vote for something that your district does not favor, you run the risk of alienating them and potentially facing a challenger who might pose a threat to your reelection campaign down the road in order to do what you might think is best for the country at that time. One person who is doing just that and throwing his support behind President Obama’s plan even though members of his district are not in favor of the proposed action in Syria was Boehner, who spoke to reporters after a meeting. When asked on if he would support the President, Boehner responded, “I am going to support the president's call for action." Boehner has even gone so far as to lobby other members of his party to support the President’s proposed action in Syria as well. (http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/03/20308438-boehner-says-hell-back-obama-on-syria-strikes?lite). After spending the early part of the week doing so, it seems as if American intervention in Syria will be put on hold as the President is now pushing peace talks alongside with Russia’s top leaders.

            While Boehner spent the early week dealing with the crisis in Syria, he also had to put out the fire of rumors that came a-blazing when a report came out that Boehner would be stepping down shortly as the Speaker of the House. On September 4^th, the report surfaced with many of his closest allies claiming that the Speaker has had enough of the “high political drama” and would be calling it quits after the 2014-midterm elections. If word continues to leak that Boehner is close to stepping down, he would be hamstrung and in essence be a lame-duck Speaker of the House, which would greatly diminish his ability to lead. This would not only lead to a significant blow to the Boehner, it would also lead to a stir in Congress with many of the republicans jockeying for position to potentially secure the most coveted seat in Congress. With this in mind, Boehner spent time during the week addressing these reports. Boehner sent his top aides out to quarrel these reports. According to one aide, "The speaker has made clear publicly he intends to remain in his position in the next Congress." Another source told the Huffington Post  "He hasn't slowed down one bit. For example, he has spent the entire August recess on the road doing events for his colleagues.” "He flew in today for [a] meeting at the White House and then immediately went back on the road." After quieting the rumors that he might be on the way out, Boehner then shifted his focus to the potential government shutdown that is looming. (http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/boehner-house-speaker-retire/2013/09/05/id/524005)

Boehner lead a charge alongside Majority Leader Eric Cantor in search of enough House GOP votes to pass a spending bill that could pass in the democratic-controlled Senate which would keep the government open for business past September 30^th. One of the major fears that Speaker of the House Boehner has is that the Republicans could end up facing a mid-1990s shutdown situation in which the American public blames them for the shutdown, which could come back to hurt them in the midterm elections which are approaching. This has led to Congressmen Boehner to be a veteran and vocal voice of his party, warning Republicans that they could be facing a similar type of backlash like the party suffered when the government shut down in 1995-1996 if they don’t continue to come up with a workable solution to keep the government’s doors open. With that in mind, Boehner was been working republican member to come up with a resolution that would force members of the Senate to vote on defunding President Obama’s health-care law. The goal behind this, according to Boehner is to “cut spending and to stop Obamacare.” (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57602745/yet-again-congress-searches-for-a-short-term-budget-fix/)

It is still to early to say if the rank-and-file Republicans will support this action or not, but this will be something that will be continued to monitored as the weeks go on and Congress gets closer and closer to the deadline of September 30^th.