Shunning top-down approach, Boehner’s shrug and smile are tools of revolution

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is turning the House upside down. 

Tom DeLay (R-Texas) famously used his hammer-like approach to strong-arm GOP members into getting the votes he needed. As Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had an iron grip on her caucus. 

{mosads}Boehner runs the House with a shrug and a smile and, more importantly, has not adopted the top-down approach of his predecessors.

The new Speaker, who is more likely to cry than scream, said Friday that his “No. 1 goal” is to “have a healthy institution where there is real debate, where there is real action, where members are working together to solve America’s problems.” 

Boehner’s open-amendment process to a high-profile appropriations bill late last week attracted praise from House Democrats, including Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), a Pelosi confidant.

During the late-night votes on Friday, Boehner said, “I think that the House working its will is what the Founders have envisioned for this house.”

Boehner, a former deputy of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), has closely studied the four Speakers he served under. His reign, Boehner said in 2010, would be different.

Some of the contrast, according to lawmakers and aides, is attributable to his personality.

He is easygoing, and rarely appears rattled in public.

“I don’t do anger,” Boehner told The Hill last year. “I’m not dictatorial. I’m not a screamer. I know where I want to go and try to build consensus and support to achieve the goals we set.” 

Boehner said earlier this month that he wasn’t concerned about the uncharted waters of his open amendment process: “I’m ready to expect whatever.”

After his new majority hit some major bumps in the road, Boehner simply said, “We’re not going to be perfect every day.”

Sometimes, Boehner’s straightforward approach gets him in trouble, such as when he was pressed this month on how cuts to spending could lead to the loss of jobs. Boehner initially said, “So be it.” He later clarified his remarks.

Many Speakers have vowed to change the House of Representatives, promising to respect minority rights and reform the historically partisan chamber. But when faced with intense pressure to achieve their legislative agenda, the promised reforms took a backseat. 

It remains to be seen if Boehner’s commitment to openness will continue, and if it will be a handicap to getting bills through the House. And Boehner’s good-cop mentality, some say, runs counter to the hard-charging style that is needed to ram controversial bills through the lower chamber.

But it is clear that, at least for now, the House is operating in a unique way. 

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the longest-serving House lawmaker, who has served with 10 Speakers, told The Hill, “I’ll just make this observation: John Boehner’s a gentleman … this has been a very refreshing change from some of the Speakers with whom we have had to contend.” 

Dingell declined to say to which Speakers he was referring, instead offering another compliment for the Ohio Republican: “He’s been acting like an institutionalist.” 

Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, said, “I think what he wants to do is have the House work the way in which kids in high school are taught that it works.”

Baker noted the traditional way of lawmaking, where committees write legislation, debate it, mark it up and eventually members of the House have a chance to change the measure during votes on the floor. 

The previous two Speakers — Pelosi and Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) — didn’t follow that model, Baker said. 

House Democrats, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said, “didn’t have anything like this over the last four years, and to be fair, we didn’t have anything like it the four years before that, when we were in the majority.” 

He said that members “love the new system” under Boehner — and predicted that a lot of the debate that continued on the floor was a form of “therapy” for members who haven’t had a chance to speak with such freedom or vote on so many amendments. 

Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.), who is serving his 14th term, said Boehner’s approach has reinvigorated some lawmakers who had tired of the House’s partisan ways: “Change is a good thing.”

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) said members are not being pressured to vote with their leaders, or their panel chairmen: “Not only are we encouraged to vote our convictions, but we aren’t necessarily in lockstep with the committee. Appropriators are free for the first time in a long time to vote on and off the page — it makes me a better appropriator.”

Cole echoed Kingston, noting that in the previous GOP majority “you had unreasonable expectations of loyalty, and more than unreasonable, it was irrational — voting Republican for the sake of Republican is not why we’re elected.” 

Florida Rep. Bill Young, the longest-serving House Republican, who has worked with eight Speakers, said, “I think that [Boehner] will be one of the outstanding Speakers because he’s very methodical, he’s very fair, he’s very thoughtful and he understands that he’s the Speaker of the whole House.” 

Others point out that Boehner has been Speaker less than two months. 

Alaska GOP Rep. Don Young, who praised Boehner, said, “We’ll see how long this lasts.”

Boehner told reporters he isn’t sure what the future holds: “We’ll continue to feel our way through, but I’m committed to as open a process as we can have while considering we have 435 members and we have to do our business.”