October 30, 2015

Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, became speaker of the United States House of Representatives in 2015. (Credit U.S. House of Representatives)

Yesterday, October 29, Paul Ryan, a Republican representative from Wisconsin, became Speaker of the House of Representatives, an important office within the U.S. government. The speaker is the leader of his or her political party in the House, as well as the presiding officer. The speaker is expected to use the office to promote the party. He or she ranks next after the vice president in order of presidential succession. At age 45, Ryan has represented Wisconsin’s 1st District since 1999. He was his party’s nominee for vice president of the United States in 2012. Ryan and his running mate, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, lost the election to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Ryan succeeded Ohio Republican John Boehner (BAY ner) as Speaker.

John Boehner served as the speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 until his retirement in 2015. Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, had been a member of the House since 1991. (Credit United States House of Representatives)

Boehner retired from his position as Speaker yesterday and is retiring from Congress today. Boehner had a difficult run during his time as Speaker. The Republicans became the majority party in the House of Representatives in 2011 (after the 2010 midterm elections), and they soon elected Boehner as Speaker of the House. Ordinarily, when a party gains a majority of seats in Congress, it is able to pass bills that further its own agenda. This became problematic for Republicans because of divisions within the party. The Tea Party movement that formed in 2009 and the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus formed in 2015 have both warred with more mainstream members of the Republican party.

The Tea Party formed in opposition to bailouts for large banks during the worldwide financial crisis that began in 2007. The bailouts began under the administration of George W. Bush and then were continued under Barack Obama, who took office in January 2008. The bailouts enraged certain conservatives, who considered them “corporate welfare” (government aiding business).

A majority leader calls upon party members to vote as he or she asks on important bills. But far-right Republicans in the House often did not align with Boehner and the Republican leadership. Many tried to block budget bills and bills raising the government debt ceiling, despite Boehner’s pleas not to do so. Many political experts described Boehner as having been “hounded” from his position by far-right Republicans.

Before Boehner stepped down, he managed to pass a bipartisan budget bill over the “no” votes of ultra-conservative Republicans. The new budget, which also increases the debt ceiling, is good through 2017, saving Ryan from an immediate high-profile showdown with the far-right members of his party. When first asked to run for speaker, Ryan was reluctant. He decided to pursue the position, however, upon the endorsement of the major factions of House Republicans, including a majority of the Freedom Caucus.

November 13, 2012

Florida’s Secretary of State declared President Barack Obama the winner of the state’s 29 electoral votes on November 10. With nearly 100 percent of the vote counted, Obama took 50 percent of the total, compared with Mitt Romney’s 49.1 percent. The president now has 332 Electoral College votes to Republican Romney’s 206.

The Electoral College is a constitutionally mandated institution consisting of delegates appointed by the states. Delegates cast votes for president and vice president according to who wins the popular vote in their state. A minimum of 270 electoral votes were needed to win the 2012 presidential election. President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden took the Electoral College votes of 26 states and the District of Columbia, a total of 332 electoral votes, giving Obama the presidency. Romney and his running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, received 206 electoral votes.

The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between the election of the president by a vote in Congress and the election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. The electors are usually people who are dedicated members of a political party. A state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for a state’s two senators. Under the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, the District of Columbia is allocated three electors and treated like a state for purposes of the Electoral College.

Most states have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the presidential candidate with the greatest popular vote in that state. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation”; that is, the candidate who gets 60 percent of the popular vote is given 60 percent of the Electoral College vote.

Some people regard the Electoral College as a roadblock to real democracy, robbing the popular vote of its importance. Others contend it ensures fairness and keeps states’ power intact.

Although the election of a president who did not win the popular vote is unusual in U.S. history, it is not unique. In 2000, George W. Bush lost the popular vote by about 540,000 votes to former Vice President Al Gore. Bush, however, was declared the winner with 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266, after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that resulted in Florida’s then-25 electoral votes being awarded to Bush.

