Boehner of Ohio Elected Majority Leader

The most powerful political party in the country has replaced a key member who ran into legal problems. Republicans in the House of Representatives picked John Boehner to be the House Majority Leader. Boehner replaces Tom DeLay of Texas.

DeLay gave up his leadership after Texas charged him with breaking State campaign finance laws.

Boehner is an Ohio Congressman

Boehner is a Congressman from Ohio. His name is pronounced BAY-ner. He was first elected to Congress in 1990. He won the leadership post on February 2.

Boehner defeated Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt for the leadership post. Boehner won with 122 votes. Blunt finished with 109 votes.

Blunt will continue as the Majority Whip. That is the third highest position in Congress.

Boehner ran as a reformer

Boehner ran as a reformer. He said he would do things differently than DeLay and Blunt. Boehner has sometimes voted against the wishes of most members of his party. He also votes against many projects that spend government money in the districts where Congresspersons live.

Some Democrats criticized Boehner's election. They said Boehner has a long history of dealing with lobbyists. Lobbyists are people who make campaign donations for groups that want laws passed for their benefit.

National Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Boehner is “more of the same.” Dean said Boehner is not the kind of reformer that Americans say they want.

2nd most powerful Congressperson

As the majority leader, Boehner becomes the second most powerful member of Congress. The House Speaker is the most powerful.

The Speaker and the Majority Leader come from the party that holds the most seats in the House. Congressman Dennis Hastert of Illinois is the Speaker.

The minority party has two leaders. The top member of the Democratic Party in the House is Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. The Minority Whip is Steny Hoyer of Maryland.   

Republicans are the majority party in the House. They hold 232 of the seats. Democrats hold 203 seats. One member does not belong to either party.

The Speaker appoints members to committees. The Speaker also is in charge of running floor sessions in the House. Floor sessions are periods when all of the members get together to take action.

Boehner and Pelosi work to advance the goals of their parties. The whips try to make sure members of their parties vote the way the party leaders want them to vote.

Opponent too closely tied to DeLay

Some members voted for Boehner because they wanted a change. They felt Blunt was too closely linked to DeLay.

Blunt served as the Whip under DeLay.

Some of the criticism of DeLay was that he was too partisan. That means he most often acted only in the interests of his own party. DeLay had a reputation for not working with Democrats to get bills passed.

The House is one of the two legislative bodies of the federal government.   The other body is the United States Senate. The Senate has 100 senators. Each of the 50 states has two senators.

Many say that Republicans voted for Boehner because they are worried about the elections in November. Democrats need 20 more seats to retake control of the House.

President George Bush will have two years left in his term after the November elections. Bush is a Republican. Some Republican leaders are worried that Bush might have a hard time for the last two years of his term if Democrats control the House.