Ohioan stays on to lead the GOP in the U.S. House

The Republican conservative said his party will give the new president the benefit of the doubt.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Wednesday re-elected John Boehner of Ohio as leader of their depleted ranks while putting together a more conservative team to represent them in the next, Democratic-controlled, Congress.

In Boehner’s second term as House GOP leader, the Ohio Republican must deal with the aftermath of an election in which his party lost at least 20 seats. They will go into the 111th session of Congress in January with fewer than 180 seats in the 435-seat chamber and, for the first time in eight years, dealing with a Democratic president.

Boehner put an optimistic spin on the situation: “The months ahead will present Republicans with an unprecedented opportunity to renew our drive for smaller, more accountable government,” he said.

A popular leader with solid conservative credentials, Boehner was re-elected with only a token challenge from Rep. Dan Lungren of California.

But his two chief deputies, party whip Roy Blunt of Missouri and Republican Conference chairman Adam Putnam of Florida, resigned after the election.

They were replaced by Eric Cantor of Virginia as whip and Mike Pence of Indiana as conference chair, who both ran without opposition. Both are leading members of the Republican Study Committee, the conservative caucus that now represents more than half of all House Republicans.

“I’m going to continue to be my same old conservative self,” Pence said.

Still, Republicans said they would work with the incoming Obama administration and with House Democrats when possible. “We’ll give the president-elect the benefit of the doubt,” Boehner said. “When he is offering solutions to the American people that we are in agreement with, we’ll be right there with him.”

“We are going to serve as the honest opposition,” said Cantor, who is in his fourth term as he rises to his party’s No. 2 position.

Boehner, first elected to Congress in 1990, is a conservative who aligned himself with Newt Gingrich as Republicans fought their way back into power in 1995.