Republican Paul Ryan elected speaker of the House

Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has been elected the 62nd speaker of the House, taking over from John Boehner.

Mr Ryan’s ascent comes during a period of chaos in the ranks of his party’s sizable majority and he has told Tea Party members that he expects their support.

Mr Boehner said that Mr Ryan (45), the youngest speaker since 1869, “will serve with grace and energy”.

Mr Boehner came into the job a seasoned leader who tried to appease the Tea Party members whose elections helped usher Republicans into the majority.

Mr Ryan agreed to run for the job only after a small but powerful group of conservative members drove Mr Boehner out of it last month, and then prevented his heir apparent Kevin McCarthy of California from replacing him.

The test for Mr Ryan will be whether he can manage, perhaps even blunt, this wing of the House Republican conference, or if he too will fall to its members’ intransigence. He had warned members that while he would take their concerns about process seriously, he would not brook dissent.

“We’re going to move forward. We’re going to unify,” Mr Ryan said during brief remarks to reporters on Wednesday.

A fifth-generation Wisconsinite, Mr Ryan won his first election to the House at 28 and is now in many respects the titular leader of Republicans in Washington seeking a message and ballast going into the 2016 election.

Mr Boehner delivered Ryan from his most vexing conflicts by negotiating an $80 billion bipartisan budget agreement. That gives his successor time to establish his leadership before his control is tested.

But the relief may be short-lived. The budget deal creates room for the House and Senate appropriations committees to draft a huge spending bill for the current fiscal year that can increase spending on defence as well as politically popular programs like medical research, federal law enforcement and wildfire suppression.

New York Times service