So, it's true, money really can't buy you love—or loyalty. John Boehner's re-election as House speaker on Tuesday was opposed by some Republicans whose campaigns he helped finance in the most recent election.
Nine of the 24 Republicans who voted for someone other than Boehner received donations from him during the 2014 campaign through his personal campaign committee, Friends of John Boehner, or his leadership PAC, Freedom Project. Boehner won a third term as speaker with 216 votes, a majority of the 408 votes cast for named candidates. The bloc of two dozen defectors is more than twice as large as the anti-Boehner group in the 2013 speaker's election. Today's vote showed that, despite winning their biggest House majority since the 1928 election, Boehner's rebellious wing also has grown larger and signaled with this first vote that the speaker's job won't be any easier.
