Alabama congressman says next Speaker most likely from liberal wing of the GOP

(Audio Above: Congressman Mo Brooks addresses John Boehner’s recent resignation and who will be the speaker’s successor)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — On Friday’s edition of Yellowhammer Radio, Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL5) joined host Cliff Sims to discuss U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s surprise resignation.

Though it is quite early in the process of finding a replacement leader, and Speaker Boehner’s resignation is not effective until the end of October, Rep. Brooks thinks he may already have an idea what type of Republican will ultimately win the job.

“There is a smorgasbord from the more liberal wing of the Republican party,” Brooks explained. “Kevin McCarthy out of California who is second in command, he’s the House Majority Leader… Cathy McMorris Rodgers out of the state of Washington, she’s from the liberal 25 percent of the GOP conference.”

Brooks said there was a chance, however, for some more conservative-leaning leadership to be elected by their peers to the top spot.

“You’ve got perhaps Jeb Hensarling, who is from the more conservative half of the GOP conference, he’s from Texas. Tom Price, I’d also put him in the more conservative half, he’s from Georgia. Potentially Paul Ryan who tends to be more moderate… Perhaps Kevin Brady out of Texas…. Marsha Blackburn out of Tennessee.”

According to Brooks, the various factions inside the House Republican conference will play a key role in deciding who will become the next Speaker.

“I don’t know who we’re going to coalesce on,” he said. “The problem is you’ve got 40 something conservatives that want us to better reflect our voters with respect to these challenging issues that we face, and we can block anybody that wants to be speaker. Similarly, people from the more liberal wing of the political spectrum, they can block anyone they want to block.

“It takes 124 votes, which is a majority of the GOP conference to be nominated to be speaker, but once you get out of the GOP conference into the floor of the House of Representatives, you’ve got to have a majority vote of those people voting. So if 435 congressmen vote you have to have 218 votes, which means you can only afford to lose about 27-29 Republican members. That in turn means that 30-40 Republican members can block anybody.”

Brooks conceded that McCarthy is the odds-on favorite to be Boehner’s successor, but said he believes conservatives could strike a deal that propels one of their own into other leadership posts.

“If we were to have Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House… I think we also ought to have in the leadership team someone who similarly reflects conservative values,” Brooks opined. “Someone who is more financially responsible, and that would be from the 25 percent or 33 percent most conservative wing of the GOP conference.

“I’d also like to see some rules changes where the House leadership cannot punish in a retaliatory way people who are good faith voting the interests of their district,” he continued. “Keep in mind that in this last election, 2014, every single Republican who is a conservative who ran for reelection won — 100 percent. I think that indicates they are in fact reflecting the values of the people who sent them to Washington D.C., and I don’t like the liberal wing of our conference punishing them by removing them from important committees or otherwise denigrating them or treating them unfairly on a variety of different levels. ”

Speaker Boehner’s resignation is effective at the end of October, but Congress is facing an upcoming series of funding decisions. First a continuing resolution must be passed by October 1st to fund the federal government, then the debt ceiling must once again be raised to allow that funding in mid-December.