Rep. Ted Yoho, Florida Republican, says the number of backers willing to vote against John A. Boehner to be the Speaker of the House in the 114th Congress is more than a dozen as he continues a last-minute push to round up supporters ahead of Tuesday’s vote before the full House.
“The whole goal was [to] go to a second round, so that we [can] have a discussion and out of that somebody’ll emerge as a new speaker, and we’re over a dozen right now, and you’re going to see more people get on and decide not to vote for the current leadership,” Mr. Yoho said on CNN’s “New Day.”
Mr. Yoho and Rep. Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, are mounting challenges to Mr. Boehner’s leadership post, but more than two dozen members of the GOP conference would have to defect in order to send the election to a second ballot.
“We’ve seen an escalation over the last two years of disdain for leadership, that we want stronger leadership [in] a direction that we’re going to go to lead our conference, and we announced on Saturday that we were going to throw my name in the hat and you’ve seen a groundswell of grassroots movement, of people saying, ’You know what? I appreciate you offering us an alternative because I’m tired of the status quo,’ ” Mr. Yoho said.
“This is a vote against the status quo,” he continued. “I was elected by the constituents of our district to stand up to leadership, to have a new speaker of the House, and this happens all around the country, and so it’s either a vote for the status quo or for a new direction for the Republican party.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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