Boehner wins the majority

House Republicans voted to change course yesterday, electing Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio as their new majority leader in a vote members said put reform at the head of the agenda and a fresh face at the top of the party.

Mr. Boehner defeated acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri, who had taken over when Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas stepped down last year. The majority leader sets the House floor schedule and decides what issues Republicans will drive.

Mr. Boehner campaigned on a platform of curtailing pork projects and limiting the role of government.

“We must act swiftly to restore the trust between Congress and the American people,” he said yesterday. “We must take the necessary steps to get the federal budget under control — to cut wasteful spending, reform our entitlement programs, and craft a budget process that encourages fiscal discipline.”

Republicans said they were looking for a fresh face to lead the party away from recent corruption accusations and charges the party has lost its way on issues like spending and limited government.

Mr. Boehner is not strictly an outsider. He was House Republican Conference chairman from 1994 to 1998, before losing a bid for re-election to the post.

Two years later, he emerged as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, where panel members say he turned a partisan and sleepy committee into a legislative engine that churned out key bills like No Child Left Behind and last year’s Pension Protection Act.

Mr. Boehner topped Mr. Blunt, 122-109, on a second ballot. He trailed with 79 to Mr. Blunt’s 110 on the first ballot, in which Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona received 40 votes and Rep. Jim Ryun of Kansas, who hadn’t even campaigned, received 2 votes.

Mr. Blunt remains the majority whip, whose job it is to count votes, and he made light of his own claim throughout the past three weeks that he had the votes sewn up to win.

“I know both the speaker and the leader are glad that I can obviously count votes on the floor with quite a bit more precision than I can the 110 votes that we got on the ballot for the leader’s race,” he said.

Also yesterday, Rep. Adam Putnam, Florida Republican, won a race for Policy Committee chairman, succeeding Mr. Shadegg, who had given up the seat to run for leader.

Mr. DeLay announced last month he would not seek to regain his slot, beginning a frantic behind-the-scenes campaign between Mr. Blunt and Mr. Boehner. Mr. Shadegg joined the race five days later, and crystalized the contest as a vote on reform.

Yesterday Mr. Shadegg said the vote was a victory of sorts.

“Today was a victory for reform,” he said, “maybe not as much reform as I would have liked.”

Several Republicans said Mr. Blunt would have won on a first ballot if Mr. Shadegg had not run.

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