This 35-year-old Republican congressman could revolutionize the House. He should be speaker.

Forget Kevin McCarthy. The GOP should pick Justin Amash as House speaker.

Rep. Justin Amash
(Image credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The race to replace John Boehner is on. And things got even more pressing when Boehner announced yesterday that the House GOP would hold early elections for new leadership — on Thursday, October 8 — a move that seems intended to stop the opposition from having enough time to organize.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is clearly the odds-on favorite to become the next House speaker. Still, conservative Republicans are casting about for Tea Party-friendly alternatives who might be able to capitalize on the fact that McCarthy doesn't quite have the votes. But their picks, like Reps. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) and Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), don't exactly fire the imagination.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.