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John Boehner has been through debt-ceiling fights, a government shutdown, and increasingly bitter challenges to his authority. But never has his job as speaker of the House seemed to be in so much jeopardy as right now.
Top Republicans expect that one of Boehner's adversaries within the Republican conference will try to force a vote on whether to dump him from the speakership this fall, according to Politico. If he survives that, which might require support from some House Democrats, many Republicans think Boehner should or will step down at the end of this Congress.
On the surface, it's an odd fix for Boehner to find himself in: He came to Congress as a reformer and rose to the speakership as an antidote to the big-government conservative ways of leaders who pushed the No Child Left Behind and Medicare prescription drug programs into law. He's even presided over a permanent extension of most of the Bush tax cuts and significant reductions in federal spending.
But on a deeper level, Boehner has long been the last sentry for the party, using charm, strategic superiority, and his control over House rules to prevent the Tea Party wing from crashing through the gates of the establishment and putting Washington on total legislative lockdown. That has made Boehner the immediate proxy for the war grassroots conservatives are waging against the GOP's Washington insiders, and his enemies are emboldened by Donald Trump's ability to galvanize an anti-establishment fervor that shows no signs of subsiding.
Wikipedia: Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
