Will Boehner's absence change anything in Congress?

For the next month, Speaker John Boehner is untethered from the hard right, setting the stage to pass stalled measures. But removing Boehner also makes longterm prospects worse.

Speaker John Boehner finally succumbed to the three-year pressure campaign waged by House conservatives. As politically weak as Boehner was in his conference, he was never going to be forced out of his position. He’s powerful enough that he could leave on his own terms. On Friday, he did just that. The question now is: Where does that leave a divided and unwieldy House majority?

Over the next month, this potentially untethers Speaker Boehner from the hard right. A short-term continuing resolution (CR) will pass next week and potentially set the stage to pass the Highway Trust Fund bill and other priorities currently stuck in limbo. In short, Boehner is free to do what he has done for the last five years: enable Republicans to get out of their own way on what should be easily passed bills. Boehner has deftly moved his conference around problems that truly threatened the Republican brand and fundraising from the issues like the doc-fix, the Violence Against Women Act, trade promotion authority, to the debt ceiling and his handling of the shutdown in 2013. In his last month, that will likely remain his focus. This time, however, he likely won’t feel tied to demands from the right that could endanger these deals or the party.

Once he leaves, Republican politics become trickier. Conservatives waged this rebellion, finally succeeding after nearly three years. They will want a successor with proven conservatism or at least win assurances their demands will gain more traction in the legislative process. In this scenario, more distant obstacles may become even more difficult. Critical legislation such as the December continuing resolution and the debt ceiling may become the battlefield in which newly emboldened conservatives will challenge the rest of the party to follow their lead. The problem is the structural features of government that have prevented conservative wins in several showdowns remain in place. The president will still veto any legislation that defunds Planned Parenthood, undermines Obamacare, undermines nondefense programs in unacceptable ways. Senate Democrata will still filibuster spending bills. 

In other words, this potentially makes an already bad situation worse in the time remaining in the 114th Congress. It’s unclear who will succeed Boehner, how they’ll manage the factions within the conference, and if they can chart a path toward victory in 2016. However, removing Boehner won’t change the broader dynamics causing dysfunction. It arguably makes them worse.

Conservatives won the battle they’ve been fighting for years. However, it’s unclear they’ve furthered their cause in the war.