Rep. Hensarling May Seek Speaker of the House Role

In response to the surprise announcement of the resignation of Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday morning, U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) is "considering his options" as far as seeking the speaker position.

Boehner, Speaker of the House since 2011, announced on Friday that he will be stepping down as Speaker of the House and leaving Congress altogether at the end of October. Many are speculating that Boehner's deputy and current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) will take over the Speaker role.

Hensarling, who has represented Texas' 5th District since January 2003 and served as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee since January 2013, is another possible candidate to replace Boehner. There is another possibility for Hensarling, however—if McCarthy replaces Boehner as Speaker of the House, that will leave a vacancy for House Majority Leader, which could be filled by Hensarling.

Sarah Rozier, spokesperson for Hensarling, said in an email to DS News that, "Chairman Hensarling is weighing his options and I expect he will have a decision by early next week."

"Chairman Hensarling is weighing his options and I expect he will have a decision by early next week."

As Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Hensarling has been a major figure in housing finance reform for almost three years. He has been an outspoken opponent of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, having recently chaired a series of three hearings in the Committee on the impact of the controversial law five years since it was enacted.

In the last of those three hearings, which took place on September 17, Hensarling said, "Dodd-Frank erodes the economic freedom and opportunity that empowers low income Americans to rise and generate greater shared prosperity. Dodd-Frank moves us away from the equal protection offered by the impartial rule of law towards the unequal and victimizing rule of political bureaucrats. Of all the harm Dodd-Frank inflicts, this is the most profound and disturbing."

Hensarling has been a vocal critic of several of the Obama Administration's housing policies, including the decision by the FHA earlier in the year to lower the mortgage insurance premiums by 50 basis points down to 0.85 percent.