Pelosi: Democrats will ‘continue to negotiate with Speaker Boehner’

The shocking resignation announcement on Friday from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is evidence of the chaos underlying House Republicans, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) charged.

“That resignation of the Speaker is a stark indication of the disarray of the House Republicans — a demonstration of their obsession with shutting down government at the expense of women’s health, and a sign of the failure of the House Republicans to be willing to engage in dialogue for the good of the American people,” the House minority leader told reporters in the Capitol.

{mosads}Pelosi said she received no warning of Boehner’s announcement. She said she called his office Friday morning, at a little past 8 a.m., to discuss the effort to pass a short-term spending bill and prevent a government shutdown next week.

She was told he was in a meeting and that he’d call her back.

“But I haven’t heard from him yet,” she said.

Boehner and Pelosi worked closely for many years, crafting a number of big legislative packages, including a long-term update to Medicare’s physician payment system earlier in the year. 

The Speaker’s resignation, which will take effect on Oct. 30, creates a kind of leadership vacuum among the Republicans, with the race to fill Boehner’s shoes expected to quickly take shape.

But Pelosi, while saying the resignation would be “more than a distraction” amid the budget fight, also emphasized that Boehner remains the chief GOP negotiator until he leaves.  

“He is the Speaker until he gives up the gavel, and so we’ll continue to negotiate with Speaker Boehner,” she said. “And you and we will find out together what comes next in the Republican caucus — whether there’s an heir apparent or whether there’s a disagreement as to who will succeed the Speaker.”

Some Democrats said the shake-up would make it tougher to negotiate the terms of both a continuing resolution and a longer-term budget deal later in the year. 

“I think it makes it very difficult. Who do we negotiate with, leader to leader?” asked Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). “Who’s empowered to make decisions?”