Paul Ryan will remain speaker in new Congress, but GOP tensions also remain

WASHINGTON – Paul D. Ryan was unanimously nominated on Tuesday by his fellow Republicans for re-election as speaker in the new Congress next year, the House Republican Conference said on Twitter.

Ryan, who faced no challengers for the post from within Republican ranks, was nominated during a closed-door meeting of all Republican lawmakers in the House. He will face an election in January, when all members of the new House, both Democrats and Republicans, vote on a new speaker.

Republicans kept their majorities in both the House and Senate in the Nov. 8 elections in which voters elected Republican Donald Trump to the White House over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

But several GOP members made clear Monday that although Trump's victory may have eased the internal party tensions that threatened Ryan's speakership before the election, it has not eliminated them entirely.

"I haven't heard from him what he wants to change – what's going to be different the next two years than the last two years?" said Rep. Raúl R. Labrador, R-Idaho, a co-founder of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus. "So far, I'm not hearing anything about changing the way we do business here in Washington, so I'm not ready to support him yet."

Labrador is in a clear minority among House Republicans – Ryan, R-Wis., enjoys broad support among the GOP rank-and-file – but his qualms reflect ongoing discomfort over how Ryan's brand of Republican politics will meld with Trump's.

The tension is manifest in Trump's plans for his White House. On Sunday, he chose Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, a longtime Ryan friend and ally from Wisconsin, as his chief of staff while also tapping a campaign official who has been sharply critical of Ryan, Stephen K. Bannon, to a coequal position as chief strategist.

[Does Trump's new chief strategist have racist leanings? Critics say so.]

On significant matters such as trade policy, immigration reform and entitlement cuts, Ryan and Trump crossed ways. And Trump's enthusiastic backers in Congress bristled when Ryan distanced himself from his party's presidential nominee – withholding his endorsement for several weeks after Trump clinched the nomination, for instance.

Ryan instead hit the campaign trail and the TV airwaves holding a copy of the "Better Way" policy agenda he developed – one that mostly ignored the areas where Trump's agenda clashed with tenets of conservative doctrine. In media interviews since the election, he has pointed to the agenda as a blueprint for major legislation that can be enacted with a Republican White House and Congress working in tandem.

Trump and Ryan met last week on Capitol Hill and appeared before cameras together for the first time since the campaign began. Both men have said in the past week that action to repeal the Affordable Care Act, secure the Southern U.S. border and cut taxes are among their shared priorities.

"I'm not going to relitigate the past," Ryan said Sunday on CNN. "I'm looking toward the future."

That show of unity has mostly quieted two groups of Republicans who have been vexed by how Ryan has handled Trump. One consists of early and enthusiastic Trump supporters who bristled at how Ryan kept Trump at arm's length during the presidential campaign.

One member of that group, Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., would not commit Monday to supporting Ryan as speaker and pressed for a delay to Tuesday's election, but also said "everyone seems to be on the same page now." Another, Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., gave Ryan a full-throated endorsement Monday.

"He is the best positioned and best prepared person to be speaker of the House," Cramer said. "I think clearly the time to move forward with a Republican agenda is now. Now is not the time to have civil war."

The other restive group is the Freedom Caucus, members of which also pressed for a delay in elections. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., for instance, said Monday that "a smart, rational conference would want to analyze an historic election like the country has never seen" before voting on its leaders.

Labrador dismissed the notion that Ryan holds an equal claim to lead Republicans alongside Trump and mocked the idea that the election results constituted a mandate for the Ryan policy agenda.

"Our leadership needs to understand that the American people sent a message to the House. They sent somebody like Donald Trump to change the way Washington works," he said. "I hope they understand that business as usual is not going to work."

But the Freedom Caucus, despite rumblings that it might demand a seat at the GOP leadership table, did not run a candidate against Ryan or for any other post.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., another Freedom Caucus leader, said the leadership elections "came in roaring like a lion" but are "going to go out as gentle as a lamb."

"Our focus has shifted more to how do we make sure that we have a good plan on supporting the initiatives that are important to the American people," he said Monday. "As long as the existing leadership's willing to do that, we're focused more on the policy and the legislative components than the control components."

But implicit in that concession is a threat: If Ryan diverges too far from Trump, a GOP rear guard stands ready to challenge him – and oust him, if necessary. And the tests stand to be frequent, starting with a Dec. 9 deadline for extending federal spending. Conservatives are pushing Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to back away from a year-long spending bill to be negotiated with a lame-duck President Barack Obama.

Although Ryan is expected to easily win his party's nomination for speaker, he must also win a floor vote in January of all 435 House members. If about two dozen Republicans were to withhold their support, his election would be thrown in doubt.

Beyond Ryan, other senior members of House leadership are expected to stay. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Calif., Majority Whip Steve Scalise, La., Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Wash., and Policy Committee Chairman Luke Messer, Ind., are all running unopposed.

There is, however, a fierce battle for the chairmanship of the National Republican Congressional Committee – the party's campaign arm – between Rep. Steve Stivers, Ohio, and Rep. Roger Williams, Texas. And two junior leadership positions are set to be filled with new faces Tuesday after Conference Vice Chairman Lynn Jenkins, Kan., and Conference Secretary Virginia Foxx, N.C. declined to seek reelection to those posts.

Reps. Douglas A. Collins, Ga., and Bill Flores, Texas, are vying for the vice chairmanship, while Rep. Jason T. Smith, Mo., is the only declared candidate for the secretary's post.

That means, barring the surprise entry of another candidate, seven of the top eight House Republican leaders will be white men.

Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, who will be one of 21 Republican women in the House, said that was reason for concern.

"Just recently we realized, oh my gosh, we didn't have enough women that were running," she said. "We have great women as part of this conference. There are amazing women, and we should have more women in leadership."

Reuters material was included in this report.