Crosstalk: January 8, 2015

Genevieve Wood is the senior contributor to the Daily Signal and the leading voice and senior contributor to The Foundry of the Heritage Foundation looking at key policy solutions for the most critical issues of America. Yesterday, the new Congress reappointed John Boehner as the Speaker of the House. He obtained 216 votes. If you're thinking that when you divide 435 House members by 2 you don't get 216. That's a good observation but as Genevieve noted, he only needed a majority of the votes that were cast. So of the 408 votes that were cast, he received 216. Interestingly, 24 members of his own party voted for someone else and 'present' was voted by one other member. About 29 would have been needed to force the vote to a second ballot. Forcing a second ballot could have caused Republican leadership to say that they'd agree to the demands of some congressional conservatives in return for the necessary votes to reappoint Boehner.