Conservatives and tea party-type Republicans have responded to Rep. Paul Ryan's list of speaker demands with some scathing words of resistance, calling on fellow-minded activists and politicians to stop his run for the House leadership slot.
George Raasly of ConservativeHQ, the organization run by longtime activist Richard Viguerie, wrote: "In a bizarre act of arrogance unprecedented in American political history, establishment Republican Paul Ryan has spelled out the terms under which he will accept the third highest office in our constitutional republic and they amount to nothing less than the destruction of democratic government in America," Breitbart reported.
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The statement came after Ryan took to the national stage to announce he would seek the speaker slot on several conditions, including the guarantee of House conservative conferences to work toward non-partisanship and the ability to keep his family time, no matter the demands of the new position. He also wanted to change House rules to vacate the chair to make it more difficult for a speaker to be outed.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a leading House Republican, said bluntly Ryan's family-first attitude could prove problematic.
"The speaker has to work on weekends," he said, ABC News reported. "The time commitment is not 40 hours a week."
But others simply don't think Ryan's moderate politics is a good match, and that he's taken a bit of liberty with his demands.
"What Ryan announced to the House Republican Conference last night was a set of conditions under which he would accept the speaker's gavel that amount to discarding any pretense that the House of Representatives is 'the Peoples' House,' as in We the People, to make it simply 'Paul's house,'" Rasley continued in his statement, as reported by Breitbart.
Tea Party Patriots, meanwhile, outright called for resistance against Ryan.
Under a headline on its website that read "STOP PAUL RYAN," the group called for activists to unite and kick off a telephone campaign to keep the Wisconsin congressman from taking the seat.
"We've got to do what we can today and through the rest of the week to strengthen the resolve of the House Freedom Caucus," the Tea Party Patriots said. "We have included a list of phone numbers and pre-populated tweets below. Please call and tweet as many as you can. ... Tell them it's time for new leadership in Washington."
FreedomWorks cheif Adam Brandon said in an email his group hasn't yet formally endorsed Ryan, while acknowledging he would probably still win.
"But it's clear he has the support of most of its members and would likely win a bid for speaker should he choose to run," Brandon said. "The ball is in his court. If Ryan does decide to run, we urge him to avoid changing the motion to vacate the chair, which one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, authored to provide checks and balances in the House of Representatives."