Additional World Book articles:

• Election of 2000
• United States, President of the
• War for the White House: A Legacy of the U.S. Constitution (a special report)

September 7, 2012

Barack Obama officially accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for a second term as president of the United States on September 6 in a speech arguing that the 2012 presidential election presents American voters with a “choice between two different paths for America.” President Obama received the nomination on September 5 during a roll-call vote of state delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

President Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for a second term as president on September 6. (The White House)

In his acceptance speech, President Obama sought to rally his supporters, saying, “If you turn away now, if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible, well, change will not happen. If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void.” He also addressed disappointment over the pace of the economic recovery.  “Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I’m asking you to choose that future.” He argued that he had put in place the foundation for a revived economy but that more time was needed to address economic problems that had developed over several decades.

Political experts note that the president is faced with the political fight of his life against the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, on August 30, former Massachusetts Governor Romney contended that continuing high unemployment had led many Americans to give up on President Obama. He argued that the president had failed to create enough jobs, cut the deficit, or increase incomes.  In his acceptance speech, President Obama responded by linking Romney and his running mate, Paul D. Ryan, to what he described as the failed trickle-down economic policies that favor the rich, noting: “all they have to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last 30 years.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Economic Crisis: The Banking Meltdown (a special report)
• Economic Crisis: The Government Jumps In (a special report)
• Economic Crisis – Then and Now (a special report)

August 28, 2012

The Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, reconvened on Tuesday, August 28, after a one-day postponement triggered by concerns about potentially dangerous weather produced by Tropical Storm Isaac. Party officials opened the convention on Monday but recessed less than one minute later. Uncertainty about the path of the storm, which had caused widespread damage in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, led Republican officials on Saturday to shorten the convention from four to three days. However, on Sunday, Isaac turned northwest, away from Tampa and toward the Gulf of Mexico. Tampa and other areas in central and southern Florida were hit only by strong winds and heavy rains.

Mitt Romney (Abby Brack, Romney for President, Inc.)

On Tuesday, delegates voted for their nominee for president. Mitt Romney received 2,061 votes, more than the 1,144 votes needed to win the Republican nomination. He was to be formally nominated Thursday, August 30. Speakers on Tuesday evening included Ann Romney, Mitt Romney’s wife; Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey; and Rick Santorum, former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, who ran against Romney for the presidential nomination.

Additional articles in World Book:

• Election campaign
• Political party

Aug. 13, 2012

Paul Ryan, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Wisconsin, has been named the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced his choice of a running mate in Norfolk, Virginia, aboard the battleship U.S.S. Wisconsin, on August 11. The two immediately took off on a campaign tour of Virginia and Wisconsin, both important swing states. “Hope and change has now become attack and blame,” Ryan said of Democratic President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. “President Obama is our president and he has put all his policies in place, and they’re just not working,” Ryan noted in his initial speech as the nominee.

Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, first gained national attention in 2011 for his controversial 2012 federal budget plan entitled “The Path to Prosperity.” The plan called for about $6 trillion in federal spending cuts over 10 years, reflecting the belief of many Republicans that taxes and government spending must shrink to revive the U.S. economy and avoid a national debt crisis. Ryan’s plan also included the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare,” a major health care reform bill signed into law in March 2010.

Paul Ryan (U.S. House of Representatives)

Democrats criticized Ryan’s plan, saying it favored the rich over the poor and the middle class. They argued that it would result in dismantling or drastically cutting key government programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. The Republican-controlled House passed Ryan’s plan on April 15, 2011. However, it died in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Paul Davis Ryan was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on Jan. 29, 1970. He graduated from Miami University of Ohio in 1992 with a bachelors degree in economics and political science. As a young man, Ryan became an advocate of the philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand and of various conservative economists, including Milton Friedman. Ryan first won election to the House in 1998, at the age of 28. He has become a favorite of supporters of the Tea party movement.

Additional World Book articles:

• Congressional Budget Office
• Congress of the United States 2011 (a Back in Time article)
• Entitlements: Benefits of Doubt (a special report)
• Health Care Reform – What’s in It for You? (a special report)
• Medicaid in Distress (a special report)
• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)