Boehner and McCarty are out.

Former Vice Presidential nominee and Representative Paul Ryan is positioned to be the new choice for Speaker of the House.

Two things are standing in the way.

He wants the Freedom Caucus to step aside and he wants to change the job description.

Ryan’s  associates say he wants assurance that he can set the House agenda without the threat of “revolt” from the right.  That means a guarantee that the Freedom Caucus would abandon its insistence on having a serious voice.   Ryan also wants to delegate some travel and fundraising parts of the job so he will have enough family time.

If Ryan were willing to make the procedural changes put forth by the Freedom Caucus, one might expect him to be more forthcoming about taking the job.  The fact that he hasn’t yet stepped up might indicate that there is no agreement with the Freedom Caucus.

The Freedom Caucus seems to be holding firm to the position that procedural changes must be made.  That is a condition of their tentative support for Ryan.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), explained the position of the Freedom Caucus this way,  “The displeasure with the way the House has been managed since 2011 is pervasive and crosses all sorts of philosophical boundaries within the party.  The appetite for a new way of doing business is real, and whoever wants to be the speaker is going to have to speak to that.  There are people who have sort of bought the narrative that the speaker’s race is about trying to get someone who is more conservative, and for those folks Paul is not acceptable.  But there are other folks who believe, and this is what I’ve been telling them, that it’s not about people, it’s about process.”

If they stick to their guns, the Freedom Caucus may be successful in transforming the House, once again, to “the people’s House”.  If they fold, Ryan (or whomever assumes the Speakers seat)  will be little more than a new face on the Boehner/establishment agenda.

I am not holding out hope that Ryan will be the next speaker.  If he emerges this week as the new leader, it may take some time to learn whether anything has changed.  It all hinges on whether or not the Freedom Caucus remains strong and unwilling to compromise on principle.  The real battle is not for the office of Speaker of the House.  The battle is about whether the Freedom Caucus will survive and continue to be a force for positive change and conservative principles.

If the Freedom Caucus compromises, it matters little who occupies the Speakers chair.

***Gordon Howie is an author and CEO of Life and Liberty Media***

“It’s not about right or left, it’s about Right or Wrong.”

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