John Boehner to resign as Speaker and as U.S. Representative at the end of October

Top Repub­li­can John Boehn­er shocked Capi­tol Hill and Amer­i­ca’s polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment this morn­ing by announc­ing that he plans to resign the speak­er­ship and his posi­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as of Octo­ber 30th, 2015.

“The first job of any Speak­er is to pro­tect this insti­tu­tion that we all love,” said Boehn­er in an offi­cial state­ment released by his office. “It was my plan to only serve as Speak­er until the end of last year, but I stayed on to pro­vide con­ti­nu­ity to the Repub­li­can Con­fer­ence and the House.  It is my view, how­ev­er, that pro­longed lead­er­ship tur­moil would do irrepara­ble dam­age to the institution.”

“To that end, I will resign the Speak­er­ship and my seat in Con­gress on Octo­ber 30.”

“Today, my heart is full with grat­i­tude for my fam­i­ly, my col­leagues, and the peo­ple of Ohio’s Eighth Dis­trict.  God bless this great coun­try that has giv­en me — the son of a bar own­er from Cincin­nati — the chance to serve.”

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma has not yet react­ed to Boehn­er’s deci­sion to quit. But Demo­c­ra­t­ic Lead­ers Nan­cy Pelosi and Har­ry Reid (who is him­self retir­ing) have.

“By oust­ing a good man like Speak­er Boehn­er — some­one who under­stood the art of com­pro­mise — the par­ty of Eisen­how­er and Rea­gan is no more,” tweet­ed Reid, adding: “I was­n’t always hap­py with what Speak­er Boehn­er told me, but he nev­er, ever mis­led me. He nev­er told me some­thing that was­n’t true.”

Many Democ­rats would take issue with the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Boehn­er as “a good man”, but, all things being rel­a­tive, Boehn­er cer­tain­ly seems well-ground­ed and rea­son­able com­pared to some of the rank-and-file in his cau­cus. They have long want­ed Boehn­er gone. Now, they are get­ting their wish.

How­ev­er, a day may come when they regret push­ing him out.

Nan­cy Pelosi was more blunt, telling reporters, that the “res­ig­na­tion of the Speak­er is a stark indi­ca­tion of the dis­ar­ray of the House Republicans.”

Pelosi knows what it’s like to be in the hot seat. She became the first woman speak­er in his­to­ry in ear­ly 2007, and was mem­o­rably hand­ed the gav­el by John Boehn­er in Jan­u­ary 2007. She had to give it back to Boehn­er four years later.

But despite los­ing the major­i­ty in the 2010 midterms, Pelosi stayed on as Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader, and ignored calls for her to step down. She resumed the role of House Minor­i­ty Leader, which she held dur­ing most of the Bush years, and has since won plau­dits for hold­ing her cau­cus togeth­er. When she declared ear­li­er this year that House Democ­rats would sus­tain Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s veto to uphold the Joint Com­pre­hen­sive Plan of Action with Iran, reporters and polit­i­cal observers had no rea­son to doubt that she could not deliv­er on her guarantee.

Nan­cy Pelosi has sur­vived some pret­ty tough loss­es. But she’s still around and still an effec­tive leg­is­la­tor, despite not being speak­er. John Boehn­er, on the oth­er hand, could­n’t sur­vive win­ning. His cau­cus got big­ger in last year’s midterms, but that only cre­at­ed fresh prob­lems for him. Appar­ent­ly, he had intend­ed to hand things over to Eric Can­tor before the cur­rent Con­gress got going, but when Can­tor was unex­pect­ed­ly defeat­ed in the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, those plans changed.

Boehn­er may wish for peo­ple to think he is leav­ing of his own accord and on his own terms, but the real­i­ty is, he’s being forced out. His own par­ty is dump­ing him because he isn’t extreme and mil­i­tant enough. That’s down­right scary.

Ari­zona Sen­a­tor John McCain, one of the GOP’s elder states­men, gets it. Asked to react to Boehn­er’s res­ig­na­tion and the con­se­quences for the House Repub­li­can cau­cus, he told the New York Times: “It means that it’s in dis­ar­ray,.. Basi­cal­ly, he has been unseat­ed. And that’s not good for the Repub­li­can Party.”

Boehn­er sup­port­er Char­lie Dent of Penn­syl­va­nia was even more explic­it than that:

The dynam­ics are this: There are any­where from two to four dozen mem­bers who don’t have an affir­ma­tive sense of gov­er­nance. They can’t get to yes. They just can’t get to yes, and so they under­mine the abil­i­ty of the speak­er to lead. And not only do they under­mine the abil­i­ty of the speak­er to lead, but they under­mine the entire Repub­li­can con­fer­ence and also help to weak­en the insti­tu­tion of Con­gress itself. That’s the real­i­ty. Now, if we have a new speak­er, is there going to be an epiphany? They won’t be hap­py if it’s Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy, who will have to make accom­mo­da­tions with a Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­dent and the Sen­ate con­sti­tut­ed the way it is.

Dent pre­dict­ed that “this will not be eas­i­er for the next guy”.

Boehn­er had been due to give a press con­fer­ence to explain his deci­sion to resign, but that was scrapped, and his office set­tled for a state­ment instead.

Boehn­er, unshack­led from need­ing to wor­ry about the secu­ri­ty of his posi­tion, is report­ed­ly going to throw his weight behind a clean con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion to keep the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment open in the short-term. After he leaves, of course, the fed­er­al bud­get isn’t some­thing he’ll have to wor­ry about anymore.