Path to Power
Boehner grew up with 11 siblings in a two-bedroom house in Cincinnati. In high school, he played football for the legendary Gerry Faust, who would later coach at Notre Dame.
Boehner was the first in his family to attend college, and he worked as a janitor to pay tuition. He graduated from Xavier University in 1977 and then moved back to Ohio to work at a small plastics and packaging business. He said he became a Republican when he paid more taxes then he earned in his first year at work.
He had an instant knack for business and was president of Nucite Sales Inc. from 1976 to 1990.
He entered politics in 1981, serving on his local board of trustees and being elected to the Ohio State House in 1984.
In 1990, Boehner sought out the Republican nomination for the Butler County-based House seat. He faced two GOP challengers in the primary: ex-Reps. Buz Lukens, the incumbent who had been convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old girl, and former Rep. Tom Kindness. Boehner won with 49 percent of the vote.
U.S. House
In the House, he joined the Gang of Seven Republican freshmen who assailed entrenched Democratic lawmakers for their perks, exposed the names of the 355 members with overdrafts at the House bank. He went on to attack the Congressional pay raise and uncovered “dine-and-dash” practices at the House Restaurant and illegal cash-for-stamps deals at the Post Office.
These actions endeared Boehner to Republican leaders. He became the top lieutenant for Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), helping him fundraise and draft the Contract with America. After Republicans won the majority in 1994, Gingrich pushed Boehner to the chairmanship of the Republican conference.
Boehner took his role seriously, keeping rank-and-file members on message. In 1998, he sued House ethics ranking member Jim McDermott (D-Wa.) for leaking his taped cell-phone talk with other GOP leaders about how to handle the Gingrich ethics probe to the New York Times. The long legal battle that ensued went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Boehner was eventually awarded $500,000 in damages.
But Republicans lost five House seats in the 1998 elections. In the GOP coup to oust Gingrich tha followed, Boehner lost the conference post to then-GOP Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.).
Unfazed, Boehner threw himself into his work on the Education and the Workforce Employer-Employee Relations subcommittee, passing eight bills that were later adopted as the Republican healthcare platform.
In 2000, he won the chairmanship of the highly-partisan Education and the Workforce Committee. There, he worked with ideological opposites like Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) to pass President Bush’s No Child Left Behind bill over the objections of many Republicans.
House Majority Leader
When then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was forced to step down in 2006, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the whip at the time, positioned himself as DeLay’s successor. But Boehner threw his hat into the ring, presenting a detailed governing manifesto that he had worked on for more than a year. After Democrats reclaimed control of the House in Nov. 2006, Boehner surprised many by defeating Blunt on the second ballot.
As a leader, Boehner has been described as outgoing and less ideological than DeLay, but he is still a fierce partisan and top party fundraiser.
He sends “pride” emails to Republicans when they stick it to Democrats on the House floor and he distributes talking points widely, even to the secretaries who answer phones.
Despite the message discipline, Boehner wasn’t able to corral the skeptical GOP rank-and-file into supporting President Bush’s $700 billion bailout on the first vote. He faced fierce opposition from GOPers like Republican Study Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas).
