GOP lawmaker Massie will vote against Boehner for Speaker

GOP lawmaker Massie will vote against Boehner for Speaker
By Megan R. Wilson - 01-03-15 13:34 PM EST

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) announced on Saturday that he would not be voting for John Boehner (R-Ohio) to return as House speaker once the new Congress convenes. 

“For years I watched Washington from afar and suspected that something was broken,” he said in a press release. ”During my first two years as a congressman I discovered a significant source of the dysfunction. I watched the House Leadership.”

Massie, brought into office through an election in 2012, is now among several conservative members who told The Hill last fall they would not be casting a vote for Boehner. However, after no one rose to challenge him, many ended up conceding by November that they would probably re-elect Boehner – most citing a lack of other options. 

The Kentucky lawmaker, who had not committed either way before, outlined four reasons for his decision to pull support for the current House leadership, including scheduling “a fiscal crisis in a lame duck session on the last legislative day before Christmas to get maximum leverage over rank and file members.”

He also said that leadership “mislead members into thinking that a vote on an unpopular bill was postponed, only to then conduct a rushed voice vote on the $10 billion unfunded spending measure with fewer than a dozen members present.”

Massie took issue with the amount of time he said members were given to read and consider legislation, saying his colleagues were given “less than 72 hours to read bills over 1,000 pages long,” and chided at leadership’s approach to committee staffing – charging them with removing “members from committees simply because they voted for the principles upon which they campaigned.”

“With a process this broken, is it any wonder that Washington no longer works for the people?  My constituents expect better and America deserves better,” Massie said.

“On January 6th, 2015, I will vote for a new Speaker who will consistently articulate a constitutional vision for America and facilitate an inclusive and orderly legislative process that allows Congress to truly reflect the will of the people,” he said in the release, although he did not specify for whom he would be voting.