‘Why not today?’: How John Boehner decided to leave Congress
On Friday, Speaker John Boehner was at peace.
After five years of being at the center of a civil war in his own party, Boehner displayed his trademark ease, a cornerstone of his leadership style that has been tested constantly in his speakership. Among a press corps that has followed the Ohio Republican from shutdown crisis to crisis, there was a universal understanding that leaving Congress was a “when” not an “if” proposition for the speaker. Unlike the media gathering last year after former Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s stunning primary defeat, this was not a sad political wake.
Boehner bounded onto the podium in his regular press conference spot in the Capitol Visitor Center singing “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah,” a tune that he’s repeatedly fallen back on before when he knows he’s entering a potentially tense media gathering.
And then he did what he always does: He delivered the news of the day straight. He would resign effective Oct. 30. He teased reporters (“Young” Luke Russert of NBC News has always been a favorite target), and he took questions until he didn’t want to take questions anymore. His laid-back attitude sometimes obscures the fact that Boehner has already survived one tumultuous leadership shakeup — the one in 1998 that forced out Newt Gingrich, the last speaker to resign before Boehner. Instead of letting aides anonymously tell his story, Boehner laid it out himself. He’s always known how this movie ends, so why not craft the plot line himself?
Pope Francis is greeted by Boehner and Vice President Joe Biden. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
“Just yesterday we witnessed the awesome sight of Pope Francis addressing the greatest legislative body in the world. And I hope we will all heed his call to live by the golden rule. But last night, I started to think about this,” Boehner said. “And this morning, I woke up and I said my prayers, as I always do, and I decided, you know, today’s the day I’m going to do this.”
Boehner would not say that Pope Francis’ visit had inspired him to make the decision to resign now. He said Friday that he had made up his mind about leaving Congress and planned to announce his departure on his birthday, Nov. 17. But he viewed his encounter with the pope, one he had dreamed of since first coming to Congress in 1991, as the climax of his career. The reality had set in long ago that his speakership would not be defined by any great legislative accomplishment but rather by just finding enough votes to keep the government open. It was a tough pill to swallow for the onetime education committee chairman who had ushered through “No Child Left Behind” with the late Ted Kennedy. But Boehner the man wanted to see the pope, and he did, recounting multiple times to reporters the details of the holy visit and conceding to two Washington reporters Thursday night that he didn’t have anything left to accomplish.
Slideshow: John Boehner will resign and leave Congress >>>
More than anything, Boehner is a man of nearly unbreakable habit. And that played significantly into the exit story he told Friday.
If a Capitol Hill neighbor had run into him Friday morning before work — as many often do — no one would have had any idea something out of the ordinary was about to happen, certainly not that the speaker was about to shake up the political order of Washington.
According to Boehner, he told his chief of staff late Thursday that he was thinking of resigning Friday. They agreed that the speaker would sleep on the decision.
I’ll let Boehner tell the rest: “So, before I went to sleep last night, I told my wife. I said, ‘You know, I might just make an announcement tomorrow.’ What do you mean? What kind of announcement? Well, I might tell them it’s time to go. So, this morning, I woke up and walked up to Starbucks as usual and got my coffee and came back and read. And walked up to Pete’s Diner and saw everybody at Pete’s, and got home and thought, ‘Yep, I think today’s the day.’”
Boehner discusses his resignation at a press conference at the Capitol. (Photo: Mary F. Calvert/Reuters)
“So, my senior staff was having a meeting at 8:45, and I kind of walked in before I opened the House and told them, ‘This is the day.’ It’s going to happen someday. Why not today?”
Why not the day after Pope Francis took the hand of Boehner, a devout Catholic and asked the speaker to pray for him? After a pope addressed a joint meeting of Congress for the first time ever and reminded them of their civic duty and the power of the golden rule, which Boehner mentioned repeatedly in his press conference Friday.
For Boehner, there were definitely worse days to initiate the inevitable beginning to the end of his long political career. He said that because he’d just decided Friday morning he’d be retiring, he hadn’t given much thought to what he’d do next.
His assessment of what his legacy might be was pretty simple: “That’s the code I always lived by: If you do the right things for the right reasons, the right things will happen. And I know good things lie ahead for this House and this country, and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, especially proud of my team.”
But perhaps the most honest evaluation of his resignation came from his wife, Debbie, who Boehner said was the first person to learn of his final decision to resign today.
When asked by reporters what she said when he told her he was resigning, Boehner simply replied, “Good.”
By the looks of it, the speaker himself felt exactly same way.
