Gohmert Tosses Hat in Ring for House Speaker

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas has joined Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida to challenge House Speaker John Boehner as he seeks re-election as House Speaker on Tuesday.

Gohmert made his announcement Sunday morning on "Fox and Friends." Yoho made his intentions known on Saturday.

Gohmert said he is running because a recent poll showed that 60 percent of those who voted Republican in November's midterms did so because they wanted a different speaker. And 25 percent of them said they will not vote for the GOP in 2016 if there isn't a change.

If elected, Gohmert said, "We’ll get back to appropriating and go through regular committee process, so everybody, every representative from both parties will have a chance to participate in the process and not have a dictator running things."

Typically, there are only two candidates for House Speaker, one Democrat and one Republican, with the candidate for the majority party winning. Gohmert said that many in the party establishment have warned that if more than one Republican runs it could hand the speakership to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

"That's hogwash," Gohmert said, noting that House rules require a person to get a majority of the votes cast to be elected. So as long as 59 Republicans vote for someone and don't simply delcare themselves  "present," more votes would have to be taken until a speaker is elected, he said.

The last time it took more than one ballot to elect a speaker was in 1923, when it took nine attempts.

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