WASHINGTON — Rep. Paul D. Ryan said Thursday that he would seek to replace John A. Boehner as House speaker after two factions of the House Republicans — one small and moderate, one mainstream and large — endorsed him, bringing him close to securing the speaker's gavel he had never wanted to seek.
"I never thought I'd be speaker," Ryan said in a lengthy email to his Republican colleagues. "But I pledged to you that if I could be a unifying figure, then I would serve, I would go all in. After talking with so many of you, and hearing your words of encouragement, I believe we are ready to move forward as one, united team. And I am ready and eager to be our speaker."
The approvals from the two House factions came less than 24 hours after the majority of members of the Freedom Caucus, which includes some of the most conservative House members, said they, too, would support Ryan's bid.
The rapid consolidation of support among factions of the Republican Party just a few weeks after Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California had failed to unite them was a testament to Ryan's popularity among House Republicans.
The acquiescence of the Freedom Caucus was particularly remarkable given that the group, which was largely responsible for pushing Boehner out of his job and blocking McCarthy from replacing him, came armed with a long list of demands to earn their support. Ryan accepted none beyond a general agreement to look at and work on the House rules.
The hard-liners also broke with their habit of voting as a bloc when 80 percent of their roughly 40 members agree on something. The caucus said it had a "supermajority" of about 70 percent of its members who supported Ryan despite falling short of their established threshold for an endorsement. Ryan needs 218 votes on the House floor to become speaker.
But it was Ryan, who said he would not seek the job unless his own conditions were met, who emerged victorious. Most of his demands are now in place, and the Freedom Caucus members, under intense pressure from their colleagues, appear divided and cowed.
Notably, Ryan seeks to change a House rule that allows a single member to file a motion to remove the speaker from his job; Ryan said he wanted to change that process to make it that much more difficult, noting, "No matter who is speaker, they cannot be successful with this weapon pointed at them all the time."
Boehner, who will retire from Congress at the end of the month, was under continual threat of a challenge to his speakership.
"Their vote on Paul Ryan is recognition by many of them that they have overplayed their hand with their colleagues," said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., who quit the Freedom Caucus in protest of its tactics. "They had to show a little more reasonableness."
Chastened or not, the group is showing no sign of going away. Opposition from the hard-liners on Thursday to a debt ceiling proposal appears to have scuttled it before it could reach a vote. And that proposal, from the conservative Republican Study Committee, was hardly a concession to President Barack Obama. It demanded a commitment of $3.8 trillion in federal spending cuts over the next decade in exchange for a $1.5 trillion increase in the government's statutory borrowing limit.
That limit will be reached Nov. 3, the Treasury Department has warned, after which the government will quickly run out of cash to pay its bills. With a potentially devastating default looming, the Freedom Caucus may well end up agitating for another showdown.
"I think it is a high-water mark for the group," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., in an email. "We are absolutely satisfied that Paul is committed to the same sort of reforms that we have been" urging from the very beginning.
He added: "Bottom line: I think we are actually in a better place. And my guess is that there are a lot of people out there running for Congress who want to be members of the group if they get here."
The group's sheer numbers — enough to block legislation and other matters — and its agenda are a reminder that a speaker Ryan might unify the House Republican Conference around his election, but he has far to go to rally them around a legislative agenda.
In December, when Congress faces another deadline to pass a spending measure to keep the government open, they may well employ tough tactics that put Ryan in the same difficult box that often enclosed Boehner.
"I think some of this has to do with Paul's level of gravitas around here," said Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., who also left the Freedom Caucus. "They gained some standing among their colleagues by not serving as a block to Congressman Ryan."
The Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 170 members that at one time was the most conservative wing of the House, also said it would endorse Ryan. "After hearing Paul lay out his vision for the future of the Republican conference, I am confident that he is the right person to lead the House going forward. He has the policy expertise, conservative principles and strong values we need in our next speaker," said Rep. Bill Flores, the chairman of the committee, in a statement.
Another far smaller faction, the Tuesday Group, which is made up of a few dozen moderate members, also said that Ryan was the man for the job. "I appreciate the support of the Tuesday Group," Ryan said in a statement. "This is one more step toward building a united Republican team."
The Republican conference is expected to vote on Ryan on Wednesday, followed by a vote on the House floor next Thursday.
For the last two days, members of the House Freedom Caucus insisted that the four-fifths supermajority required under their bylaws for endorsing a candidate for speaker would be required to approve any candidate. "Our bylaws say 80 percent," said Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina. "We're going by the rules, and that's the real problem is that we don't go by the rules. I have got a set of rules for the 114th Congress on my desk that's 1,308 pages. I don't know of one bill that we have passed that abided by those rules. So we're trying to stick with our rules."