CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
John Boehner
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (2011-2015)
A former small businessman, John Boehner (Bay-ner) served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives for nearly five years during which he led the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable federal government. The son of a bartender and second oldest of 12 brothers and sisters, John grew up mopping floors at the family tavern and playing football at Cincinnati's Moeller High School. While working to pay his way through Xavier University, he met Debbie - his wife of 41 years - and started his own small business. He and Debbie still live in the home where they raised their two daughters, Lindsay and Tricia. John got involved in state and local government after seeing firsthand how high taxes and red tape impact entrepreneurs. Then in 1990, the voters sent John to the U.S. House, where he took a strong stand against pork-barrel spending and, as part of the reform-minded "Gang of Seven," forced the closure of the scandal-ridden House Bank and House Post Office.
John's reputation as a reformer grew as he worked alongside then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), helping to craft the historic 1994 Contract with America and helping to lead the effort to enact the first balanced federal budget in a generation. Later, as Chairman of the House Committee on Education & the Workforce, he wrote legislation to expand school choice, strengthen America's pension system, and reform the federal education bureaucracy to demand results for students and parents. Elected as House Majority Leader in 2006 and chosen to become House Republican Leader later that year, Boehner led the opposition to job-crushing proposals such as President Obama's "cap and trade" initiative and ObamaCare while promoting better solutions to the challenges facing American families. On January 5, 2011, Boehner took the gavel as Speaker of the House following the historic 2010 election in which Congressional Republicans, under Boehner's leadership, picked up 63 seats in the U.S. House. Armed with the Pledge to America - a new governing agenda reflecting the priorities of the American people - Speaker Boehner focused on removing government barriers to private-sector job creation and economic growth, addressing the drivers of America's debt, eliminating pork-barrel "earmarks" and reforming Congress, and rebuilding the bonds of trust between the American people and their representatives in Washington.
Boehner, who became a first-time grandfather during the summer of 2015, left the United States Congress on October 31, 2015, after nearly 25 years of serving the people of Ohio's 8th Congressional District and the nation.
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