Boehner Re-Elected House Speaker, But Loses Amash, Some Other Liberty-Leaning Support
In the forthcoming March issue of Reason, I interview four Republican Congressmen–three new, one second-termer–with libertarian-leaning bonafides and the endorsement of Ron Paul. They are Justin Amash (Mich.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Ted Yoho (Fla.) and Kerry Bentivolio (Mich.) A preview of them speaking out on the "fiscal cliff" appeared here last week.
Today, in John Boehner's re-election to House speaker, three of the four refused to vote for him. (One, freshman Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan, did. NBC reports 10 Republicans voted for people other than Boehner.)
Justin Amash, who has been publicly feuding with Boehner since last month when he was booted from the Budget Committee, voted for the guy sitting next to him, Idaho's Raul Labrador. Florida's Ted Yoho voted for Eric Cantor of Virginia (though Cantor himself, rumored to be the coulda-been next Boehner, voted for the existing Speaker), and Kentucky's Thomas Massie voted for Amash himself.
National Review's Robert Costa is tweeting that Rep. Walter Jones told him that Amash was the "quarterback" of the move to deny Boehner some votes.