So we have the Freedom Caucus’ answer to Paul Ryan. They’ll support his bid, but not his terms. Around 70% of members of the group voted to support him in a Caucus meeting. But apparently their rules require 80% support for an official Caucus endorsement. But the key point is its endorsement without agreeing to Ryan’s terms. And notably, Ryan would have to climb down some more since he made an actual endorsement a condition.
WaPo has a more sanguine take on the Freedom Caucus attitudes. But they note that Ryan – contrary to the tone of yesterday – spent a good bit of the day campaigning for the FC’s support. In addition to dropping his demand about making it harder to depose the Speaker, he also agreed to abide by the Hastert Rule, thus requiring 50% of Republicans to support any legislation before he will allow it to come to the floor and promising not to cut deals with Democrats.
As Amy Walter notes here, that basically means abiding by what we might call the Boehner Rule, government by crisis and shutdown.
Ryan says he’ll abide by “Hastert Rule” which means no deal-making w/ D’s & no end to dysfunction & stand-offs
https://t.co/K7U1nSuyEZ
— amy walter (@amyewalter) October 22, 2015
