Having received the support of the various warring (and whining) factions within the Republican Party [3], Paul Ryan has just garnered enough votes to become the 54th House Speaker. As CNN reports, [4] Ryan began turning the page on Wednesday, telling reporters after his party's internal vote that, "we are not going to have a House that looks like it's looked the last two years. We are going to move forward. We are going to unify. Our party has lost its vision, and we are going to replace it with a vision."
- *U.S. HOUSE ELECTS PAUL D. RYAN AS HOUSE SPEAKER
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As CNN details, [4]
The 45-year-old Wisconsin Republican first worked on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide in 1992 and won his House seat in 1998 when he was 28.
He became known as a policy wonk and attracted national attention for his sweeping proposals to overhaul Medicare and restructure the tax code. In 2012, Mitt Romney picked Ryan to be his running mate on the GOP ticket. After Republicans lost that election, he returned to the House and ruled out running for president in 2016, instead settling into what he called his "dream job" as chairman of the House tax writing committee.
With the speaker's title, Ryan takes on a national profile and the difficult challenge of corralling what has been an unruly and divided House GOP conference.
According to an aide familiar with his plans, in his first speech as speaker, Ryan's message to his colleagues will be, "We have nothing to fear from honest differences honestly stated. If you have ideas, let's hear them. A greater clarity between us can lead to a greater charity among us."
Good luck.
